NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Advent One 2013 that begins this coming Sunday, December 1st. We are using Jan Richardson's gentle Advent book, Night Vision, for a guide. Let me invite you to visit her website @ http://paintedprayerbook.com/ and to hold her in prayer as she and her husband Gary go through the shock of his recent stroke. The artwork in today's blog come from Jan's stunning creation.
Introduction
As many, if not most, of you
know I am an Advent-kind of guy: I
cherish its quietness, revel in its colors and music and often anticipate its
dark mysteries. Not everyone likes this
season, I know: none of us really enjoys
waiting, most of us prefer the major key of our Christmas carols to the minor
key found in most of our Advent laments and the culture as a whole favors the
action of opening presents in contrast to the call to cultivate a contemplative
heart.
· Nevertheless,
right after our feasting at the wisdom table of Thanksgiving, our faith
tradition still invites us to enter a holy Advent: a time of watching and waiting – a season of
stillness and serenity – a month of mostly simmering, gestating and percolating
in preparation for the coming of the Christ child. And we can
embrace Advent with resentment or joy – hope or fear, disregard, disrespect or
even contempt and avoidance – but no matter what we do, Advent always
arrives. Artist and pastor, Jan
Richardson, writes: “The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes
of which we have never seen before – and it is not possible to keep it from
coming because it will. That’s just how
Advent works.”
· Did you catch
that? We can choose to avoid and oppose
it – we can opt to co-opt its challenge and smother the season with
sentimentality – we can distract ourselves with busyness and bother but… no
matter what we do Advent keeps on coming because that is just how Advent works.
Richardson goes on to
say: It is possible, of course, to miss
Advent, to turn just as it brushes past you. And only later do you begin to
grasp what it was you missed. That’s why we are invited to simply sit and stay
– linger, tarry and ponder – wait, behold and wonder during the four weeks of
this season. “There will be time enough
for running, for rushing, for worrying and pushing. Why not just stay now… and wait… there is
something on the horizon.”
Insights
So I’m going to try something
that is both new and old simultaneously with you this Advent – something that
is both startlingly contemporary as well as grounded in ancient tradition –
that is, I am going to ask you to become contemplatives with me for a
month. To shut up more than speak – to
accept and embrace what God is already doing within us rather than ask
for new insights or help – to trust “the beautiful darkness that is the Lord
already praying within us” whether we grasp or feeling anything at all.
· St. Paul used to
tell those he loved that God’s Holy Spirit was already “brooding and bringing
new things to birth – helping us in our weakness and interceding with sighs too
deep for human words” – even when we feel like God is a million miles away. In a word, the
great apostle was saying: be still – and
trust that God is already praying within you and loving you from the inside out
whether you grasp this gift or not – or to be more grounded in this moment: stop talking lest you
miss the coming of Advent’s promise.
For that is what Advent is truly
about: a promise – God’s promise – that
no matter what takes place in our life – good, bad or in-between – we will
never have to face it alone. That is what
all our readings for today emphasize and it is what the birth, life, death and
resurrection of Jesus all confirm: “It us the promise that whether or not our immediate fears are
realized, we were created for more than fear.”
Jesus,
the Son of Man and Son of God whose coming birth we
Now
please pay attention to this because it is crucial: God’s promise does NOT say that we shall no longer have fears nor does the promise
attempt to “insulate us from an uncertain future,” ok? We all know that life is uncertain – it can
change in the blink of an eye – in ways that are completely beyond our control.
· Sometimes it is joyful:
we get a new pet and laughter doesn’t quit – a new baby is born and our
hearts are full to overflowing – we wake up to winter’s first snow, we sing a
song that moves us to tears, we fix something that we broke. What other surprises have brought joy into
your life in new and even startling ways?
· And we know that there are surprises that change our lives
forever that are painful, too: the devastation in the Philippines, a divorce, a
miscarriage, falling off the wagon into addiction, the loss of a job, a death
all can happen in the blink of an eye and we are changed forever. Can you think of other sad and painful
changes that have touched your lives?
