First Sunday of Advent, Year A

Donna Joy

Matthew 24:36-44

Today marks the beginning of a new year, a new liturgical year. The purpose of the liturgical year is to take us deeper and deeper into the life of Jesus, so that our lives may become woven into his, so that our lives may reflect his life, so that we may become channels through which the world may see him. Each season throughout the liturgical year focuses on a particular aspect of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection: Advent: waiting; Christmas: birth; Epiphany: discovering and sharing gifts; Lent: repentance, self examination; Holy Week: journey to the cross; Easter: Resurrection; Pentecost: Holy Spirit; Season of Pentecost (Ordinary Time): discovering God in the midst of our ordinary, day-to-day lives. Each liturgical year begins with the Season of Advent, that time of the year when we watch, wait and prepare for the coming of Jesus. That is, the second coming of Jesus.

The first century church really struggled with this notion of waiting for Jesus’ second coming, so when Matthew’s Gospel was being written about 80 or 90 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection they found guidance and wisdom in the passage we have heard this morning. This passage is taken from the section in Matthew where Jesus is telling his disciples about his return. “Keep awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Keep awake. So, as the early church anxiously anticipated Jesus’ return they were reminded that as they wait they must keep awake.

In order to explain what ‘keeping awake’ looks like Jesus recalls Noah as a role model. He recalls that Noah is living his life in a very different way than the society with which he is surrounded. He is living in a counter cultural way. His contemporaries were living extravagant lives: eating and drinking; and they were carrying on with the usual events of day to day living: marrying and giving their children in marriage. But the real issue is that they were living lives that took into consideration ONLY the day to day living, without the vision of God’s plan at the centre. Their lives were composed of a seemingly endless series of repeated activities, leaving them neither time nor inclination to imagine God’s bigger plan for their lives & for Israel. They were living, primarily for the sake of living. Noah, on the other hand, was devoted to listening to God’s word and acting on God’s plan. Noah was committed to living in relationship with the God of all being.

There is nothing wrong with tending to day-to-day activities and responsibilities (in fact, it is absolutely necessary) but they must always be seen within the context of God’s bigger promise and plan. So keeping awake means to listen to God’s word and act on God’s plan. Jesus is suggesting that Noah was awake and the culture with whom he was surrounded had fallen asleep.

For 2,000 years, the church has been the gathering place in which Jesus followers are called to stay awake and keep watch, where Jesus’ followers are called to listen to God’s word and act on God’s plan, where Jesus` followers are expected to live in relationship with him and remember his promise to return. The church has been and continues to be that place where God’s promise of Jesus’ return sets the tone and informs everyday life. To be fully awake is to live everyday according to the promise that Jesus’ return could be today.

As in Noah’s time, the culture in which we live is dominated by a sense of simply getting on with day-to-day life, but often with no sense of God’s place in the midst of all that this is. Each year the season of Advent is a good example of what this looks like. As was pointed out last week, in a consumer driven, market driven world Christmas began the day after Halloween. People everywhere are getting on with day-to-day life, shopping for Christmas: spending money they may or may not have, buying things for people that they may or may not need. But we, the church, are called to something different. Our primary focus during the Season of Advent is to focus on and prepare for the coming of the Son of Man so that all things may be set to right. Our primary focus during the Season of Advent is to focus on and prepare for the birth of Jesus into our lives in fresh new ways as we celebrate this birth at Christmas.

The church plays an important role in the midst of a consumer driven, market driven society. Each year, week after week, the church is that place where we gather to remain awake to discover the presence of Jesus in our midst and the presence of Jesus yet to come. In a competitive world where people are frantically trying to maintain a pace that is often impossible to sustain, the Anglican Church here at St. Peter`s offers unwavering opportunities for an encounter with God whose very presence is made known in Jesus. In a calendar driven world where people are busy 24/7 with their day-to-day commitments and responsibilities, the Anglican Church at St. Peter`s offers a different way of envisioning time – a different kind of calendar – a liturgical calendar which over time takes us deeper and deeper into the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In a self satisfied, self focused world where loneliness and isolation abound, the church offers an inter dependent family where the goal is to live into Jesus` mandate to be channels through which his love is made known to each other and to the world in which we live.

And so, today as we celebrate the First Sunday in Advent, we begin a new liturgical year. This is an ideal time to make New Year resolutions. St. Peter`s Vestry has asked me to urge you to reflect on the important role St. Peter`s fulfills as a spiritual centre in which God in Christ is made known in the midst of everyday life. In the midst of all the challenges of everyday life, St. Peter`s remains a place in which people can discover the presence of God in Christ; a place in which people may be nurtured by that holy encounter; a place in which people may discover relationships in the midst of loneliness; a place in which people may discover a God who accepts them unconditionally, speaks to them through the Word and nurtures them through the Eucharistic Meal; a place in which there is genuine care for and response to those who have not enough.

St. Peter`s Vestry has asked me to urge you to reflect on all of this, and to intentionally, prayerfully discern what God is calling you to give in support of this holy place. During the coming liturgical year, what is God calling you to offer in time, talent and treasure? In terms of time and talent, we encourage you to visit the Ministry Fair after this morning`s service. Have a look at all the ministries that allow this parish to live more and more faithfully according to Jesus` mandate, and see if there is any ministry that God may be calling you into.

In terms of treasure, an estimate of giving form will be handed out during the offertory and Vestry has asked that you consider indicating your financial commitment to St. Peter`s over the coming year, and placing it on the offertory plate when it comes to you. As you discern your financial commitment to St. Peter`s, Vestry encourages you to reflect on the valuable role that St. Peter`s fulfills and the degree to which God is calling you to support the worship, ministries, mission and outreach that are so much a part of this holy place. Each of us, within the silence of our own hearts knows if we are already giving faithfully according to what God is calling us to give. Those who have already reached that maximum level of giving - please know that you are not being asked to give more. Those who may feel called to increase your level of giving – we invite you to discern that prayerfully and in consultation with others in your household.

As you prayerfully discern your financial support over the coming year, I offer you a true story of someone in a parish where I served as incumbent a number of years ago. He was a cradle Anglican; an extremely faithful member of both the parish and the diocese; a man in his mid forties, married with two children; a relatively successful businessman who lived a comfortable life. One year in early January as he was balancing his own personal financial records for the previous year, something jumped off the page of his financial spreadsheet that was to change his attitude toward his financial support of his church for the rest of time. One line on the spreadsheet indicated what he had spent to support his family`s membership at the Wildwood Club, and immediately under that line on the spreadsheet was his annual giving to his church. The 1^st line was a much larger amount than the 2^nd. At the AGM that year he shared this story, confessed having ‘woken up’ to the discrepancy between these two numbers, and made a promise that never again would he pay less to the church than what he paid to be a member of a private club. He said that since he valued the worship, ministries, mission and outreach of the church even more highly than his membership to the W.C. it just made sense that his level of giving would be an outward expression of that sense of value. He identified this experience as a kind of ‘awakening’.

As we begin this new liturgical year and prepare for the coming of Jesus, we are called to Stay Awake: to listen to God’s word and act on God’s plan; to live in relationship with Jesus and remember his promise to return. This has been the purpose of the church for 2,000 years, and remains our purpose today. Let us begin this new liturgical year, prepared to Stay Awake (perhaps ‘wake up’ in places where we have been asleep): to listen to God’s word and act on God’s plan and to prayerfully discern ways in which we are called to support this important mandate.