Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd
The First Sunday of Advent
3 December, 2023
10:30am
The Rev. Peter Kountz
“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
Mark 13:35-37
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night ,and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.
From Evening Prayer II, in the BCP
Humility is the grateful recognition that we are precious in God’s eyes and that all we are is pure gift…We must have the courage to listen to the voice calling us God’s beloved sons and daughters, and the determination always to live our lives according to this truth.
From Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved
I. With the arrival today of Advent, we begin a new church year with a new set of scripture readings, readings which are mostly familiar but, at the same time, mysteriously new. Consider today’s Gospel lesson from the thirteenth chapter of Mark, especially the last three verses, (35-37). The lesson both announces and offers us an Advent way. For a few moments, let’s explore what Advent is meant to be, using Mark’s lesson as a guide since it is at the very core of what Advent is about and how we are meant to navigate the Advent way.
II. In the last weeks, I’ve discovered some new descriptions of Advent. One description was that “Advent is a thick time.” Here, “thick” means that what the description calls the “tapestry”of Advent, is quite rich and varied, with lots of struggle and impatience, uncertainties with different fabrics, some of life’s good stuff, mysterious moments of God’s grace and plenty of Waiting. Apart from the waiting, much of the tapestry of Advent of hidden.
III. So let’s try to puzzle out the elements of Advent that are clear and defined and are essential to following the Advent way. The first, and perhaps the most acutely felt, essential for both good and not so good reasons—is Waiting. Mark’s lesson today is all about waiting and the expectation is that as we are waiting for the coming of the Savior, the birth of the Lord God, we will be Watching and Listening. Barbara Brown Taylor calls this the Spiritual Practice of Paying Attention. We will return to this idea.
IV. But there is a paradox that comes with Advent and that is the fact that not only has God come but He is already present in our lives. To the extent that we practice daily prayer as part of our Spiritual Practice of Paying Attention, we come to think, speak, and live in the presence of God. And here we realize that our Waiting is waiting in the presence of God, not waiting for something that has already happened. This is another way to understand Advent as a “thick time.”
V. Some years ago, Virginia Theological Seminary, where I studied, established the Advent Word program in which a word was chosen for each Advent Day, and a member of the VTS community would write a short reflection on the word in the context of what Advent is meant to be. At Saint Stephen’s, we incorporated the Advent Word program into our Advent liturgies and used the words for our own reflections and each year, posted the word and our reflections on our Facebook page and website. I mention this to draw our attention to the words that Forward Movement, which now administers the program, is using for the first week of Advent, 2023: (see AdventWord.org)
December 3 – Wind
December 4 – Hidden
December 5 –Presence
December 6 –Peace
December 7 –Grace
December 8 –WatchDecember 9 –Awake
So, we begin to see that Advent is meant to be a kind of journey of waiting, one that involves the elements identified in these Advent Words.
VI. As I suggested earlier, there are some hidden demands that come with Advent, two of which are Humility and Trust. It is not an accident that the feast of Andrew the Apostle occurs on November 30 and by virtue of this placement in the Ordo, Andrew can serve as the “doorkeeper of Advent.” We remember that Andrew and Simon Peter, his brother, were called by Jesus to “come and follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” We are reminded of what C.S. Lewis said about humility that “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.“ Or we think of Benedict of Nursia in the voice of one of his greatest contemporary advocates, Joan Chittister: “Be who you say you are. Do not lie, even to yourself. Don’t live two lives—loving parent/missing parent; honest employee/cheating employee; devoted public servant/self-absorbed public servant. The truth is that egotism is the bane of community building. No one can build anything that lasts when the materials are bogus.” (from Radical Spirit: 12 Ways to Live and Free and Authentic Life).
VII. Imagine Andrew (and his bother Simon Peter) being able to Trust Jesus and accept the call “to fish for people.” Imagine the Humility with which they trusted. Joan Chittister expands on this idea: “We [will] look back and realize that the journey [of Advent] has not been a series of exercises. It has been a process of slow and self-emptying transformation. We find ourselves involved in an entire reorientation of the self –away from the exhausting demands of narcissism to the softening and holy-making ventures of humility.” (Op Cit, Radical Spirit.) It is the self-emptying transformation that the Humility and Trust of Andrew (and Peter) in the call of Jesus—and in Jesus himself—made possible. This is precisely as it should be for us in our own Advent journey.
VIII. The difficulty with all this is that Advent comes amid a highly commercialized holiday season. And yet the reawakening that comes with the Advent season and how we practice the Advent Way, can help us manage the demands of the holiday season. We have only to practice fidelity to a waiting that is grounded in silence, reflective quiet, and holy calm. And with this deliberate waiting comes grace which brings with it the Peace of the season, an awareness of an almost palpable hope in Who is to come and a reawakened awareness for Who is already with us.
IX. In this new Church Year and who and what is, has been and is to come, that is to say, Advent, we can come to appreciate the experience of prayer as a great teacher. I leave you with a prayer from the service of Compline in our Book of Common Prayer, on page 134 to be exact. May I suggest that you consider reciting this prayer every day, at a time of your own choosing, for it is the essence of the “spiritual practice of paying attention,” and the very heart of the Advent Way.
Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.
Amen