Wake Up!

I had a spiritual director many years ago who said to me once, “You know, Frank, there is a tremendous reluctance on the part of human beings to become a conscious species.” If I made a list of the half dozen Words-with-a-capital-W that have ever been spoken to me, that would be on the list. “There’s a tremendous reluctance on the part of human beings to become a conscious species.”

Adrien Ferdinand de Braekeleer, "Beggar in Front of  Door" 

Here we are on the first Sunday of the first season of a brand new Church Year. Perhaps somewhere along the line you have figured out why there is a Church Year. One way of putting it is that the Church Year is a device that, should it actually work, would aid us in becoming conscious. But conscious of what? On the simplest level, conscious of what is. Consciousness is awareness. Consciousness is being awake. One of the needs all creatures have is to sleep, and sleep is a state of unconsciousness. Indeed, the massively great ocean of unconsciousness containing both our personal unconscious and the collective unconscious of the entire human species, begins oftentimes to churn and swell, tossing up pieces of truth in the form of dreams. Dreams essentially are one of the ways that the Unconscious has of getting our attention. It is as if the Great Unconscious is a voice crying in the darkness, “Wake up!” Sometimes indeed the voice is so strong that we do awake from sleep, shocked, perhaps frightened, even terrified. The natural reaction is to want to shut up and shut off the messenger that wakes us, disturbing our sleep, interrupting our peace. So we consciously do whatever it takes to avoid dealing with the stuff that erupts from the depths. And sometimes we miss important truths precisely because they are hard to take.

All of this is intricately wired in to the essence of Advent, and especially the First Sunday of Advent. We already know how the Church Year is going to play out. We know that in three weeks we’ll be at Christmas. That will be followed by Epiphany. And before you know it, we’ll arrive at Ash Wednesday. Lent will follow and Holy Week will come along bringing front and center the themes of suffering, death, and renewal. Easter’s relief we can already anticipate to burst in celebration. Then comes Pentecost and long summer and fall as again we unpack the implications of all that has happened between today and Pentecost. You can hardly miss that the Church Year traces the life of Jesus. And that should itself signal something to be aware of: Christ’s life is not just about Jesus. It is about you. Because all of what happens to him—from gestation to ascension and beyond—is taking place in your own life and mine. If you are not aware of that, or if you are only partially aware of that, my very point is that the purpose of Advent is to announce it so clearly that you will be roused from sleep. Wake up! Become conscious. Because enormous things are going on right now in your own life, far beyond any of those things on your Christmas list, or your to-do list, or your grocery list, or your bucket list. Indeed whatever is going on in your life is the way that the Presence of Christ is pressing upon you and turning up from day to day. The issue is not to ignore what is happening but exactly the opposite: to become conscious of the Presence, the Spirit, the Reality that is showing up in the details of your own life, including some of which you're not yet aware.

For the practical minded there is always the pressure to get out of the realm of theory and into what can be sensed, felt, applied. That’s a fair issue and an important one. Let’s see how it works.

Start with a piece or two of typical Advent imagery. Take, for example, the hymn known as “Sleepers, wake.”

            “Sleepers, wake!” A voice astounds us,

            The shout of rampart-guards surrounds us:

            “Awake, Jerusalem, arise!”[1]

The hymn goes on to build a scene of the arrival of the Bridegroom, Christ, for whom some are prepared and some are unprepared, like the wise and foolish virgins in Matthew’s gospel [25:1-13]. We need light, for the Bridegroom’s arrival is in the middle of the night. There is a wedding feast. We are invited and don’t want to miss it.

This is about an event in the human soul. It is very much related to what is going on in the external world but equally connected to what is happening in the interior life. The message is that something important, even earthshaking, is happening. But that doesn’t mean it is an earthquake or a terrorist attack or a war. In fact the staggering thing might be so small that it could be easily overlooked, dismissed as unimportant. It could be a birth, a lost child, a mentally ill man, a grieving mother, an execution, all of which are real enough to be happening in yours or my field of awareness on any day. Are we tuned out to those things, or are we conscious of them? If you’ll think for a moment, every one of those things I just mentioned is a part of the Jesus story. Not only are they possible pieces literally or figuratively of your own biography, but they are certainly pieces of our world.

