Stand up! Raise your heads! Be on guard! Be alert! Wake Up! Pray!
[Luke 21:25-36]
Amidst a list of calamities and cosmic disruptions, Jesus
offers a list of imperatives for Advent for those who “know that the kingdom of
God is near.” These imperatives make Advent a call to full consciousness – full
attentiveness, or what some may call mindfulness. We are to be fully Alive,
Alert, Awake and Enthusiastic! Enthusiasm comes from the Greek roots en theos – to be filled with or inspired
by God. Inspire itself means to breath-in. Breathing in means life. The
ancients believed that what we inspire is the breath or spirit of God and it is
this breath and spirit that sustains us so that we might be Alive, Alert, Awake
and Enthusiastic – filled with the Spirit of God. Attentiveness to our
breathing is what brings the awareness or consciousness that the reign of God is
near – in our midst.
This being attentive, mindful and alert is what it means to
be a people of faith – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.” [Hebrews 11:1] We would like to believe that
the world, this Earth we live on and the entire universe, is stable and predictable.
We would like to believe that others, those others among whom we live our lives,
can be stable and predictable. Whereas hope, suggests Richard Rohr, “is the
patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution,
and still be content and happy because our Satisfaction is at another level,
and our Source is beyond ourselves.” [Preaching for Christmas, p 5]
Just as Jesus came into our past, so we trust he will come
again into our private and public suffering world. What sounds like the
beginning of an apocalyptic disaster movie in the 21st chapter of
Luke is really meant to be words of assurance – yes, these things are happening
all around us, and yes so am I – I am all around you, I am near, and I am
returning even now as all this is going on. Bonaventure, a Thirteenth Century
bishop and theologian, understood that God is “the one whose center is
everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” Those who practice Advent mindfulness
know that all things, including you, live happily inside of that one good
circle. [Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, Joy and Hope, 11/27/2018]
This time of year, we find ourselves thinking of children.
We want them to experience the receiving of gifts. We spend weeks, even months,
searching for just the right presents. We collect Toys for Tots. We find ways
to give gifts to people we don’t even know through a variety of charities and
organizations. Advent and Christmas represent one enormous push to provide gifts
for children both nearby and far away.
Sometimes this impulse to give weighs us down, as Jesus
says, with “dissipation.” Can we buy enough of just the right gifts to make
everyone happy? Dissipation, the squandering of money or resources, often in
the pursuit of happiness. We are urged to shop-till-we-drop. It’s good for the
economy. There will be a figure published at the end of the Christmas Season
letting us know if we exceeded the previous year’s expenditures, or whether we
have fallen short. Either way, we take this measurement of our dissipation as a
sign. We’ll end up feeling good about the number, or bad about the number. All
of which, warns Jesus, diverts our attention from the awareness of the nearness
of God and God’s love and compassion for all the world. It’s like a trap, he
says!
Being trapped never feels good. Again, think of children
around the world and here at home. Those who have no home tonight. Those who
are in detention camps. Those who were tear-gassed across the border last week.
Those who are in refugee camps all around the world. Or, those living in group
homes here in the U.S because their family homes are unsafe. Children and
families trapped in cycles of poverty, warfare, gang violence, hunger,
political and economic upheaval. Does being Alert in Advent beckon us to ponder
just what they want and need for Christmas? Is there even any space and time in
their lives to even know that it is “the Christmas Season”? What does our being
a community of faith, hope and charity call us to do for these children? What
gifts do they need from us?
The last thing Jesus urges is that we pray that we might
have the strength to “stand before the coming Son of Man.” That takes some prayer!
Prayer. How does being Alive, Alert, Awake and Enthusiastic shape and inform our
prayer? Remember, being enthusiastic, filled with God is connected to the “inspiration”
of the Spirit, the Breath, of God.
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
closure, letting go of control, letting go of dissipation, letting go of worry,
just breathing can in itself be the prayer that helps us to be Alive; to be
Alert; to be Awake; to be Enthusiastic, filled with the very spirit of God,
that which enlivens us and inspires us.
In 2015, Archbishop Desmond Tutu spent a week in dialogue
with the Dali Lama at his exile 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:
“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]
We have come to know that the world, indeed the entire
universe, seen and unseen, is unsettled; expanding; evolving; in a constant
state of creating and re-creating. Advent can be a time caught up in the trap
of endless activity and dissipation. Or, it can be a time to reclaim the
essence of being Alive, Alert, Awake and Enthusiastic. To Stand Up, Raise our
Heads and Pray. If only we will stop and take the time to simply breathe in and
breathe out. Present Moment/Wonderful Moment. As we do, we will be inspired, led
by a Spirit far greater and beyond ourselves to find ways for all the world’s
children to be embraced by Bishop Tutu’s blessing. Our future life together
depends on our response to their lives. They are essential to our faith, our
hope, and our future. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
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