In part I would agree with Peter’s secular analysis of Advent. I would not go so far as saying that the last vestiges of Christendom have disappeared but the church does, it seems for a while at least, to have lost the narrative plot of Advent. Before we rehearse the traditional apocalyptic Advent themes of death, judgment, hell and heaven, Christmas has already started in most our local communities, in our high streets and garden centres. In Durham’s Market Place the 2008 Christmas tree was erected before Remembrance Sunday! We do indeed sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. As we step through the wardrobe door we have entered a fantasy world of spiritual amnesia and neglect. For in this land it is already Christmas.
But it is too easy for ministers like me to jump on their hobby horse and enjoy a seasonal rant about the relentless tide of consumerism at this time of the year, desperate as that is. We need to be careful! I too enjoy all things Christmassy in the Advent season - Christmas shopping, the smell of baking Christmas cakes, wrapping presents, selecting cards, the gossip at office parties and preparing new house designs for Christmas. Far from being free of the corrosive values of consumerism, I like everybody else are compromised by them - I guess we are all implicated in the values of our society.
But the church cannot be exempt from Peter’s criticisms either. Some churches have their Christmas tree displayed from the 1st Sunday in Advent, we are reminded of that holy night as carols are sung as the 1st Advent candle is lit. A crib of plastic and pottery wise men greet me in the church vestibule. And all those Christmas church activities, Victorian markets, pantomimes, winter wonderlands, mince pies and mulled wine, Christmas Fairs, all encouraging us to part with our money. Christmas too, it would appear, in some of our churches at least, is in full swing from St. Andrew’s Day onwards. The Advent season forgotten.
The question is then (which Peter I think might be referring to) - is it worth trying to keep Advent at all? Should we just abandon the season and go with the flow? Do we really want to hear sermons about death, judgement, hell and heaven in a society and a church that would rather embrace sweet nostalgic Rutter carols and the warm lullaby atmosphere of a manger? Alas there is not much comfort in the Advent messages of divine judgment from the 8th century prophet Isaiah or the hissing, impatient, relentless radical- desert prophet voice of John the Baptist.
But if we were to persevere with our Advent readings and “keep” the season of Advent we might find the season’s readings about judgement a thankful relief. To hear of God’s impending judgement, frightening and alarming as that might be, is of course, to recognise in ourselves our failings and shortcomings, our ambivalence that often motivates selfish thoughts and actions. Advent in its brief 4 week season offers us a place to come before God as we are, without hiding, without pretence – and to reflect and think about what distracts us from being humane and God-filled as St Paul invites us as well as his Galatian church to become. Advent at its heart, is an invitation to reflect on what we truly need and long for in life. It's a summons to know ourselves.
But I think Advent can offer us more. If we can leave aside for a while John Betjeman’s “ tissued fripperies, the sweet and silly Christmas things, bath salts and inexpensive scent and hideous tie so kindly meant,” Advent I believe invites us to amendment of our lives as the Book of Common Prayer says, to know and discover God in a new way. For when God comes as Judge, he also comes as William William’s hymn Cwm Rhondda has it - as a great Redeemer. Our Advent readings of hope are shot through with the promise of salvation, so that those last things become the first things. The readings and Advent carols, our thoughts of Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets, the Baptist and Mary begin to change our direction and focus, open doors of possibility, offer new goals and values to live by, they give back to our lives dignity and worth, and help our churches in a new more positive direction.
The 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard talked about ‘the truth by which we live and die'. Advent is a time for doing both, to practise the one and rehearse the other. The church may indeed have lost control of the Advent narrative for a while. But let’s break the mould! Might I suggest we regain control of the powerful themes and images of the Advent season in our own lives and in our churches as we remain wakeful, waiting and praying with joy for the advent of God's kingdom of peace and truth. For the spirit of Advent, as the Welsh poet R S Thomas said in his poem Kneeling, “The meaning is in the waiting.”
Ray Anglesea
Friday 4 December 2009
Sunday 29 November 2009
Making Sense
Recently an unexpected event happened which has changed my life. I was made redundant. Rather my post was made redundant. After 36 years of continuous employment I was unemployed. The job I thought was for life suddenly evaporated into thin air.
Earlier in the summer I remembered an Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France suddenly vanished over the Atlantic after flying into turbulence. Sudden events happen to us in everyday life. Our days are suddenly, without warning, interrupted. Out of the blue an unexpected phone call relays sad news: suddenly you miss the promotion you were expecting, suddenly you find yourself with a medical condition that requires a radical change of lifestyle. Suddenly and unexpectedly a child is born with severe disabilities. Suddenly a bright, loving, teenager is randomly stabbed. Suddenly a gifted 40 year old finds himself slipping into a mental wilderness. Suddenly a close and loving friends dies. Life can suddenly change course for millions of people every day, and then life can seem terribly unfair, cruel, messy and decidedly unjust. That is the human condition. We live with uncertainty. Sudden events happen. What then do we do? How do we deal with these sudden unexpected life events that interrupt and change our lives?