So we
know what Jesus is talking about when he speaks to us of the uncertainty of
life:
The Arrival of the Son of Man
will take place in times like Noah’s. Before the great flood everyone was
carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the
ark. They knew nothing—until the flood hit and swept everything away. The Son of Man’s
arrival will be like that: Two men will be working in the field—one will be
taken, one left behind; two women will be grinding at the mill—one will be
taken, one left behind. So stay awake, alert. You have no idea what day your
Master will show up. But you do know this: You know that if the homeowner had
known what time of night the burglar would arrive, he would have been there
with his dogs to prevent the break-in. Be vigilant just like that. You have no
idea when the Son of Man is going to show up.
This is God’s call to
contemplative living – and before you get all confused or agitated about the
word contemplation – let me first describe it to you and then suggest an Advent
practice that might help you practice trusting God’s promise. Most of us don’t really understand what the
word contemplation means; we know it has something to do with prayer – and
maybe even something to do with monasticism – but most of the time we don’t
think it really has anything to do with us.
And that would be where we are
mostly wrong because the BEST description of contemplation tells us that
contemplation is taking a long, loving look at what is real. Period.
A long, loving look at what is real – in our lives, in our world, in
your hearts, in our politics, in our use of money and time – a long, loving
look at what is real. So notice
something here:
· Contemplation
has to do with what is real – it isn’t fantasy or foolishness – it isn’t
abstract or artistic in a narrow sense – it is real. God’s promise for our lives is grounded in
reality.
· But
in order for most of us to trust this we must sit with this truth and look at
it in a long and loving way. Learning to
trust God’s promise in our real lives takes time and silence and practice.
Do
you know the word absurd? It comes from
the Latin word, surdus, “which refers
to a kind of deafness, incongruity, not being capable of perceiving sound or
meaning.” (Listening for the Soul,
Jean Stairs, p. 61) A grounded and
trusting life practices quiet listening for the Lord – taking a long, loving
look at what is real – while an absurd life is the polar opposite and is all
about stumbling along “blindfolded, hearing impaired, closed” off to God’s
presence and promise until nothing makes sense.
If all we do in our day is react to surprises – if all our time is spent
doing rather than discerning – if at the end of each 24 hours we are too
exhausted to take a long, loving look at what is real then we have entered the
world of absurdity. And I know in my
life and in many of yours there is way more absurdity and spiritual deafness
than we want, right?
Conclusion
That’s
one of the blessings of Advent: it comes
around whether we like
· First, use this Celtic Advent
Calendar that continues through the 12 Days of Christmas to be a guide.
I’ve been using it for the past few days and I love it. It is fun, it is real and it is all about
strengthening God’s love and trust within us.
Today’s prayer, for example, tells us to “call a friend and tell them
one thing you appreciate about them.” Earlier in the week the prayer was to
welcome a new person at church or make a meal for someone in need. This is an action-oriented way into the world
of contemplation.
· Second, use this sweet little
book called: The Art of Pausing – Meditations for the
Overworked and Overwhelmed by Judith Valente.
Every night I read a page after slipping into bed – they are very short
– less than 150 words – and they invite me to pause and take a long, loving
look at what was real in my day. This is
a doorway into contemplation for thinkers.
· And third, take some time each
week to sit in a room and turn off all the lights.
Jan Richardson says sitting in the darkness is a good place to begin.
It
is a choice where you let go of all your external senses and learn to practice
night vision – trusting the shadows, listening in the quiet – closing down all
the distractions and simply resting for a time.
She writes:
There
are other senses, you tell us Lord, and when the darkness obscures our choices,
we must turn to the other ways of knowing that you have given us. In the
daylight we can get by on sight, but for the nighttime… that is for our
hearing, our tasting, our smelling, our questioning and our longing touch. A thousand messages waiting for our sensing
that you, O God, have given to us.
I don’t know what this will mean
for you – that’s one of the things about contemplative prayer – you don’t know
the answers before you start the quest.
You just trust. Some will get
bored, I suspect and quit. Others will
forget all about this until the music begins at the start of worship next
week. A few will try it and be
pleasantly surprised and there may be more reactions.
All I know is this: God has given us the season of Advent to
nourish trust. Advent is about God’s
promise to be with us and never abandon us no matter what. I know that I need to practice living into
this trust – and maybe you do, too.
Credits - janrichardson.com
1) In Search of My Inner Savior
2) Where Hope Lives
3) No In-between
4) Magnificat
5) Winter Solstice
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