The Rev. Rob Fisher
Saint Dunstan’s Church, Carmel Valley

Readings for Advent I: Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—Amen.

About two years ago I visited the site of Mount Calvary Monastery, just after it had burned to the ground.  Sadly, it was the last building to be destroyed in the Tea Fire of 2008 that devastated the hills above Santa Barbara.  As I walked around the charred remains of the old Episcopal monastery where I had spent a lot of time, visiting the brothers and worshiping with them, I came upon an abandoned book lying in the dirt.

It was a small, green volume printed in 1915, with yellowing pages and a warped cover.  It was written by Harry Emerson Fosdick, a very famous preacher of his day.

The book is titled “The Meaning of Prayer,” and though it is nearly a century old, it could easily have been written for our own generation.

Fosdick emphasizes that prayer is not a means to an end, where we ask for things, and get those requests answered.  Rather, true prayer is entering into adventure.

To pray is to leave the realm where we are merely thinking about God.  Instead it is to actually join our lives with God.

Fosdick says, “Belief by itself is a map of the unvisited land of God’s care; prayer is actually traveling the country.”

When the angel visits Mary, she chooses to embark on the journey.

She says, “Here am I, the servant of the lord.  Let it be with me according to your word”

Mary does not know what is going to come next, and the time of expectation begins.

It is awfully hard to submit yourself to the unknown, to what you have no control over, to what you cannot possibly be prepared for ahead of time.  As in the early 20th century, we in the 21st century don’t like to be out of control whenever we can avoid it.

But this is the season for it.  The word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, and it simply means “coming.”  The word Advent shares a root with the word “adventure.”

To say yes to God like Mary is to really pray.  It is to say those very important words: “your will be done,” without knowing the end result of the bargain.

***

Advent is not just about Christ coming as a child born to Mary, but it is also about Christ coming back in the fulfillment of time.  And we are called to prepare ourselves, to be ready for Christ’s arrival.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes:

“You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

Paul uses strong language about our need to be prepared, but prepared for what?  It’s hard to pack if you don’t know exactly where the journey will take you.  And it’s hard to know how to arrange the guest room if you don’t know what kind of visitor to expect, and when he will arrive.

Mary was not prepared in any way resembling the way that many women today get ready for the arrival of their children.  Mary was caught with this news at an unexpected and inconvenient time.

But in the most important sense she was prepared.

Her heart was prepared.

Her heart was open to God.

Her heart was not distracted, so it could hear the message brought to her.

Paul says that it is time for us to wake from our sleep.

It is time for us to put aside all that distracts and sedates us, so that we can be authentically present to God, and likewise to one another.

Mary was prepared in this way.  She is the hero of the Advent season.

***

There is great healing power in simply being present.

I worry that we are at great risk as communications technologies seem to steal this gift from us and re-wire us.  If you are staring at the screen of your phone reading an email in the aisle of a grocery store, you are not really present in that grocery store, are you?  You are physically present, but your attention is somewhere else.  You are essentially divided, and for a time you are neither here nor there.  You are nowhere.  And this way of being is becoming more and more common.

The more we lose the ability to stay present—physically and emotionally—the more we put ourselves at risk.

People who visit others and offer pastoral care are taught that the most important thing is to be present.  When you are with someone in need, you may not know what to say, and you may not have any answers to give.

But you can listen.

You can be present to what the person you are visiting is really going through.  Even if you can’t fully understand it or relate to it, you can be present to it.

You may not be able to fix the problem, but simply being present, listening, and caring will bring its own measure of healing.

That is because the Spirit of God, which is always nearer to us than we think, makes itself known only when we are still and listening and awake enough to receive it.  And when we listen to each other, we invite the Spirit into the space between us.

It is good to remember that this time of Advent, which most of the world is already calling “Christmas,” is not an easy time for everybody.  It brings up a lot of feelings, and for some of you, it will be good to call those you love if you think you might need the support of somebody to listen.  And for others of you, it will be good to remember to be there, ready to listen and support.  We are a community built on caring for one another, and it warms my heart that we are starting a new team of pastoral caregivers, and also a new bereavement group at St. Dunstan’s.  There is hardly anything more important we could do than these simple practices in our community.

***

To help us reclaim this deeply spiritual season, some of us will be reading a book together called Sabbath.  The point of it is that we need to balance our busy activity with a healthy dose of stillness.

God created most everything to live in balance between activity and rest.

The author, Wayne Muller, writes:

“All life requires a rhythm of rest.  There is a rhythm in our waking activity and the body’s need for sleep.  There is a rhythm in the way day dissolves into night, and night into morning . . . There is a tidal rhythm, a deep, eternal conversation between the land and the great sea.  In our bodies, the heart perceptibly rests after each life-giving beat; the lungs rest between the exhale and the inhale.”

“We have lost this essential rhythm.  Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than rest, that doing something—anything—is better than doing nothing.  Because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we do not rest.  Because we do not rest, we lose our way.”

The Sabbath is when we “consecrate a period of time to listen.”  It is “a way of being in time where we remember who we are, remember what we know, and taste the gifts of spirit and eternity.”

Even in Advent—or maybe especially in Advent—we can easily get swept up into the busyness that this season brings.  We are instead called to stay connected by consecrating time for stillness, time for listening, and time for tasting the gifts that God has in store for us.

I love this season, even with the craziness.  But this season is best when it is given a holy breathing room in which to stay grounded in God.

So while you prepare your home for this joyous season, be sure to also prepare your heart for the simple, pure, and adventurous joy of being awake.—Amen.