Vigil - Keeping Wakeful Watch
Can you believe that it is December 1? Can you believe we’re reached another “new
year” in the life of the church?
That is where we are when we arrive at the first Sunday in
Advent. The beginning of another cycle
of walking through the story that is part of us – a story we find ourselves in
– a story that begins anew each year as we anticipate a baby born to a virgin
in the midst of political chaos in the Middle East.
Every year I marvel when we arrive at this space - every
year I work to wake myself up from the slumber and the been-there-done-that of
the prior 11 months. I try to shed what
I already “know” about Jesus, about this time-honored story, about how we will
move from waiting and watching to birth and baptism to teaching and miracles and
torture, death and resurrection. I try
to find some newness in the story. Each
and every year during Advent.
It’s hard because in this season, there is a world clamoring
for my attention – a world that is trying to convince me that one more party,
one more fancy meal, one more gift under the tree will make my life full,
perfect, good.
And for the past few years, in an effort to combat that
clamoring from the rest of the world, I’ve instead sought out some deep
peaceful rest – sort of adopting the current vogue notion of – hygge – the Scandinavian
concept of coziness, restfulness, comfort and togetherness that is supposed to
make cold and dark days somehow more tolerable.
But even that idea is being pushed on me by someone trying
to sell me an ideal, right? Someone trying to sell me some tasty tea, a chunky
blanket and some slippers.
And I’m not sure I’m supposed to be cozy and at rest.
Really.
Each year on the first Sunday of Advent, the gospel readings
begin the season in what can be an unsettling place. Here we are recovering from a turkey
hangover, possibly from a chaotic bout of Black Friday shopping, maybe from the
family flag football game and the warm glow of being grateful with those we
love…and on Advent 1 every year we read about the end times.
Actually, we read about the end times …again. Again…because we’ve been reading about them
for the past two weeks as well
…it’s as if the church year is designed to remind us of how
big the promise of redemption really is – so much bigger than a baby born in a
stable. So much bigger than an empty
tomb, but in fact a place where the world is turned upside down – where the
blind can see and the lame can walk and justice rolls down like an ever flowing
stream and weapons of war are transformed into sources of life – swords beat
into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks.
It’s as if the church year is designed to shake us from
slumber in the very season we are apt to be lulled to sleep by tryptophan and
consumerism, by short and cold days, by glowy lights, the smell of sweet spicy
things, and the promise of peaceful evenings by the fire.
In our gospel lesson for today, Matthew tells of Jesus
explaining how, like in the days of Noah, the Son of man will arrive in
unexpected ways. The bad things will be swept away like evil was swept away in
the flood. And the counsel we are
offered is to keep awake…as if we will keep the thief at bay in doing so.
Matthew is writing his gospel late in the first century of
the Common Era - probably a solid 50 years after Jesus’s life, ministry and
resurrection. And so we ask – why is THIS
the story that Matthew tells? Why is his encouragement that people need to stay
awake – to take an active stance?
I assume that as a faith leader, he’s trying to keep people
motivated, excited, learning, growing toward something. And people are restless…it’s been a lot of
time. 50 years…and today it’s been two millennia. It’s hard to keep folks on
their toes decades or millennia in to waiting.
I stumbled upon some interesting commentary this week. It’s fun to find things that scholars can
actively disagree about after thousands of years of translating and listening
and thinking.
The commentary I read suggests that because Jesus compares
to the coming of the Son of Man to the way Noah’s flood swept away all that was
evil and left behind a remnant that was good, that the one left in the field
and the one still grinding at the mill are indeed those chosen to remain in the
promised coming.
Which turns our American popular story line about those
“left behind” upside down. Perhaps one
way of reading Matthew’s gospel is that we don’t get to escape what we’ve done
here on terra firma so easily.
And makes the stakes for what we build or preserve or tend
here on earth mightily important – if what is to be paradise revisited includes
the creation that is currently burning and baking under our overuse of
resources then we have some work to do.
We have a role to play.
This…I believe this.
We do have a role to play. I
believe Matthew is speaking into his young community, an early church that is
struggling to maintain its passion as the years pass and still no sign of Jesus
returning. He is cheering them on…
reminding them that they cannot stop working toward
Jesus.
He’s reminding them that their behavior matters. Their attitude matters. That their mindfulness, watchfulness, active
stance in the middle of the hard things of the world matters.
This isn’t a season of passively and sentimentally waiting
for a baby in a manger.
It is a season of remembering that baby who was God with
us...Emmanuel.
It is the season of seeing how Jesus continues to show up in
our everyday lives.
AND it is the season of recognizing that there is a promised
coming… about that day and hour no one knows.
Back in October as I began to prepare for this season, the
word VIGIL landed on my spirit. And I
sat with it.
You see, a vigil is a time of wakefulness. A time of wakefulness while waiting.
Maybe you think of keeping watch as a passive endeavor. But what if it is not? What if in fact, the
work of keeping watch is vital and requires that we are fully paying attention,
much like the owner of the house keeping watch against the thief who is to
come?
What if our work in this season is to shake ourselves from
the slumber of comfortable
satisfaction…and instead to be actively waiting and watching.
Actively waiting, watching for what will be born.
Watching for the Jesus who was first born in history, who is
daily born around us in the mystery of the Holy Spirit, and who will come again
one day, born in majesty.
Actively waiting and watching and living
as if each day is the day
as if each moment is the moment
as if we live from excitement, anticipation and joy and not
fear
dwelling in the mystery while we wait for the majesty.
What if our work is to beat swords into plowshares, and
spears into pruning hooks – not to wait for some influx of the Spirit but
rather to work with the Spirit that is dancing among us right here and now…
This year, Mexican artist Pedro Reyes, alarmed at the
incidence of gun violence in his community, set up a voucher program offering a
coupon for a free electronic device in exchange for guns. He collected more than 1500 handguns. And then proceeded to smash them under as
steam roller and transform them into more than 1500 shovel heads…which will be
used to plant more than 1500 trees.
Literally, forging life from instruments of death and destruction.
This advent season, how will you keep vigil? How will you
engage in active waiting…
as if your hands and heart’s work was necessary for the ways
the Jesus of history, mystery and majesty will be ushered in?
as if each day is the day?
as if each moment is the moment?
Will you feed the hungry? Will you visit those in prison?
Will you fight for adequate healthcare and housing?
How will you participate in the mystery of God with us while
waiting for the majesty of the coming of Christ?
Let us keep watch together, actively, as if our redemption
depends upon keeping awake.
May it be so.
Amen.
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