Today, the First Sunday of Advent, we pray for God to “give
us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now
in the time of this mortal life…” Now! Right now, please! Which is echoed in
the 64th chapter of Isaiah: “O that you would tear open the heavens
and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—” Now! Right
now! And as the challenging apocalyptic chapter 13 of Mark opens up, Jesus and
the disciples are leaving the Temple. The four first disciples, Andrew, Peter,
James and John are gushing at the how large, and powerful, and incredible it
all is, having lived up north in Galilee where as fishermen they had never seen
such a thing! Jesus tells them that soon it will just be a burning pile of
rubble. Sun and Moon shall be darkened and stars will fall from the sky. When
they walk across the valley to the Mount of Olives and look down upon the
majesty of Jerusalem with the Temple majestically standing above everything,
they ask, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these
things are about to be accomplished?” Because they want to know Now! After
Jesus speaks of persecutions and suffering and destruction, he finally allows
that no one, not even Jesus, knows when it will all come down. Only his Father
knows. Given the number of crazy Christians who attempt to tell us when the Day
of the Lord will come, beginning with the Millerites right up to the present
day, you would think none of them had ever read chapter 13 at all! Wake up!
Which is just what Jesus says twice in the final verses of
the chapter. Keep Awake! And if you didn’t hear me the first time: Keep Awake! Here
endeth the chapter. These are the final public words he speaks in Mark. From
here on out it is the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion and burial.
The late Anthony DeMello, Jesuit priest and psychologist
tells us, “Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t
know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their
sleep, they have children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever
waking up. They never understand the loveliness and beauty of this thing that
we call human existence. You know, all mystics – Christian, Muslim, Jewish,
Buddhist, all traditions – no matter what religion, are unanimous on one thing:
that all is well, all is well.” [Awareness, Doubleday, 1990, p 5]
DeMello goes on to tell the story of a father who knocks on
his son’s door. “Jaime, wake up,” he says. “I don’t want to get up, Papa,”
Jaime replies. The father shouts, “You have to get up and go to school!” Jaime
says, “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not,” asks the father. “Three
reasons,” says Jaime. “First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me;
and third, I hate school.” And the father says, “I’ll give you three reasons
why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you
are forty-five years old; and third, because you are the headmaster.” Wake up!
Wake Up! You’ve grown up. Stop playing with your toys. Most of us, writes
DeMello, find waking up unpleasant. We are nice and warm in bed. Nice and cozy
in our understanding of life as we see it. It’s irritating to be woken up. None
of us want to be wakened out of our dreams to face reality. [Ibid]
Jesus knows this. He knows that his disciples can’t wait for
God to tear open the heavens and come down to shake up things the way they want
it to be. But just look around you, says Jesus. By the time this version of
Mark’s gospel was finalized, the Temple and all of Jerusalem had been burned to
the ground by the Romans. Yet, there is more to see all around us than the chaos
and destruction. There is more to life than crisis, competition and
polarization. Wake up and keep awake. Keep awake, he says to all of us. All
shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well!
Don’t wait around. Don’t listen to those who tell us when
the end will come. Or, when I will return. Don’t listen to those who claim to
know. Cast away the works of darkness now. Put on the armor of light, now! Wake
up and stay awake, now!
It was only last week that that we heard the last public
words of Jesus in Matthew. Yet, somehow we fail to see the connection. That’s
where he says if you want to see me look into the eyes of those who hunger and
thirst, those who are naked or in prison. Look into the eyes of the stranger
and welcome him or her. Love your neighbor. Love your enemies. That’s where I
am now, always and forever. As you serve them you are serving me.
Every Tuesday at noon we pray, “It is in the depths of life
that we find you, at the heart of this moment, at the center of our soul, deep
in the earth and its eternal stirrings…May we know that we are of You, may we
know that we are in You, may we know that we are one with You, together
one…open us to wonder, strengthen us for love, humble us with gratitude, that
we may find ourselves in one another, that we may lose ourselves in gladness,
that we may give ourselves to peace.” [Praying With The Earth, John Philip
Newell, pp 18&20]
What I believe Jesus is truly getting at is that we can
sleepwalk through life allowing, even choosing, to be distracted by lesser
things that make us anxious, fearful and angry. We can be distracted by the
things that are falling apart. Or, we can wake up and strengthen the things
that endure, things that are eternal like wonder, humility, gratitude, love and
gladness.
Waking up means knowing we are of God.
Waking up means knowing we are in God.
Waking up means knowing we are one with God.
Together one.
Waking up means knowing that the answer to a life lived with
and in God has no “When?”
Life with God in Christ is Now. Always. Forever Now. In the people we meet. In the people we do not want to meet. To avoid certain people not like ourselves, we are avoiding yet another opportunity to serve Christ in them. To learn something new about the world and about ourselves. Another opportunity to know God is with us and with them; in us and in them; we in him and they in him. Another chance to know all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well. If only we will wake up and keep awake. Keep awake! Here! Now! Always! Amen. It is so. It is truth.
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