Happy New Year!
It may sound odd that the church begins a new year differently
from the calendar of the secular world. Of course this is true
of many religions. I believe it is just one more way to point
out to us that we live, as Christians, in a different time, God’s
time. In a real way, every day for a Christian is a new year,
a starting over, a beginning again. Today is a starting over for
the church, so that we can once again go through the journey of
our Lord’s birth, life, death, and resurrection and contemplate
his teachings. Each year we hear some of the same old stories,
but hopefully, each year we hear something new. This is the wonder
of Scripture, the wonder of a Living Christ, and the wonder of
the Holy Spirit working in each one of us as we hear what it is
we need to hear. It doesn’t always work; we do have the
freedom to resist hearing anything new at all, to resist engaging
our heart with our minds, to resist the changes that such hearing
could evoke. But, today is a new year, and perhaps we can resolve,
or pray, to lay down our resistance and be open to the Word of
God, the Christ of God, however and whenever it comes to us.
Now, how many of you are prepared for Christmas?
How many of you are prepared for Christ to come into your hearts
and homes in a new way?
Jesus says we must be prepared for such a coming! He suggests
that we be awake and ready at all times. Of course, this doesn’t
literally mean we should never sleep! A man who expects his house
to be robbed stays awake out of fear. To prepare for the coming
of the Christ is not to prepare out of fear, but out of hope—longing
for brighter light in our lives, more love in our lives, more
peace in our hearts and in our world. To prepare for Christ to
enter us anew is to prepare for the unexpected, the unsettling,
the joyfully wondrous, and for committed discipleship.
This Advent, I ask us to go beyond, “What a Friend we have
in Jesus.” I love the song and sometimes the concept. But
Jesus is far more than our friend. He is our Master, our Mentor,
our Maestro. Friendship is comfortable. Discipleship is a radical
way of being retrained. Jesus has more friends than disciples.
This Advent, let us prepare for discipleship. Our life belongs
to God—let us learn to live out of this truth, instead of
engaging in the lullaby of church sitting. May our sitting in
the pews begin to make us restless for change, for action—for
the Christ we claim to follow. Following is not sitting. We come
to sit, to sing, to pray together, to eat together as one part
of the discipline of discipleship that we then continue to take
with us as we leave this place.
So how do we begin to prepare for discipleship, for real engagement
with a Living Lord?
How do we wake up, to Christ’s coming? How can we make our
lives a living work of art dedicated to Christ?
Not quickly, I assure you. Anything worth doing takes time, practice
and risk. And if this isn’t worth doing, then nothing is!
Either what we do every day is important or nothing is. In a sense,
we can live our entire life every day!
So—preparedness takes patience. It won’t happen overnight.
It takes a lift-time that can begin today, or that has already
begun, but has gotten pushed to the back seat because of life’s
concerns, worries have taken the front seat for most of us. Somehow
we continually let our priorities get out of order. Be patient
with yourself when you do this, but be aware; so that you can
begin to reorder your priorities to put God first. “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God and God only shall you serve. You
shall have no other gods before the one holy God. You shall not
bow down to them or serve them, says the Lord.” Well, there
you go….
So, redesign your commitments. Easier said than done. Then Practice!
Practice the Christian life. It’s not just a matter of saying
I believe; it is a matter of doing and going along with Christ.
And it takes practice to walk the way of Christ. Just like a little
child is unsteady on his feet the first few weeks of walking,
or a person with a knee replacement needs a cane to help at first
to practice walking, we need practice in following Christ.
I’d like to suggest that we begin with the practice of prayer.
Now, you might think, “I already pray.” I certainly
hope you do. But if you are like me, there are times you are more
faithful at this and times you are not. And most of us think of
prayer as something we are doing. Does it ever occur to you that
God is the one who begins the prayer! Our prayer is a response
to God or we would not be doing it.
I remember one morning here at church for Thursday meditation--I
didn’t feel like praying. I was feeling overwhelmed and
my body hurt. So I just lay down on a pew. During that time, I
felt God like a mother wrap me in a warm blanket and rock me and
comfort me, telling me it was all right to simply be there, needing
rest, being with God.
And yet another time while I was complaining to God about my schedule
and how it wouldn’t all fit in to 24 hours, I heard God
plain as day from somewhere inside of me saying--”Listen
to me. I’m not doing this to you, you are. You fix it!”
Now, every time I pray I don’t have an “experience”
to tell people about. Most times I don’t. But every time
I pray, I am aware that I am in the presence of God, and that
awareness often carries over to the rest of my day. In fact, that
is sometimes what keeps me from praying; I don’t always
want to listen. Sometimes I want to run the other way!
Prayer takes commitment; prayer takes time, even when we don’t
want to do it. Some of us feel too busy to have the time; others
feel they aren’t good at prayer, so why should they pray?
Well, if you aren’t good at listening to your children,
practice is a good idea. If you aren’t good at listening
to your friends, practice would be important. But if you aren’t
good at listening to God, well you are out of contact with the
Director of the whole production we call Life. So listen up. Prayer
is essentially listening. You don’t have to sit on a pew
to pray. You don’t have to kneel. You don’t have to
be quiet—you can sing! You can write! You can paint a prayer.
But you do need to listen, too. Before you sing or paint or write,
we all need to listen—to the word of Holy Scripture, to
the beauty of creation, to the suffering of others, to the joy
of children, to the tears of children, to the writings ancient
or modern that touch our hearts with God’s presence in this
world. We need to listen to the orderly in the hospital, the postman,
the grocery clerk.
You can think of your own new ways of praying. There is an insert
in your bulletin that may help you get going with your prayer
discipline. Try at least a few of these each week of Advent. Set
aside a daily time for meeting up with God—early in the
morning to begin your day is always good. In the evening to reflect
on where you have met God during the day is a good thing. Even
make yourself a special place to spend that time—a favorite
chair, a favorite path, a special candle—somewhere you can
be alone with your Guardian and Guide.
I do want to warn you, that although prayer seems like a nice,
quiet, relaxing thing to do,
it is one of the most powerful ways to break through our resistance
and set us on our way, walking the walk Christ calls us to walk.
So pray, but not cautiously. Pray with hope and with optimism
that God is at work in your before you even begin to pray, and
that this Advent is inviting you to a life that could just change
who you are as you move closer to the One to whom you belong.
During the month of Advent, let us all not miss one day of prayer.
And as we pray for all those things we think we need, let us all
pray for what we really need, a closer relationship with the One
who loves us enough to come to us and dwell with us, our Lord,
Emmanuel.