Distractions, distractions!

A sermon by The Rev. C. Dean Taylor

It has happened yet again. I walk into a room in my house, stop, turn my head from side to side, look around, and I think, “Why did I come into this room?”

I look down at my hands. One hand holds a coffee cup. The other, a pair of scissors. Hmmm. Could these be clues? Or the room itself. It is one of the kid’s old rooms, abandoned now.

I think back. OK, let’s go over this. I was headed to the kitchen with my coffee cup, and changed my mind in mid-route. Hmmm, did I pick up the scissors then and decide to wrap some presents, maybe? I remember passing by the television set and stopping to hear a story about unemployment, then changed my direction. Oh, yeah, to go and wrap that present that (I think) I hid in the closet of that room. That’s what I’m doing standing in the middle of this room!

Welcome to my world! If that world is, in some way, part of your world as well, at least some of the time, then welcome to the human race—specifically, that human tendency toward what we call distraction.

Distraction is part of the human condition. It happens, or we allow it to happen, when our senses are overloaded. When there is much to much going on out there and we are not able to focus on any one thing, or at least, on any one important thing, for very long.

Spiritually, I wonder sometimes whether we actually allow ourselves to be distracted, because some of the things that we could focus on would be too much to bear. We sit in the den with the newspaper, and on the TV news is a story about the outbreak of cholera in Africa. And, it is just enough of a story to allow us to just…begin….to feel…what it must be like to be one of those parents in that African village, whose child is dying, and to begin to think through what can be done.

2.

But then, thirty seconds later, there is an update on the terrorism in India, a bombing in Bagdad, the latest, incredibly startling news of the past month’s unemployment figures, followed by a debate among pundits about whether our recession is more like 1992 or 1932, and you begin to wonder about that. How bad is it? What will it mean to me? To the ones I love?

Then, in an instant, a loud, incredibly jarring, piercing voice leaps from the TV set and pierces right through to your brain:

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Spa sales event, no money down, easy payments; turn your apartment into a luxury hid-a-way. Followed by, “Evidra, ask your doctor today. Side effects include dizziness, drowsiness, lack of sleep, loss of appetite, epidemia, bone loss, depression, and weight gain. Ask your doctor today.”

Is it any wonder that we are a distracted people?

The single purpose of the season of Advent is to clear away all of that. To find some way, some creative way for you to stop, breathe, be quiet, and to pay attention to the important in your life. And in your world.

That’s what John the Baptist is saying: Watch, pay attention! One is coming into our world who will baptize, as he says, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit. With the heavenly fire of possibility, with justice and peace.

He is of course preaching directly to us, to you and I, this season. What we have to look forward to, in our future, is this “Spirit.” A spirit that will give you some kind of healing this year. A spirit that will give you some kind of wisdom, some kind of perspective, some kind of guidance or insight or strength that you did not have before. Some kind of resolution to some great problem or issue in your life. And in the life of the world. That’s what it means to be baptized by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

In expectation of that, we light a candle in the dark. We light an Advent candle in the dark, then two, then three and four, in anticipation of that good, hopeful thing that will be born in our future very soon. What will it be for you, don’t you wonder? For our world?

3.

The Advent question is never “if”, but “when” God will act, and perhaps “how.” Which leaves us with a kind of holy curiosity about the future. What in the world is this God of ours, this God of surprises—what in the world will this God of ours do this time?

But of course, here’s the bad news about us human beings. And that is this: It is very hard for distracted people to see hope in their lives. It is very hard for distracted people to see hope in the world. So Advent is the season simply to try and clear away the distraction, even for a moment, here and there.

I might add, by the way, that before we feel too bad about our times, we might note that distractions have spiritually plagued our ancestors as much as in our day. In fact, the very Advent wreath itself is about distraction.

Centuries before Christianity ever arrived on the shores of Britain, the ancient Celts and Druids worshipped what we believe to be some sort of Sun God. As you can imagine, each year, at about this time of the year, the wind grew colder, and the sun became weaker and lower in the sky. Would the sun ever return to its full strength? Might it keep going away and never return?

This was a fundamental question about the future, and it is much like ours. What will the future bring? Will times be as warm and good financially as they were? Might our times of abundance and prosperity be ended for all time? To focus on those questions, those ancient druids would take a wagon wheel off of their wagons at the approach of the winter solstice. They would bring that wagon wheel into their houses, and place it on the table or hang the wheel from the ceiling, and decorate it with evergreens and ivy—foliage that is green even in the winter.

Now here’s the point. Taking the wagon wheel off the wagon meant that they could not go anywhere. They could not be distracted by travel or even commerce, even business. Their sole purpose was to be quiet and wait for the sun god to return. To be still and wait for their God to act, to return and warm the earth. (Can you imagine, by the way, each of us taking a tire wheel off our cars during Advent and doing such a thing!)

4.

You see, the pagans got the fear part of religion right. That deep fear that all human beings have, especially in hard times, that these hard times will be with us forever.

Of course, Christianity wisely took that powerful symbol of the circle, that wheel, and gave it four candles. Christianity gave to that ancient symbol a more specific hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

By that fourth candle, it’s just about the turn of the solstice, and those dark fears are with us still. What will happen to our world? Will the darkness overcome the light? No, we light a candle in the dark, then two, then three, then four. Hope will be born again this year. It will be. No question about it.

The only question for us as a people is, how distracted will we be? The answer to that is up to us. God will give birth to hope, but we have to be the midwives. We have to have developed the habit of noticing those tiny glimmers of hope in the world, noticing what our God of hope is up to in the world.

How do you best deal with your distractions? What practical strategies might you develop, even for a few moments each week, maybe, each day. Perhaps with the quiet of morning coffee, silence, the TV off. The last thing at night, silence, before going to bed. The Quiet Day this coming Saturday at the church, listening to the words of Beverly Eliot and just being quiet. If you can’t think of many ways, well, pray for ideas! That works as well.

It’s up to us simply to pay attention. God will do the rest. So stop. Be quiet. It’s advent. Don’t you just wonder what hope the God of Jesus Christ will give birth to in your life this year?

Advent II, Year B

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Dalton, Georgia

12/7/08