In Edward Albee’s play, A Delicate Balance, mother says that we sleep “to let the demons out.”
Sunday, December 1, 2019
ADVENT: 4 MESSAGES
INTRODUCTION
Today - as we begin Advent 2019 - I would like to preach on
“Advent: 4 Messages.”
I would like to touch
on 4 points that come out of today’s readings.
I hope they are right
to the point as we begin the season of Advent.
1)
Wake up.
2)
Put off.
3)
Put on.
4) They
are a Beginnings that Becomes an Ongoing.
1) FIRST POINT:
WAKE UP
We all know what it means to hear a knock on our door and we
hear the words, “Wake up!”
We all know what it feels like to want to stay in bed, to
snuggle up under the covers, especially on a cold morning like this morning and
go back to sleep.
We all know what it means to give up, to say inwardly to
ourselves, “The hell with it. What’s the use? I’m hiding here or I’m getting
out of here and going home and going to go to bed.”
Well, Paul, uses that feeling, that reality, as a metaphor
for a basic teaching in today’s first
reading. He simply says to us: “Wake up!”
He says, “It’s time for you to wake up from your sleep!”
We tend to be like the people we heard about in the Book of
Genesis - in the time of Noah - that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel - they
are unaware that a flood is coming. They
are unaware that they are being robbed of a better life every day. [Cf. Matthew
24: 37-44.]
George Gurdjieff - the Armenian - Greek - mystic and
spiritual teacher often talked about most of the human race be sleeping. We are all
sleepwalkers. We are sleep takers.
He - said humans can keep developing- evolving - from Human
# 1 to Human # 7.
Saint Augustine was converted through this second reading
for today from St. Paul to the Romans
13: 11-14.
Augustine heard the words, “Take and read.” and he picked up
the letter to the Romans and read these words from Paul.
“It is now the hour for you to wake from sleep.”
I once had a job called, “Novice Master.”
Looking back now - years later - I realize my job was to
give wake up calls.
I’ve wondered from time to time novices whowere sleep walkers.
Some slept the whole year I had them.Looking back from a distance, I feel bad that
I didn’t challenge them enough.
Eventually most left. And I heard from time to time about
some who are still asleep.
So the first big message for advent is simply: “Wake up!”
SECOND MESSAGE:
PUT OFF
The second message for Advent is to put off.
We know what it means to put off clothes, put off pajamas or whatever.
Well Paul says, Wake up and put off deeds of darkness. Put
off darkness. Put off worrying about the desires of the flesh.
Put off lust, jealousy, quarreling, bickering.
Put it all off.
Let go.
Change.
It’s he purgative way - the Purgative Stage in spirituality.
Empty out.
THIRD MESSAGE: PUT
ON
The third point is to put on.
It’s the taking on a new way of doing life.
It’s the Illuminative Stage in spirituality.
It’s the climbing a new mountain as Isaiah tells us in
today’s first reading. [Confer Isaiah
3: 1-5]
It’s walking in new paths.
It’s taking on new instructions.
It’s turning in our swords into plowshares and spears into
pruning hooks.
It’s peacemaking-
not war making.
It’s putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and clothing ourselves
in light -clothing ourselves in the
Lord Jesus and making no provision for the desires of the flesh.
FOURTH POINT:
BEGINNINGS ARE TO BECOME ONGOINGS
Beginnings are easy. It’s the on goings that are tough.
Stick-to-it-tive-ness is sticky, tough stuff.
I don’t know about you, but I find it easy to begin a
project.
It’s the conclusions I find tough.
Coming up with a topic and then a title for a sermon is easy - compared to
coming up with a sermon - coming up with substance - meat - beef- and then an
ending.
We’ve all seen scenes of someone starting a letter or an
essay or a story and tossing page after page on the floor.
But to stick to the idea, the paper, the sermon, to the end,
to complete the project, now that’s work.
I have had a million and one ideas for sermons. I have less
than 10,000 sermons on my computer.
Advent is a time of new beginnings, fresh starts - but it’s
only one day - and today is the start of only one new Advent.
But the job is to continue ...
To keep it up..
To finish the task.
JOE DONDERS
In a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent, Joseph Donders
gives a good example about all this.
He went home to Holland. It was
Christmas time. He was at this big church. The church was packed for Christmas.
An old priest - at this parish said to Joe, “Isn’t it great. They still have
faith. Here they are at church.”
Off to the side was an old sacristan who said, “Yes, great, but four
weeks from now, the church will be empty again.”
Beginnings are easy.
And Joe Donders thought about that. He was right. The
sacristan was right. He remembered a time when a group of parish workers came
to him in Africa.
They said to him, “Hey, we have programs for those who are
to be baptized, those who are to make first confession, those who are to make
first communion, those who are to make confirmation, those who are to be
married, but what about something for those in the middle?”
“A group of both high-school seniors and a group of couples who had been married more than
twenty years found that both groups had a more romantic, passionate view of
love than couples who had been married less than five years.The researchers concluded that high-school
seniors had not given up their romantic view of love, and the older couples
were enjoying ‘boomerang passion’ as a result of their long-term investment in
tending their marriage.”
