Advent for Busy People

by Mary Via - Children, Youth, & Young Families

• Audio Transcript

  [00:00:00] But the Lord of our God will stand forever. Please be seated.

  
  It's the second Sunday in advent, and John, the baptizer, has arrived on the scene. John, the messenger in the wilderness who prepares the way of the Lord. Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge describes John as being on the frontier of the ages as God arrives in his world. To turn it away from its past of sin and bondage toward a future of promise and freedom.

  
  And John the Baptist, he does appear in all four Gospels, but Mark gets right to the point with John. John shows up right from the get go, announcing the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. And in Godly Play, our children's Sunday [00:01:00] school curriculum, you may be familiar with, we also begin the story of Advent with the prophets.

  
  We say that prophets are people who come so close to God, and God comes so close to them, that they know what's most important. And in godly play, we represent the prophets with a pointing finger.

  
  Now prophets are people who point us in the right direction, don't they? They direct our attention to what matters most. And John took his finger and pointed it directly to Jesus. In Godly Play, we talk about Jesus as the one who was coming and who is still coming. And we say that this is full of mystery.

  
  We tell the children that this is why Advent is so important. It helps us get ready to enter the mystery of Christmas. [00:02:00] And in case you didn't know, Godly Play is all about mystery and wonder, which is why I was caught a little off guard when I read the following part of the lesson, which, and maybe I'm projecting, but it struck me as uncharacteristically preachy.

  
  It reads, "This time of year, you will see people hurrying in the malls, buying things, doing this and that, but they miss the mystery of Christmas. They don't know how to get ready to enter a mystery. Or maybe they forgot." "Or maybe they're just moms doing their best," I thought to myself, a bit defensively. I mean, who isn't busy mid December?

  
  Religious culture often admonishes secular culture for its busyness this time of year. I call it the Mary Martha complex, right? And there was a time in my life, I'll admit, when I was a bit sanctimonious [00:03:00] about Advent, but that time was before I had children. For example, I used to think that Advent should be a time of quiet and contemplation.

  
  And while that's a perfectly wonderful way to observe Advent, let's just say that neither quiet nor contemplation are readily available to me these days. There's just too much noise in my life right now. And I'm not even talking about the noise that comes from my three precious children. It's the noise in my head that won't let up.

  
  Whether you are raising a family, or caregiving for a parent or for a spouse, or juggling demands at work, or facing a completely different kind of challenge. We may feel that we have yet to crack that book of Advent devotionals. We may feel behind on just about everything, including our spiritual lives.[00:04:00]

  
  The peaceful Advent that we had hoped for or aspired to just feels out of reach this year. And we may, we may wonder, what about Advent for busy people? How do we come close to a mystery like Christmas?

  I have a story that I'd like to share with you. A woman named Bree Stoner was attending a contemplative retreat and enjoying a reprieve from the demands of her daily life, even as she grew increasingly uncertain about whether she could maintain a spiritual practice once she returned to her young family.
  She asked her spiritual director, Jim, "can we talk about how much harder this is when I'm back home? Because I sometimes wake up at 5 a. m. desperate to have one prayer said. And it's like my kids have radar. And inevitably one of them wakes up 10 minutes later. I [00:05:00] mean, where is the icon of the mystic, with one baby on the hip, a toddler crying at their feet, cooking dinner with one hand, trying to finish work on a laptop with the other? Because that's my real life."

  
  And Jim said, "okay, okay. You be you, and I'll be God. And since I'm God, I'm watching you get up exhausted every morning. And I'm so touched that you want to spend this time with me.

  Really, I am. It just means the world to me. The thing is, I just can't bear how much I love you. It's too much. And so at a certain point, I rush into the bodies of your children and wake them up. Because," and Jim paused, "because I want to know what it feels like to be held by you."

  
  You [00:06:00] talk about a re-frame Hear this good news, beloved, exhausted, overwhelmed people of Advent as busy as we may be. God is never too busy for us. This conversation helped Bree realize that all the things she had been interpreting as distractions and interruptions were in fact the startlingly stunning diaphanous infusion of infinite love colliding into the small shape of her very finite and ordinary reality.

  
  There, she writes, at the intersection of everything, is God with us. Wanting to be touched, noticed, nurtured, held by us. All we have to do is behold. The image I keep coming back to in [00:07:00] my mind is the pointing finger of the prophets. This finger that directs our attention to what is most important. How often we assume that what's most important is somehow outside of our daily lives and experiences.

  
  We may assume that the demands of our lives are the problem. They are what keeps us from coming close to the mystery of Christmas. But it may also be true that John the Baptist is pointing his finger squarely into the midst of the chaos of our lives and saying, look, look, the one who was coming is still coming.

  
  Look and see, oh, busy people of Advent. God is with you.

  Amen.[00:08:00]