The Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent, which sets the overall theme for this week, asks God for the grace to heed the warnings of the prophets and to forsake our sins (BCP 211). The Collect for the Renewal of Life, which we read each Monday morning during the office, asks God to "drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace" (BCP 99).
Now the warnings of the prophets are big business these days. Katrin and I are fans of what she calls "crackpottery" -- the endless History Channel specials on the Knights Templar, the Nazca lines in Peru, Mary Magdalene, Nostradamus, and the Masonics. Thrown in there pretty liberally are documentaries on the End Times and the Revelation to John from which our readings will come for the next couple of weeks.
Crackpottery invites us to speculation on the grand patterns (or conspiracies, if you will) behind the events of history. It invites us to ponder grand theories, secret societies, the global machinations behind seemingly ordinary institutions. It's fun, but it doesn't lead anywhere -- the TV specials, you'll notice, are full of questions, but pretty thin on answers. "Isn't it plausible?" they all ask, without ever giving much evidence.
But our Prayer Book pattern for the Christian life -- grand in its own way -- invites us into a different kind of consideration. "Give us grace," we pray, "to forsake our sins." The evidence is clear. We know precisely what our sins are, the things we have done and the things we have left undone. Forsaking them means changing how we behave, and we know exactly what that would look like, too. This is not a grand conspiracy; this is me, a sinner just like everyone else.
Repenting is not easy, as we all know. Learning to act differently means practicing the new way every single day. "What do you monks do in that monastery?" the visitor asked. "We fall down, and we get up," the abbot replied. "We fall down, and we get up again." Overcoming sin, overcoming addiction, is something we have to do day by day, one day at a time, every time temptation strikes.
That's why the Prayer Book gives us a daily pattern to follow. "Every day we begin again," as St. Benedict said. Every day is a new opportunity to turn in the right direction. There are no vast conspiracies keeping us from repenting, though the world does work hard to distract us with news not worth watching and to sell us on a lifestyle that we don't need.
The movement of the human heart -- the turning away from sin (which is what repentance means) -- happens in the space, nearer than breathing, between us and God. "Give us grace," we pray. "My grace is sufficient for your need," God replies. "Here I am."
It's a new day; God give us grace to begin again.
12.07.2009
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With the predominant focus on Christmas, the Advent season has almost been obliterated. But Advent's call calm down, simplify, be quiet, reflect, meditate and prepare are critically important. Whether we are preparing for the Second Coming of Christ and jugdement, as some believe, or the birth of Jesus in a manger, as others believe, or the coming of Christ (God incarnate) in the world, without a time to reflect, own up to those things that separate us from God, we simply can't be ready to be present to new life in Christ or new possibilities in our life. There is almost no commercial potential in Advent (unless you like purple clothes) but for me, Advent almost eclipses the Christmas season.
I always remember trying to have Saturday evening Eucharist at Church of the Holy Communion in Lake Geneva on a December evening while the Lake Geneva Christmas Parade was passing right by us. Hard to "let all mortal flesh keep silence" while the H.S. marching band is playing "Jingle Bells."
It is possible to have the grace of God and to live out that grace only through His Holy Spirit. I can of my own self do nothing that would earn me God's acceptance. The merits of Jesus Christ alone make me acceptable to God. As the St. Paul wrote, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain...I die daily..." Peace comes from the moment by moment surrender to God as we seek Him in prayer and in the reading of His Word. Christmas should not eclipse Advent, but that is the way of the world. It is a spiritual war afterall. Spirit should dominate flesh.
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