Just Breathe Advent 1C

  Just Breathe

“…cast off the works of darkness…put on the armor of light…” (Collect for Advent 1)

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise…” (Jeremiah 33:14)

“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you…”  (Psalm 25:1)

“…stand up and raise your heads…Look at the fig tree and all the trees…Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life…Be alert at all times, praying…”  (Luke 21:25-36)

 

Lots of imperatives on this first Sunday of Advent – New Year’s Day for Christians around the world! On top of the busy-ness that marks life between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, it appears as if there is a lot of work to be done in Advent to. With cards to get out, presents to purchase, trees to decorate, cookies to bake and all the rest, how on Earth are we to have the time to cast off, put on, lift up our heads, look at trees, be on guard, and be alert? Oh yes, all the time praying?

 

Or, as Paul neatly sums it up, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing…” (I Thess 5:16-17)

 

All the while, as Jeremiah and Luke’s Jesus point out, “The days are surely coming,” and indeed, already seem to be here with all kinds of calamities in the heavens and on earth seeming to surround us on all sides, every minute of every day. Why, even gift giving is under siege. Every year we believe it is our patriotic duty to purchase more and more gifts so that at the end of the Christmas Season when we hear that this year’s purchases surpassed the previous year’s, we can feel proud. But we are already being prepared for disaster even in our rush to snatch up all good gifts around us because the very merchandise we need to purchase to eclipse that sacred number are stranded on cargo ships for which there are not enough laborers in the field to unload them; not enough trucks and drivers to deliver them; not enough stockroom workers to put them on the shelves.

 

Do we even have time to hear what Jesus is saying? “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” Dissipation: the squandering of money or resources, often in the pursuit of happiness. Is it possible that being urged to shop until we drop ultimately does not lead to happiness? That it may even lead to missing that day, that moment in time when Jesus will return, to fulfill the promises made to Israel and the House of Judah, and to you and to me? To return in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, and raise us to eternal life immortal?

 

Advent, it seems, is to be a time of prudent preparation and joyous expectation! All the usual holiday hustle and bustle simply diverts us from the true gifts of the season: an awareness of the nearness of God and God’s love, and compassion for all the world. All the rest, he says, is a trap!

 

The Good News lies in “Being Alert.” Which means praying. Praying without ceasing. It seems like that may be difficult to do. Yet, we are those people who pray week in and week out for the “inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” To inspire means to breathe in. Each time we breathe in, we inspire the breath, the spirit, the ruach of God. The same breath that hovered over the face of the waters in the beginning. The same breath that God breathed into a handful of moist dust to give life to the first person – a person created in the image of God. The most basic form of prayer is what we all do without ceasing: breathe.

 

The most basic form of prayer is to be attentive to our breathing. Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment. Breathing out, I know it is a wonderful moment. Present Moment/Wonderful Moment. Letting go of dissipation, letting go of worry, just breathing is the prayer that helps us to be attentive to the very spirit of God, the Spirit that is in us which gives us life and inspires us. Attentiveness to our breathing can bring us the very happiness and joy we seek from all the dissipations and distractions of the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

In 2015, Archbishop Desmond Tutu spent a week in dialogue with the Dali Lama at his exiled home in India. The Dali Lama has been a displaced person since fleeing the Communist Chinese as a child. Their dialogue is recorded in their book, Joy. Near the end of their time together Bishop Tutu offered the following blessing which pretty well sums up all the imperatives we are given for Advent:

“Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy.

“God, who is forever pouring out God’s whole being from all eternity, wants you to flourish. God wants you to be filled with joy and excitement and ever longing to be able to find what is so beautiful in God’s creation: the compassion of so many, the caring, the sharing. And God says, ‘Please, my child, help me. Help me to spread love and laughter and joy and compassion. And you know what, my child? As you do this—hey, presto—you discover joy. Joy, which you had not sought, comes as the gift, as almost the reward for this non-self-regarding caring for others.’”       [Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, Generosity of Spirit, 11/29/2018]

 

This Advent may we so continually and ceaselessly be attentive of each breath with which God makes us, wants us and needs us to be like God: filled with life, goodness, laughter and joy, so that we may always be those people who help God to spread love, forgiveness, compassion and joy to others – all others - all the time. Amen.