Scripture: Luke 21:25-36
Shhhhhhh.... be still... be still for 30 seconds... starting NOW.
[30 seconds]
"There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken... shaken... shaken”
Be honest…how was it for you to be still for 30 seconds?
Where were you?
What was going on for you as the seconds ticked past?
Was it relaxing?
Or did it make you feel anxious?
Or self-conscious? Or Bored?
Maybe you got annoyed, and rebelled: "who does this guy think he is, telling me, to be still."
Or perhaps, as the seconds ticked past, you became very aware of just how long 30 seconds of stillness actually feels.
The reality is, most of us have trouble with stillness. Ohhh, we might say that we crave it:
"Life is so busy" we opine
"Oh, how I wish I had a minute just to be still!"
But when we get that minute, we tend to fill it, not with stillness, but with suff, don't we?
We read something,
or eat something,
or turn on the Netflix,
or more commonly these days,
we mess around on our phones -
we fill our seconds with stuff.
Though we might think of ourselves as citizens, likely much more than we are aware of, we spend much of our time these days simply as consumers - consumers in an economy of distraction, where our attention, and the data that is monitored, manipulated and monetized from it, is the new fungible currency. Empowered by A.I. and algorithms, it is an undeniable truth of our present reality that powerful corporate and political interests are becoming shockingly sophisticated in exploiting our often uneasy relationship with stillness.
And what is at the root of this uneasiness?
Some wars in this world are fought with guns, but I would argue, that for most of us,
the most intense battles we fight take place within ourselves.
Shame, guilt, regret, fear - unhealthy self-talk about our own self-worth - those internal battles when it feels like the Sun and moon and stars in the heavens are shaken... shaken... shaken... and we don't like feeling this way, do we?
So reach out for a handrail to steady ourselves-
and so we read something,
or eat something,
or Netflix something,
or mess around with our phones.
We distract ourselves from ourselves and we voluntarily abdicate our attention.
And let’s be clear - this is not benign, because we are abdicating our attention to forces that seek to flatten the human experience into the eco-chambered realities that they alone control. They know that we will fill every second with stuff - their stuff - because sitting in stillness, alone with our own stuff… is really hard.
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This is my first sermon after being away for 4 months on holiday and then sabbatical.
Maybe you feel this at times as well, but for a while now, I have found that the almost constant pull of distraction has been having a flattening effect on my soul and a domesticating effect on my faith.
For a while now, I have been craving something deeper… more wolfish, so the gift of time of these past months was anchored by a wilderness right of passage that I did in the Dartmoor Forest of southwest England.
Led by the mythologist Dr. Martin Shaw, I was part of a group of Christian pilgrims, that spent a week in the woods, and included 4 days of vigil and fasting... alone.
Four days - that's over three-hundred thousand seconds - with no food, no books, no tech, no tent, no-one to talk to - just stillness, and the sun, the moon and the stars in the heavens to mark the passing of time.
There, in that primordial place of wind and waking dreams, we sat for a while outside the distraction economy, simple citizens of creation with the moss and stone.
As Dr. Shaw said, it was time set apart to encounter the animal of life, not just the pelt.
To encounter the animal, not the pelt.
From the Maasai of Kenya, to the Sateré-Mawé of Brazil, to the Anishinaabe and Inuit of North America, different cultures have been doing wilderness right of passage rituals for millennia. But in our days, in our so called “modern” culture most of us, myself included, are not accustomed to feeling wolf-breath on our face.
It was hard.
I found the stillness very hard.
There, alone, beneath the sun, moon and the stars in the heavens there was nowhere to hide - no stuff to distract me from my own stuff - those fears, regrets, and unhealthy narratives that have keratinized within me over the years like snake scale.
And as the seconds ticked past, the stillness became like a wire brush scraping, scraping, scraping it's way towards raw flesh.
It was hard, at times it was horrible, and at least for the first three days, barely a second ticked past that I did not want to quit - to grab a well-worn handrail of distraction, and get the heck out of there.
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Each year, the scripture passages for this, the first Sunday in Advent, have a distinctly darker tone that we might associate with this season were we anticipate the birth of Christ.
The readings on this Sunday speak of what we might refer to as the "end times", or "the apocalypse".
A time where, as Jesus puts it in our Luke text today:
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken... shaken... shaken.
So, if you looking for some fa-la-la-la-la's this week, I'm sorry, but you will be disappointed. But stick with me.
Within popular culture, and even within the church, there is often a misunderstanding that "apocalypse" is synonymous with "destruction": with meteorites slamming to the earth, or giant tidal waves swamping cities, or maybe that some people will be snatched up to heaven while the rest of us poor sods are left behind to deal with zombies and gridlock on the freeway forever.
But as much fodder as these narratives offer Hollywood screenwriters and megaphoned street preachers, none of it holds up to critical analysis, or, I would argue, to biblical faith.
The Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama helpfully notes that the term "apocalypse" is not about destruction, it's about revelation - as in "to reveal something".
Apocalypse is a word from the theatre meaning to pull back the curtain. To pull back the curtain on that which is hidden - to reveal that which is true - even if the truth is hard to bear.
But also, and this is important, as we see in our Gospel text: God's attention is not just focused on some far off reality, but in the present moment. God's attention is especially focused in those hard moments, as Luke puts it: "of fear and foreboding when it feels like everything is shaken... shaken...shaken."
Indeed, when our present reality includes war, polarized politics, hate crimes, the epidemic of loneliness, or anything that traps people in fear or despair, it is THEN that we should be looking for God's in-breaking.
It is precisely when we feel shaken, when things get impossibly hard, that we should expect the advent of the Child of Humanity, the Christ, the one whose promised future inspires our living today.
It is a truth of the Christian faith that Christ comes into the world… but like the thief in the night, scripture also tells us that his coming may not be in a way we expect or could ever anticipate.
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My time in the Dartmoor Forest was not easy.
But as hard as it was, the experience was not destructive. I was never unsafe. It was however, I believe, "apocalyptic." Apocalyptic in that truth was revealed.
You see, there in the stillness, I had nowhere to hide from some hard truths about myself, but also there in the stillness, a deeper truth was revealed - not about me... but about God. A deeper truth was revealed… but not in any way I would have anticipated or expected.
The first three days of the vigil were very windy. These roiling waves of wind would come rolling down the valley, shaking the trees and chilling the bones.
It was grey, and cold, and even the birds were sheltering in place.
Thoughts, regrets, worries kept roiling like storms within me, and I hadn't slept much.
I was getting weak from lack of food.
So by the end of the third day, I was pretty fed up. I recall that dusk was only just falling, but I was so done with that day, I just climbed into my sleeping bag and and curled into a ball, shaking and feeling very very alone.
Physically, mentally, spiritually I was empty.
And then... and then the clouds lightened and the wind stopped.
And a little bird landed in the ewe tree right over my head and started singing. Singing and singing and singing a song so beautiful it could have been a beatitude.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And I listened and found myself laughing and weeping and all shaking was stilled.
There, in the darkening time between the dog and the wolf, when I was empty, suddenly I was filled. I was filled with birdsong, filled with blessing.
I don't pretend to understand it, this is the stuff of mystery, but I know it to be true because I experienced it, that what I needed was provided - and the deepest, wildest part of me knows that it was provided by God.
Even though I was cold, hungry and alone, I didn't actually need the creature comforts, or technological distractions, or the approval of others, or any of the other handrails I tend to grab for when I am feeling depleted or scared.
I needed to know the truth.
I needed to know the TRUTH that I was worthy of God's attention.
My beloveds, I come back from the forest with this message: you are worthy of God's attention.
It is all true…
“Ask, and it will be given;search, and you will find;knock, and the door will be opened.
Christ comes most directly into those moments when everything else is stripped away and it is revealed just how much we need him.
Perhaps it won’t be with trumpets and a chorus of the heavenly host. Maybe, for us, Christ comes in the presence of a friend when we need them, or in the kindness of a stranger on the subway, or maybe, just maybe, Christ’s Spirit is revealed in a tiny bird in a forest far away with a voice so beautiful that it fills us with the courage we need to not give up when things get hard - to keep showing up.
To keep showing up in our times of emptiness and in our times of fullness - to show up in our longings and our celebrations and to recognize every second for what it is: a gift.
A gift of God who shows up for us.
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The challenge of faith is never the absence of God, it is the absence of us.
Christ is here in our present reality, but so often, we aren’t.
We are pulled in dozens of different directions - we abdicate our attention and become inattentive to the details of life.
And this is the great disconnect, because for God, the details matter - nothing is unimportant - not the trees, not the bees, not me, not you.
Every detail matters to God, and for us, God will only be revealed in the details of our present reality.
God is revealed in the details of your own life.
Remember: seek the animal, not the pelt.
And fear not the wolf breath on your face.
Every second of every day is an invitation to behold what God has done and is doing right now to bring love and liberation into this world.
Every second we are given is a new opportunity to say or sing or simply sit in the stillness of our faith-filled response, which naturally comes overflowing as praise-making for the gift of life - this fleeting gift of life that is so precious that God comes in Jesus Christ to live it alongside us as one of us.
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Advent is a time for practicing attention - for waiting, watching, listening for the everyday revelation that God's promises are true - that God is with us - even in ways that we might not anticipate or expect.
And so in this season for practicing attention, especially if things get hard - if we feel depleted, or scared or alone and we are tempted to ask "where is God right now?"
I invite you to remember the deep truth that you are worthy of God's attention, and ask yourself instead: "Where am I right now?"
Be still and ask "Where am I right now?"
And maybe, just maybe as the seconds tick past, you will hear a birdsong on the wind.
Shhhhhhh.... be still...
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