The Rev. Mark Pendleton

November 28, 2021 1 Advent Year C The Rev. Mark Pendleton Casting Out Darkness to Begin Again each Advent 25"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." 29Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34"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, 35like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." Luke 21:25-36 ++++ Our spiritual work during the season of Advent - in these short weeks before Christmas -- is to do what Jesus compels in today's gospel from Luke -- to be on guard and alert because God is on the move and drawing near. That is no small task in our world of many distractions. Where do we even start to look? Our gospel reading at first glance is not much help, for it can be confusing to begin anything at what seems like the end - visions of heaven and earth passing away. Yet this is where we begin again. Each Advent. One of the hardest parts, for me, of living our lives in light of our Christian faith is to see and know how God can draw near and bring about real and lasting change. The whole gospel is about a change in the way we are to live and think and act - and we want so much to change for the better in our world -- yet so much on the surface of our world seems ever constant and unchanging. Where do we ground our prayer today? We ask God for the grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. As far as casting away darkness, there is no shortage in the world today. Cast away the works of darkness we pray. The works of darkness are settling in and firmly planted in many parts of the world. Autocrats are in ascent, refugees are on the move, the climate is stressed and changing. Close to home, many struggle to get by - to pay rent and buy food. The small expression of giving out food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas to people in our town could be dismissed as an empty gesture that does go the root cause of need. I dismiss the cynicism because small acts are a way to connect people who may never cross paths. Bernard of Clairvaux was the twelfth-century abbot - the head of many monasteries - and he wrote that there actually three advents, not one. The first was the birth of Jesus at Christmas, and the last was the end of the age that we hear about in Luke's gospel today. He also imagined a "middle Advent" -- the one in between these other two. This middle advent was about the "everyday arrival of Jesus." That is what we are on alert and awake for. It has been imagined by commentators as "the knock at the door, the still small voice, the lonely prisoner, the hungry mother, the weary refugee, the migrant worker, the asylum seeker." (Saltproject.org "Hope is a Verb"). Everyday arrivals. We are to remember that the story we are preparing to hear about is centered on a family on the move from Nazareth to Bethlehem who later escaped to Egypt after the birth of Christ fleeing for their lives. Just like many families today from Ethiopia to Afghanistan to Guatemala to Haiti. In our spiritual DNA as a people is a written code that can be easily forgotten or drowned out by voices of fear. The Thought of the Day I chose for the beginning of the bulletin is from the famed Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who came face to face with the evil of the Nazi regime during WWII. He wrote: "The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come." To know oneself to be poor and imperfect is to join the human race and go one step further: to do the necessary inner work to move closer to wholeness. God and Jesus and Holy Spirit need our help. It is never easy to look inward to cast away darkness -- shadows and scars of our lives that find inconvenient ways to remind us - to hover and linger for each of us in different ways. Poor decisions, bad relationships, times of loneliness, hardships, fear of the unknown future, wrongs inflicted, extended period of grief, chromic health challenges that never abate. There are long days when joy and better days can seem far off. This for me makes sense of the fig tree image that Jesus points to in his briefest of parables: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near." Fig trees in winter are a sorry sight: it is hard to imagine that there is any more life in them. Yet with God there is always hope. Sometimes it is all we have. Our work, should we engage in it, involves passing through many dark night of our souls -- to learn from the quiet and stillness, the uncertainty of life - and to hand over ultimate control to a force greater than our fear and limitations. The night and its darkness - so close to us during these short days and long nights -- have the capacity to restore and heal - so that a new day unfold. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the renowned writer on death and dying, wrote that "People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." Each one of us is on a life-long journey to find the light within - the spark, the seed, the inspiration, that slice of divinity that is within us and in reach. That is the armor of light that we pray that God's grace will give us today and tomorrow. Before these days pass us by this Advent, on the top of any list we make should be to try is to simply bring into the world more light than shade, more peace than never-ending conflict, more joy than heartache. And to be on guard and alert. For knocks on doors and small voices and weary souls. Including our own. 2