A Reflection for the 1st Sunday of Advent St.Anne's- St. Mark's, Roper Grace, Plymouth
December 1, 2024 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant
Face To Face
Happy New Year!!
I know it is not January 1st. but this is first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church's year. We can blame this on the Council of Nicaea, called by the Roman ruler, Constantine, a soldier first and foremost, who wanted order in the unruly church he wanted to head up. He wanted his people to set up a Church year that would be able to blend the Christian and Pagan calendars, to mesh together throughout the Empire. The accepted idea was to downplay Jesus' Jewish roots and play to the calendar of the pagan Romans to make the transition easier for the Pagans. Constantine looked at the mess where Christmas and Easter were set up at different times in different parts of the Empire. Constantine had the delegates at Nicaea railroad a Creed and Calendar for the Empire and the church, and that is what we have handed down to us.
The official state holidays remained the same but they were now based on Christian time tables. Christmas was when Jesus was born nine months after the Spring or Vernal Equinox, and it replaced the old Pagan Festival day. New Years day was based on the old Roman New Year dedicated to the pagan God, Janus, the God of beginnings and it was Christianized as the Circumcision of Jesus, the first time his blood was shed, six days after he was born. Easter was the 1st Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. The Holidays remained the same except the names were changed and Christianized. Christianity began to evolve into a religious facade, like all the other religions, instead of being a whole different way of coming face to face with with the living God in our daily life with our neighbors and ourselves. The lessons for today call us back to being face to face.
From Paul's First Letter to the Church in Thessaloniki, he says a prayer that there will be a New Year:: “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.” He is praying that, “This time we will get it right!”
From the prophet Jeremiah's book, the writer relates seeing face to face with the will of God that as the people return from exile, that this time they will execute justice and righteousness instead of following their own narrow political and economic agendas. It is a good New Year's hope that this time the people, you and I, will chose to do justice and mercy. “This time we will get it right!”
The Psalmist sings of the need that we have of strengthening help; “Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; * remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord”. Help us to be able to be face to face with the will of God instead of chasing our own narrow agendas. “This time we can do it right!”
In the Gospel, Jesus is warning his disciples that the in the coming times, they, and you and I, will need, face to face, a strength greater than ourselves to make it through this time, in order to get it right.
I remember when I graduated from Seminary and I was not at all that sure that I could survive. It was at that time I met Pat, who would later help me find strength. But, I first met her when I went to a meeting in the new diocese and I saw her at that meeting. She was standing with a bunch of annoyed women with scowls, who were all wearing an almost uniform of large coats and long scarves, and smoking little black cigarettes. I looked at them and thought, “God deliver me from angry women.”
She came up to me, the new guy on the block, to complain that her son had stopped going to the Episcopal Church in the University town in which I was just called to be a Chaplain and Assistant Rector. All I could think was that her son was trying to find his new life away from home. I understood in my life when I went off to college, I just did not want to do any religious bit. I wanted to tell her that our children need to make their own decisions as adults. She cut me off before I got through the first sentence. She did not want a discussion; she wanted me to look him up and face to face, get him back into the fold of the Episcopal Church. That was my job!
We were standing next to each other, but we were not seeing face to face, but from facade to facade; I in my clergy suit and she in her angry woman uniform. She worked for the Diocese and it took years before we were able to go beyond facades to facades, to face to face. When we stopped looking at the convenient facades and looked deeper, seeing each other as complex broken people who cared deeply for other people. We learned how to care for each other, face to face. She helped make me a better Priest and Pastor in the churches we served together. Face to face changes every thing.
One of the drawbacks to me being a visiting fireman, jumping between two churches on Sunday mornings, two or three times a month is that, and while you have been very gracious to me; we do not take the time to spend to really know each other. I am sorry for the reality of our schedules, but we need to do what we can to see each other face to face, if that is your desire. You are kind and listen to me when I am here; I would like to listen to you with what St. Benedict called, “listening with the ear of our heart.” and have you share how you see or hear the Holy in your life. This time we will get it right!
I want to end with a beginning of a prayer by the Rev. Dr. Randley Woodley, that I read on a Thanksgiving day blog:
“Great Mystery, I am humbled that I will never know everything about you, but I am grateful that through the lives of the other I can know more of you. While I thank you for those who are like me, I especially thank you for those who are different than me.”
Face To Face
There is a Holy space between us,
wherein the Sacred One dwells,
listening without church bells,
when a word “God” isn't a cuss,
but a lover's whispered address,
to a one who's beyond knowing,
unbound by categories showing,
yet, helping each of us to bless,
those who care, or who busy don't,
because we've all this work to do,
in keeping up with all what's new,
but especially the ones who won't.
The Holy is between you and me
shaping “you” into a Holy “Thee.”
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