SERMON ADVENT SUNDAY YEAR B 27 Nov 2005
In the name of God, who calls us to watchfulness. Amen.
In the Canberra Times last Thursday there was an article on
clutterers. As the name suggests, clutterers are people who live surrounded by
enormous amounts of clutter. The photos showed levels of domestic consumption
and non-disposal that were truly awesome: rooms in which it was virtually
impossible to move because of the piles of …..stuff; cupboards that wouldn’t
close; drawers overflowing.
There are even professional ‘de-clutterers’, consultants
who make their living sorting through other people’s clutter and helping them
to find strategies for managing their possessions and indeed, in certain cases,
for disposing of their possessions.
Acquisition of material goods has become, for some, a
disease. They continually acquire, whether or not they actually need the item,
and then cannot use it or throw it away. There are, so the newspaper article
told us, over 50 12 step programs in the United States designed to help people
so afflicted. Their lives are significantly disrupted by their inability to
control their impulse to acquire, to hoard and to surround themselves with their
clutter.
This article made me feel somewhat less concerned about the
state of my desk. It might look like it but I am not actually out of control and
I can navigate my way around my house and study quite easily. The discipline of
moving every few years also provides a useful antidote to any cluttering
tendencies.
However, it struck me, as I read the article, that there are
many ways in which we clutter our lives and become overwhelmed by things which
we think we want but don’t actually need or use. And it is about those things
that I wish to speak today.
For it is Advent – one of the two periods in the church
year set apart for repentance, for the examination of our souls and our
consciences, and for placing our feet more firmly in the path of godliness.
It is a time for spiritual housecleaning, for a stocktake of
how we live our lives. It is a time to dispose of all those things which weigh
us down in our spiritual life.
Often our clutter is invisible to us. We live among it and
do not see how it gets in the way. How can we see it clearly? Today’s readings
give us a clue. They call us to live each day as if it were our last, to be
watchful, aware, always expecting to meet God face to face.
What is there cluttering up your life? Perhaps it is
something you know you should be doing and yet you aren’t? Is there someone
you need to forgive? Or someone you need to challenge? Do you need to spend more
time in prayer? More time with your family? Do you need to be more diligent at
work? What is your soul telling you about your spiritual health?
The analogy with physical fitness is a good one. If we are
as fit as we can be, we are able to meet more challenges than if we are not. The
less surplus weight we carry, the more able we are move quickly and efficiently
(and yes, I am on a diet!)
The question is, of course, wider than just our individual
health. What we do as Christians has both an individual aspect and a communal
aspect. Our spiritual housecleaning applies to our life together as a community
of faith and to our ministry in the world beyond our Christian community. What
is basic and fundamental to who we are and what is not?
Here at All Saints we made a pretty good fist of answering
that question a couple of years ago at the Parish planning day. We talked about
our faith, our commitment to an intelligent and informed interpretation of
Scripture and to diversity, of our love of sacramental worship and Anglican
spirituality, and of our desire to share the beauty of holiness with those
around us.
Advent is a good time for us to ask whether we are being
true to this understanding of who we are before God.
A further question is put to us by today’s Gospel reading.
Peter and Andrew and James and John, who were about to
become the leaders of the Church were told to look for and respond to the signs
of the times. They were fishermen. They were successful at their craft. Their
lives and their business depended upon them being able to read the signs that
were all around them about what was about to happen with the weather. Now they
are told to bring exactly this same expertise of insight and response to the
life of the Church.
We are a hundred generations on
from Jesus’ call to Peter and Andrew and James and John to read the signs of
the times. Always there are signs of the times. And always there is the need for
decisive and appropriate responses from the Church. If we drift the times will
overwhelm us just like a drought sucks the life out of the ground.
What are our times telling us? Australian society and Australian people are
losing contact with their Christian origins. In only a couple of generations the
stories have been lost. Christmas is about family – but few people mention the
holy family in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. Easter is about a rabbit and chocolate.
I am not one normally to quote Archbishop Peter Jensen, as you will know, but
this is a point he has made in the first Boyer lecture – our culture is shot
through with the Christian story and with the Christian understanding of
existence, but many Australians simply are not aware of it.
The challenge is urgently before all Christians to tell the
story of our faith and the ways of God in the lives of all humanity. The keys
come from the Bible and two thousand years of Christian reflection and
experience.
Our faith is not just for isolated individuals. Our religious faith largely
determines how we relate to each other, how we organise our life together, how
we have built the political and legal structures within which we function as
Australians. The great task of the Church is to preserve and pass on that faith.
We are to equip ourselves and then to communicate what we know, what we have
seen and heard and understood to those around us so that they too will
understand the world in the light of the love of God that is revealed in Christ.
Let us unclutter our lives and respond to the signs of the
times. Amen.