Like the sound of a distant train coming our way I can hear Advent fast approaching. To say that I have to get out of town to prepare for it is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the generosity of the Diocese in providing clergy two free nights at Roslyn, our diocesan retreat center in Richmond, that’s exactly what I am doing. With the demands of church life this fall and having had family visiting for three weeks I can think of little else but how much I need peace and quiet. My dad says I go on retreat more than anyone he knows and that may be true but I can’t hear myself think, much less God speak, without silence.
So it is that I begin this two-day respite at Roslyn by resting. The first night I sleep for twelve hours and the second night, ten! I run in the mornings and in the midst of resting during the day I read. Early on I come across this quote from Karl Rahner which begs for contemplation: “In Advent we should really ask ourselves in complete intimacy and concreteness if the spirit and heart in us still have room for novelty and future beyond the present.”
Reading this quote several times I begin to wonder in my crowded spirit if there is any room for yet-to-be imagined possibilities for St. Andrew’s Church. I wonder if our hearts are open enough to be church in a new way; to let in a greater amount of joy, awe, and transformation. I don’t know about you but I get so caught up in the present concerns of having people sign up for Coffee Hour, recruiting enough Sunday School helpers, getting more choir members, finding someone to organize the blood drive and cajoling someone to coordinate the Christmas Eve party, not to mention worries over whether the pledges will actually come in to meet our 2010 budget that I forget our future is in God’s hands. I forget not to be afraid. I forget the reassurance of comfort and hope and joy and promise that come from trusting that God is with us. I forget Emanuel.
Advent means “coming”… the coming of Christ in our celebration of the nativity and in the anticipation of the second coming of Christ. In Advent we set our sights toward the horizon of God’s future both now and in the age to come. As a prayer for all of us during Advent I share this hymn text by Thomas Troeger with you in the hopes that each of us will come to count on and claim the presence of Christ more fully in our church.
View the present through the promise, Christ will come again.
Trust despite the deepening darkness, Christ will come again.
Lift the world above its grieving through your watching and believing
in the hope of past hope’s conceiving: Christ will come again.
Probe the present with the promise, Christ will come again.
Let your daily actions witness, Christ will come again.
Let your loving and your giving and your justice and forgiving
be a sign to all the living: Christ will come again.
Match the present to the promise, Christ will come again.
Make this hope your guiding premise, Christ will come again.
Pattern all your calculating and the world you are creating
to the advent you are waiting: Christ will come again.