Second Sunday of Advent. Come to your senses, a sermon preached at Victor Harbor

 This old door reminds me that Advent invites me to 'come to my senses'

Second Sunday of Advent

We sometimes say of another person but rarely about ourselves: ‘Have they taken leave of their senses?’

Advent is a season where the friends of Jesus Christ are called to ‘come to their senses’ or wake up to themselves. In this season the alarm is sounded and we are urged lovingly to make ready and pray ‘Maranatha, come Lord come’

When we take about ‘coming to our senses’ or about ‘common sense’ we are talking about our capacity for reason and to make good judgements. We weigh up the possible consequences of our intended action against our internal moral compass.  In this common-sense use of the term, common sense is often all too absent. Let me repeat that sentence. In the common-sense use of the term, common sense is often all too absent. If you are like me, you will too often be on cruise control when you ought to be more aware, alert, vigilant and ready with a reasoned and reasonable response.

Coming to our senses has another meaning. It means paying attention to the senses most of us have by virtue of living in animal bodies. That is, the ability to see, feel, hear, smell and taste. It all adds up and makes sense don’t you think?

·        From our Gospel –

·        See, I am sending my messenger

·        Proclaim – hear

·        John clothed in camel hair with a leather belt. Reaching to untie sandals, the touch of water, all feeling. The quenching of spiritual thirst. Spirit, the breath of God flowing with our exhaling and inhaling breath.

·        Locusts (probably a plant since insects are unclean) and wild honey – taste. Smell, well we can add that one in, and imagine the sweat of remorse, repentance, and regret under the sun in the arid desert.

In Peter, the fireworks oratory, with noise and visions. He speaks of Our Lord’s loving look of patience. Isaiah, speaking tenderly, a voice crying out, feeding the hungry flock, saying to the city and gathering in.

These readings are full of references to our senses and indeed listen to another person and you will find our language is chock full of metaphors and words that remind us that even our speaking is a sensory song.

As Psalm 85 reminds us ‘steadfast love and faithfulness will meet in a beautiful embrace and righteousness and peace will engage in a long, loving, and passionate kiss.

The Spirit calls us to our senses, to full aliveness. But if we are to experience the Divine Presence in the glory of creation and in the face of another human let us begin by coming to our senses when we gather in worship.

Anglicans have beautiful sensory rich patterns of worship in churches full of colour with resonant music and if not the smoke of rich incense the smell of coffee after church. We stand, sit, taste, feel, speak, and sing.  We stop, look, and listen. Not for us the bare painted walls of the Protestant Chapel that serve as a sounding board for the Word. We are as Anglicans scandalously sacramental in creating places of beauty and love, music, and colour.

Why is it then when we are called to hear beautiful Scripture read for us, that we, despite good hearing, gazing at the screen or into our service leaflet? Why when on your behalf I lead you in prayer and break the bread are you looking away? I know myself, and maybe this is true of you, that sometimes I am distracted, bored or just anxious in our worship. What I yearn for myself is for release in worship, a letting go and being in my senses touching tasting, moving celebrating in sign and symbol, moving this amazing human body in thanksgiving to the God who comes to us as a living breathing human being in Jesus feeling free to cry, laugh or simply to be still for the presence of the Lord.

Mindfulness, paying attention, being present is at the heart of Advent. Some of us have been practicing some simple, subtle, and sensory based exercises to train us in attentiveness in our Advent sessions and others are welcome to come along. But whatever you do I encourage you to really to appreciate the gift of your senses and to bring them to our sensory rich Eucharistic rituals.

When Scripture is read, (unless you can’t hear), just listen, close your eyes and let the word flow in and around you. When you sing and respond you do not have to always follow the words on screen or book. You know them already so feel flow in your bones. Watch the movement of the liturgy and relax your body when standing or sitting, even when feeling sad or a bit out of it.

Today and into the future let us come to our senses so that when we are called to respond to any situation we are attuned to the vision of God. We can feel and know the reason as we stoop down to the cradle and find our hearts lifted up as we cry out ‘O come O come Emmanuel’ and pray ‘comfort my people’

Advent 1 - The time has come... for mindfulness. a Sermon preached at Goolwa and Port Elliot

 Photo is from St Augustine's Victor Harbor. The Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

‘The time has come’ Advent 1

I remember her well, the note of excitement in her voice, her eyes wide open, the flush in her face. It was at the close of a Christian Mindfulness Day retreat which I had led. We had spent the day in a companionable silence in our church centre lit by vivid stained glass and by light that filtered through majestic gum trees alongside the creek which ran past the church on the edge of the city parklands.

The story which this young woman shared with the group has remained with me. She had grown up in Singapore, the only child of two professional people. She had excelled at school, at sport and music. Her parents who she loved dearly, had desired her to succeed, for them failure in anything, was not an option. Coming to Australia to study she now ran her own successful business. But, by her own admission she had not been happy and although a life long Christian like her parents, she struggled to make sense of it all.

Something happened on that retreat. Her therapist had suggested she do some mindfulness and she had happened across our retreat program and meditation group. As a Christian program it appealed to her, and she had booked in. We spent the day practicing brief mindfulness exercises and longer guided meditations including one called the Body Scan. In the Body Scan the meditator moves her attention through her body, sensing as she goes, feeling into the body and into its sensations.

Our Body Scan which I had led, had taken her through a doorway into a new experience of being human. She had been a woman driven to succeed. but by her own admission, her analytical thinking pattern of relating had ceased to serve her. In the Body Scan she suddenly understood that her Christian faith was not something she controlled. ‘Pastor, I came to experience that Jesus had died for me and that I am accepted’ she excitedly told the group. I never heard from this woman again but she left that day with a very different understanding of who she was, with new possibilities for every aspect of her life, not just her relationship with Christ.

The old Shaker song prays that we may ‘come to the place just right,’ one of the prophets we call Isaiah, prays that the Holy One may come down and Jesus calls his followers to be mindful.

The word mindful goes back to the 14c in our English language. It says, pay attention, keep focussed on what you are doing, take care.  We say ‘mind out’ and ask ‘will you mind the children?’ We are warned to mind the gap and to keep mentally alert especially where we might experience risk. When we are mindful, we are alert. Those focussed on their mobile phone at the wrong time may cause an accident. We also make use of the expression ‘mindless’ as a way of tuning out or engaging in meaningless activity.

During Advent we tell the story of Mary who became the first disciple as she welcomed Jesus into her body. Our body, made of the dust of the stars is as the psalm says, ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’  Our brain which is part of our body is as far as we know, the most complex organic structure in the cosmos. When I reflect on that truth I find again a sense of amazement, attunement, and acceptance of myself as a living, breathing, sentient being, conscious and awake in the here and now.

This is the invitation of Advent, ‘come home to yourself and to your one wild and precious life.’ The Living Christ meets us in the here and now calling us to wholeness and hopefulness as he shares his body in the Eucharist with our body in our eating and drinking.

My prayer is that like that young high achieving woman of Asian background, you too may experience something new through a commitment to ‘be mindful’ this Advent so that, whatever your circumstances you pray ‘Come’ and hear from the Divine Presence the invitation ‘come’ be my guest. Amen.