            I dare not slight the stranger at my door

            Of threadbare garb and sorrowful lot,

            Lest it be Christ that stands and goes his way

            And I, unworthy, knew him not.[2]

Be awake, be aware, be tuned in to the present moment. One of the major challenges is to become conscious of what it is that keeps drawing us back into obliviousness. It is not hard too detect. Our preconceptions serve as blinders to shield us from what we find disturbing. Most of us by the time we reach early adulthood have decided what is important in life as well as what is true. By the time we’ve reached midlife we have probably bought into a narrative of the way things are and there is little chance of our being pried loose from what we already believe to be true. I have noticed that it is generally something unexpected and often unwanted that explodes in a life with a force strong enough to rearrange how a person views reality. All of these things are voices crying in the wilderness, in the darkness, “Sleepers, wake! Become aware. Become conscious. Christ the Bridegroom is appearing in the form of that toothless beggar that irritates you on the street. God is flirting with you in the purple blooms dotting the field you’re idly passing by. The Lord of heaven appears today in a manger, a nursing home, incarcerated, being hauled off by ICE to be deported, as a child screaming because his parent is on a drunken rampage.” These are the kinds of things that we’d rather not be conscious of. Many of them are too painful. So we build excuses including whole political philosophies as to why we don’t need to pay attention to the hurts, troubles, pain of the world. We even go so far as to imagine that God really agrees with us and cares nothing for those who differ from us.

The message of Advent is heavily accented with proclamations of the Second Coming of Christ. So a quick look through Advent hymns and collects turns up a lot about that. But the way the Second Coming has been treated has itself been a huge contribution to the forces in us that resist being a conscious species. The Second Coming is real all right, but not because it is going to mean the end of the planet or the death of the solar system. It is real because it is happening already.  To borrow the words of Emily Dickinson, if I can stop one heart from breaking, or ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin unto his nest again,” not only shall I not live in vain but I shall be myself the witness and the agent of the breaking in of the Kingdom of God.[3] For with deeds of love and mercy the Christ manifests.

Why is it that we are so enthralled by the things that keep us unconscious of the Presence of God? It does not help to say that it is sin, or that it is the work of the devil. Of course it is. But why are we continually pulled away from consciousness? I think you probably know. It is our old enemy: fear. We are afraid of so many things: being abandoned, lost, friendless, helpless, powerless, loveless. And most of the world’s ailments, from the devastation of the environment to the rampant abuse of human beings, from sex trafficking to the tax structure about to become law, stem directly from fears that frequently lie buried in unconsciousness in the human heart.

Advent calls us to be awake, but waking up does not come without a price. Letting go of illusion, dealing with reality is hard work. Sleep becomes attractive, especially if it is the sleep of escape. We have a choice. Sleep on and miss the Bridegroom, the wedding feast, the celebration; or wake up and see that the stars are falling all around us, not in catastrophes too sad to mention, but in the shimmering beauty of goodness and truth, mercy and forgiveness in which we are welcome to dwell.

Bid then farewell to sleep
Rise up and run!
What though the hill be steep?
Strength's in the sun
Now shall you find at last
Night's left behind at last
And for mankind at last
Day has begun![4]

Blue Ridge Mountains at Dawn.  Photo by Margaret Ann Faeth

A sermon based on Mark 13:24-37

©Frank Gasque Dunn, 2017

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[1] “Sleepers, Wake,” The Hymnal 1982, 61.

[2] Author unknown.  

[3] Emily Dickinson, “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” in The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Martha Dickinson Bianchi (New York:  Barnes and Noble, 1924, 1993), p. 6.

[4] T. H. Ingham, “High O’er the Lonely Hills,” on the internet at http://www.higherpraise.com/lyrics/love/7_love500834.htm, accessed December 3, 2017.

New Advent

Mark 13:24-37

Amazing to me is the fact that there always seem to be some people who are ready to believe that the world is about to end, just about to go up in smoke and (bam!) disappear.  More amazing still is the fact that many such people apparently think that that is a good thing.

Was Jesus such a person?  If, as I believe, we can say with some assurance that Jesus expected the end of the world as we know it to occur within his lifetime or at least within a few years beyond, we either have to say that he knew something we don’t know, or he was just plain mistaken.

It isn’t very attractive for Christians to imagine that Jesus was wrong about anything. In fact, it sounds to most ears nothing short of sacrilege to suggest that Jesus was anything other than perfectly accurate about everything.  So let’s not rattle ours or others’ cages by insinuating that he made a mistake.  Let’s imagine instead something very different when we hear his prediction that

the sun will be darkened,and the moon will not give its light,and the stars will be falling from heaven,and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.[And] they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.
 

Now, it is true that we could imagine that he was talking about something ages and ages in the future—at least as far out as our own age.  But maybe there is something else going on here besides the physical world—earth, universe—collapsing.  Maybe instead what we have here is something like our creation story: eternally true but never intended to be technically factual. 

That in fact seems to track with what Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Reign of God. It is elusive, surprising, hard to pin down, more a state of heart than a product of rational thought, hidden, silent, beneath words, and, above all, “at hand,” already present within and among us. 

So what is this, then, that we try to grasp in the language of apocalypse?  What would be like the sun going out and the moon fading into nothingness?  What would be like the stars vacating their orbits and crashing into earth?  What would be so stupendous that it could only be described as the very powers of heaven being shaken?

