A Reflection for Advent III All
Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC
December 11, 2016 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
"What Did
You Hope To See?"
This is the third Sunday of Advent and we
have lit the third candle in the Advent wreath, the rose-colored candle which
is a symbol of Joy. The lessons have elements of joy in them. But wait, you say
- if this is a time of repentance, aren’t we supposed to feel bad and not be
joyful? It would seem so, except the
word the New Testament uses for “repent” is a translation of the Greek word metanoia which is a combination word
meaning “a changing of awareness”.
I
was raised in the Episcopal Church, but I left when I went off to college
because I found no meaning in services and stayed away because I had wanted
something greater than going through old rituals. I had changed physical addresses
from my childhood home in conservative upstate New York to a very liberal
university community in North Carolina. I was changing, becoming an adult. All
in all, it was a change of awareness.
I
was a Drama major for the first two years of school, and one of my assignments
in the Directing class was to direct a scene with a couple of my classmates. I
chose a scene in George Bernard Shaw’s play Man
and Superman, a dream sequence from Act III, Don Juan in Hell. The
protagonist of the play, John Tanner, has a dream in which he appears as Don
Juan from the Mozart opera. You may remember at the end of the opera, Don Juan is
dragged into Hell by the statue of the man he killed in a duel, the Commander,
the father of Dona Ana, the girl that Don Juan would not commit to and whose
so-called duty-bound honor caused the duel to begin with. The dream sequence is
a debate between Don Juan and the Devil about the meaning of life and the Commander
and Dona Ana are there to give their thoughts. There was an opening essay that
Shaw wrote that I found meaningful part of which reads:
In the last part
of the scene Don Juan wants to leave Hell for only the wicked are comfortable
there. He asks for the way out and the statue answers: "The frontier
between Heaven and Hell is only the difference between two ways of looking at
things; any road will take you across."
Later on I had a series of changes of
awareness that made me leave acting and eventually go back to the Episcopal Church.
Yet, every day is a day of metanoia
when we can have a change of awareness to see joy.
The
Song from Isaiah, a song of joy sung to the exiles as they begin to hear news
of the possible return to their home after the years of exile in Babylon starts
off with:
The
wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the
crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The Psalm for today is one of the last six songs of praise in the Psalter, a song of praise of God for bringing joy to all sorts and conditions of people who usually are vulnerable to exploitation and thereby often joyless - the prisoners, the oppressed, those beaten down, the blind, the widows, the orphans, and the resident aliens sojourning in the land. God is promiscuous in giving joy.
The Epistle of James suggests that the people need to be patient, as the farmer who waits for the rain to fall is patient. Joy is at hand.
This song of joy is in the Gospel lesson from Matthew for today. John the Baptizer is a prisoner in Herod’s dungeon. He had spent his life looking forward to the joy to come, and now he is in prison. He sends his followers to see what is happening, and Jesus tells them that the Songs of the Psalter and of Isaiah are coming true and there is healing. John’s life was not wasted. John could now have some joy on the boundary of heaven and hell for a life lived in a mighty purpose.
Jesus then asks the people who had come out to the wilderness to see him, “What did you hope to see?” When I talk with people who come here to this church, I ask the same kind of question. Some people come out habit for they have always gone somewhere and they find themselves here; therefore they show up to satisfy the compulsion of habit. Some come out of hope that they will find something different. Some come with an expectation that there will be some sort of advantage for themselves or their children. Some come fleeing from a past experience. Some come searching for answers. Some come out of a need to join a community of people wrestling with better questions. Some come out of emptiness in their lives. Some come to find a way to make a difference in thanksgiving for the fullness of their lives. People come for all sorts of reasons, but I suggest that they come because there is a pull from the spiritual core of their lives that is still too deep for them to be consciously aware.
My
theology is that all things have a spiritual core for we were created by, and
participate in, the one spirit. We are not human beings who have spirits, but
spiritual beings who have human bodies that we inhabit in the brief time we are
in this limited dimension. We come to find joy, a meaning to this short life, a
mighty purpose, as we stand each day on the boundary of Heaven and Hell.
What Did You Hope To See?
Came
to see if I could return to my youth
when
I knew with certain no persuading.
But
no longer a child, those days fading
when
I trusted a single authority's truth.
Suspicion
unbidden arising over agenda;
what
they are trying to pull over on me?
How
do the magicians hide what I'll see
'fore
my hands open, becoming a spender
of
my precious resources of independence;
holding
awhile before committing so soon
to
avoid hearing a trumpet's uncertain tune,
just
limit involvement to a mere attendance.
Yet
I yearn to be something greater than self,
to
become more than just a sitting on a shelf.
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