advent musings

 

SERMON PREACHED AT St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN,

and St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1^st, 2024

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

 

READINGS

 

Jeremiah 33:14-161

Psalm 25:1-9

Luke 21: 25-28

 

In the Seventeenth Century a Carmelite Friar, who took the name Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, regularly penned his thoughts on the life of faith. The came to be known as the “practice of the presence of God,” and in all their simplicity, they came to be one of the most widely printed – and read – books of all time.

Brother Lawrence’s outlook was deceptively simple. Simple, because the heart of this lifestyle was the simple desire to see and to serve God in all he did. Deceptive, because the Carmelite life is marked by daily silence for prayer, structured reading of psalms, and observation of two hours daily of prayerful silence. On top of this the Carmelites are committed to a life of study.

Brother Lawrence therefore, unlike Yours Truly, was no sort of Christian hippie. Yet for those of us who struggle along with lesser discipline or no discipline at all there are at least the rudiments of deeper relationship with God in his teachings. As George Herbert put it, independently of Brother Lawrence,

Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.

As a professional, and seemingly incurable birdbrain, I have never achieved anything remotely resembling the disciplines of Brother Lawrence or even George Herbert, whose hymn I just quoted. But across the readings of this day there runs the theme of the immediacy of God – an immediately of time and space. God is just there – just here – around and within us, made present to all the degree we need by the one we call Spirit. 

God is present through all time, from pre-time to post-time, though we can never understand this, because we are laid low by timefulness. But perhaps more significant for this first Sunday of Advent, all time is, if I can put it this way, all time is present in the God who is timelessly present with us. And so our readings focus on divine immediacy, preparation to encounter God no longer, as Paul put it, through a glass darkly, but face to face. Face to face: that encounter that the Hebrews knew to be impossible to survive, but for which we are encouraged to practice for by preparation each day.

And while we may never be Brother Lawrences, we are at the very least encouraged to generate, or perhaps to permit, awareness of the presence of God, embodiment of love and compassionate judgement, in our every moment.