What would you do if I told you that what causes the world to change in drastic ways begins as something so imperceptible that it is on the order of drawing a breath?  It is the tiniest decision to live differently. 

Let me explain. 

A friend of mine, John, once worked alongside a guy whom John found to be extremely difficult.  He was irritable, even irascible, critical, unpleasant, and totally self-absorbed.  He embodied every attitude that seemed negative.  John, a kind of hale-fellow-well-met, did his best to humor his workmate.  Nothing worked.  Finally, John was at the point of totally giving up on him.  Then it occurred to John that he would quit expecting anything.  He would simply think good thoughts, good wishes, and send a little bit of love toward his adversary.  He decided to love the guy without telling a soul.  Time went by.  One day a year or so later, it dawned on John that the fellow was behaving differently.  In fact, he was beginning to exhibit some strange characteristics.  He had become less critical.  He had begun to say positive things more and more.  He had in fact started becoming actually likeable.

I have heard this story countless times from dozens, maybe hundreds of people.  I have demonstrated it in my own life, prompted to do so by examples and testimonies of people like John.

Who would imagine that John had, in a split second, decided to do something that actually changed the world?  Yet he had done just this—simply by deciding to live differently.  Some will argue that, well, that was only one person, and not all that impressive.  What about all the evil people who are truly beyond being affected by niceness?  What about all the structures that limit and destroy the creatures of God—racism, sexism, heterosexism, and all manner of injustice?  Deciding to love some old grump in your workplace is not quite the same as reforming a world that is hell-bent on war and destruction.  No, it is not quite the same.  But there is something that we can count on.  All change is relational.  Change in people, and for that matter change that is transpersonal or non-personal, happens in the context of relationship.  So if we want to do battle with the forces that oppress, corrupt, twist, and damage the world and its creatures, ultimately we have to do it by being in relationship with others.  Not only do we have to join hands with our like-minded sisters and brothers committed to our ideals and values, we have to engage the hearts of those who resist the change.  And we cannot do that by refusing to be in relationship with them.  We will never conquer our adversaries by force and turn them into anything but victims and more hardened adversaries.  If we are to change the world, we have to learn and practice the power of unleashing love. 

Tom Shadyac grew up not far from here in Falls Church, Virginia. Tom had a fantastically successful career as a comedian and filmmaker, producing such zany films as “Liar, Liar” and “The Nutty Professor,” winning academy awards and making tons of money.  He had already begun re-examining his life when he had a serious biking accident that severely injured him and incapacitated him for months.  As he began to ask what, if he were going to die, he wanted to tell the world, he came up with a documentary called  I Am.  He interviewed scientists, religious leaders, environmentalists and philosophers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky, Lynne McTaggart, and Howard Zinn. The film asks two central questions:  What’s Wrong With the World? and What Can We Do About it? In the film, Shadyac answers that question, or rather hears that answer from others.  “I Am” is the answer that G. K. Chesterton once gave when asked, “What is Wrong With the World?” Shadyac discovered through his own amassing of money and things what was wrong with the world:  our ever-growing addiction to materialism.  “I am” what is wrong with the world.  And the cure?  Human connectedness, universal respect for all creation, the power of one to effect change.

This is the stuff that moves stars, that shakes the powers of heaven, that alters the course of the universe.  This is the apocalypse that we are not only waiting for but are engaged in bringing about.  And how does it begin?  By someone’s deciding to love rather than to fulminate in irritation.  With a Rosa Parks who decides to keep her seat rather than yield to the force that is simply following uncritically a cultural script.  With a Mohandas Ghandi who refuses to resort to violence but whose persistence inspires millions and brings an empire to its knees.  With a Nelson Mandela that holds on to hope for years refusing to concede all hope for an end to apartheid.  With Peace Brigades International who dares to believe that ordinary people can take action to stop war and human rights violations, even when their governments cannot or will not.  It begins, this unearthly change, when one of you who decides when going through a divorce that it is better to love your way through hostile territory than to try to kick your adversary into poverty.  It starts when another one of you decides that you will defend yourself or your family from emotional or physical abuse without becoming counter-abusive yourself.  Is any of this easy?  Ask the ones who get thrown in jail for their witness.  Ask those who have let goods and kindred go, and have risked mortal life and the integrity of their own bodies in the cause of human dignity.

When Jesus says, “You don’t know either the day or the hour, so keep awake,” he is stating the basic requirement for starting the Advent of deep change that shakes the universe to its very foundations.  Keep awake means to be conscious.  The Advent the world yearns for is the new creation that depends upon yours and my being conscious of the way we settle in for the long haul with the forces of repression, narrowness, and hate.  True Advent begins when we take one small step to live from the heart.  From that moment, creation begins to be made new by the One who, living in you and me, makes all things new.

© Frank Gasque Dunn, 2014