Sudden events happened to Jesus too. Matthew records a couple of incidents that interrupted Jesus’ daily schedule - the account of the menstruating woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak and the synagogue leader whose daughter had died (read Matthew 9 18-26 in the Authorised Version and the use of the word suddenly). How did Jesus deal with these two unexpected events which interrupted his daily life, how did he respond to this present emergency? The answer – with love and compassion. Jesus stepped outside the normal religious and cultural expectations and regulations of his day – he touches a dead girl and menstruating woman. He breaks with his society’s taboos of completeness and perfection (represented by the number twelve). He heals these two women by making himself ritually unclean. So when unexpected sudden events happen to us and to our friends Jesus way of dealing with such circumstances is to act with love and compassion, to embody mercy. Sudden events, good and bad, large and small will have affected most of our lives. It is often these sudden events that shape our lives for good or ill. Can you see in them, as Jesus was challenged to do, God at work bringing life and hope?
Janet Morley, writer and poet, has a challenging prayer which expresses this challenge of compassion and mercy in the sudden events that take place in our lives. It begins "O thou sudden God, generous in mercy, quickener of new life, giver of new love, irreverent, subversive " and concludes with Augustine's famous words from his Confessions, "Late have I loved thee O beauty so ancient and so new." Can we hold together in our experience the suddenness and the ancientness of God and of God's ways of mercy and compassion and be faithful to both?
O thou sudden God, generous in mercy, quickener of new life, giver of new love irreverent, subversive, deep source of yearning, startling comforter, bearer of darkness unmaker of old paths, bringer of strange joy, abundant, disturbing, healing unlooked for tender and piercing: late have I loved thee. O beauty so ancient and so new.
(c) Janet Morley, 1988
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new! Too late have I loved Thee. And lo, Thou wert inside me and I outside, and I sought for Thee there, and in all my unsightliness I flung myself on those beautiful things which Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. Those beauties kept me away from Thee, though if they had not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break down my deafness. Thou didst flash and shine on me and put my blindness to flight. Thou didst blow fragrance upon me and I drew breath, and now I pant after Thee. I tasted of Thee and now I hunger and thirst for Thee. Thou didst touch me and I am aflame for Thy peace...."
Augustine Confessions (Lib. 10, 26. 37-29, 40: CSEL 33, 255-256).
Ray Anglesea
Earlier in the summer I remembered an Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France suddenly vanished over the Atlantic after flying into turbulence. Sudden events happen to us in everyday life. Our days are suddenly, without warning, interrupted. Out of the blue an unexpected phone call relays sad news: suddenly you miss the promotion you were expecting, suddenly you find yourself with a medical condition that requires a radical change of lifestyle. Suddenly and unexpectedly a child is born with severe disabilities. Suddenly a bright, loving, teenager is randomly stabbed. Suddenly a gifted 40 year old finds himself slipping into a mental wilderness. Suddenly a close and loving friends dies. Life can suddenly change course for millions of people every day, and then life can seem terribly unfair, cruel, messy and decidedly unjust. That is the human condition. We live with uncertainty. Sudden events happen. What then do we do? How do we deal with these sudden unexpected life events that interrupt and change our lives?
Sudden events happened to Jesus too. Matthew records a couple of incidents that interrupted Jesus’ daily schedule - the account of the menstruating woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ cloak and the synagogue leader whose daughter had died (read Matthew 9 18-26 in the Authorised Version and the use of the word suddenly). How did Jesus deal with these two unexpected events which interrupted his daily life, how did he respond to this present emergency? The answer – with love and compassion. Jesus stepped outside the normal religious and cultural expectations and regulations of his day – he touches a dead girl and menstruating woman. He breaks with his society’s taboos of completeness and perfection (represented by the number twelve). He heals these two women by making himself ritually unclean. So when unexpected sudden events happen to us and to our friends Jesus way of dealing with such circumstances is to act with love and compassion, to embody mercy. Sudden events, good and bad, large and small will have affected most of our lives. It is often these sudden events that shape our lives for good or ill. Can you see in them, as Jesus was challenged to do, God at work bringing life and hope?
Janet Morley, writer and poet, has a challenging prayer which expresses this challenge of compassion and mercy in the sudden events that take place in our lives. It begins "O thou sudden God, generous in mercy, quickener of new life, giver of new love, irreverent, subversive " and concludes with Augustine's famous words from his Confessions, "Late have I loved thee O beauty so ancient and so new." Can we hold together in our experience the suddenness and the ancientness of God and of God's ways of mercy and compassion and be faithful to both?
O thou sudden God, generous in mercy, quickener of new life, giver of new love irreverent, subversive, deep source of yearning, startling comforter, bearer of darkness unmaker of old paths, bringer of strange joy, abundant, disturbing, healing unlooked for tender and piercing: late have I loved thee. O beauty so ancient and so new.
(c) Janet Morley, 1988
Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new! Too late have I loved Thee. And lo, Thou wert inside me and I outside, and I sought for Thee there, and in all my unsightliness I flung myself on those beautiful things which Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. Those beauties kept me away from Thee, though if they had not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break down my deafness. Thou didst flash and shine on me and put my blindness to flight. Thou didst blow fragrance upon me and I drew breath, and now I pant after Thee. I tasted of Thee and now I hunger and thirst for Thee. Thou didst touch me and I am aflame for Thy peace...."
Augustine Confessions (Lib. 10, 26. 37-29, 40: CSEL 33, 255-256).
Ray Anglesea
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