When
the modern custom of Black Friday—big retail sales on the day after
Thanksgiving-- began several years ago, I thought it was kind of funny. Sure there were stabbings, shootings, and
tramplings then just as there are today; but in the main Black Friday just
seemed to be about people behaving badly to get a deal on stuff they didn’t
really need anyway. But as the practice
grew, the day itself morphed into an observance less funny than sad. As shoppers were interviewed, it turned out
that many of them braved the dark and the cold on Black Friday morning so they
could buy presents and necessities they couldn’t otherwise afford. And once
they got inside, of course, the loss-leader items were quickly snatched up, so
most shoppers ended up having stood in line for hours for the privilege of
paying premium prices anyway.
This
year, though, Black Friday has changed yet again, turning now potentially more
pernicious. Because the door busters
began on Thanksgiving Day itself this year, Black Friday has now finally
succeed in overtaking the only holiday left that seemed exempt from retail
hysteria. As far as commercialization goes, I gave up on Christmas long ago,
but I still enjoyed the fantasy that we had one holiday that was about family
and community and not about commodification.
But now that I know I can spend my Thanksgiving day over at Target or
Best Buy, I won’t have to worry about making small talk over the stuffing. I
can spend the whole day first buying a flat screen TV and then watching
football, free of any human interaction at all.
Such
was the grumpy state of my post-Thanksgiving meditations until I had the
unexpectedly happy experience of reading the news about Pope Francis’ first
proclamation, an “apostolic exhortation” Evangelii
Gaudium, or “The Joy of the Gospel”. It’s hard to stay grumpy when the pope
warns that we’re in danger of becoming “querulous and
disillusioned pessimists, ‘sourpusses’”.
(His word, not mine.) Amid all the accounts of Black Friday
excesses, amid the stuff that passed for religious news last week—a Wisconsin
court’s overturning the clergy housing tax exemption, this cathedral’s
announcement of a fixed price entry fee for tourists—there was a story that was
actually worth following: Pope Francis
recalled us to the basics of what Christianity is all about.
In today’s
readings we are told, rather briskly, to wake up! “You know what time it is,
how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep,” says Paul. [Romans 13:11]
And even Jesus gets into the act: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on
what day your Lord is coming.” [Matthew 24:42]
Today is the First Sunday of Advent, the day that begins our four-week
watch until Christmas, and the focus today is on waking up. Our collect today asks that we be given
“grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light”. We get ready for Christmas first by shaking
ourselves awake.
As we reflect on all the silliness, sadness, sorrow, pain,
and enmity in the world around us, Pope Francis gives us a wakeup moment. Most of the time most of us walk through life
as if we were half asleep. Francis doesn’t just admonish us about being
sourpusses. He recalls us to why we’re
Christians in the first place. “Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus,” he says. “Let
us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which
impels us onwards!”
The startling thing about the pope’s
document is how it reminds us that following Jesus is a joy. The press accounts of Evangelii Gaudium have understandably focused on his critiques of
the internal squabblings of the church and of the excesses of market
capitalism. As Francis has widely been quoted as saying, the church itself has
lost its way: “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty
because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy
from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” And so has
our economic system lost not only its way but its values: “How can it be that
it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is
news when the stock market loses two points?”
Those are
important issues, of course, and not just for Roman Catholics. All churches, not the least our own, have
been obsessed these past decades with their own internal workings and
disagreements. And no one can watch the
news of escalating national and global income inequality and see anything but
disaster coming toward us as its result. But the central question, of course,
is “Why do we care about such things?”
And the answer is that we care about them not primarily because we’re
angry or depressed. To be a Christian is not to be a vengeful sourpuss. We care about them because of the promise on
offer to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to be an ambassador of
Jesus’s joy.
The real wakeup
story of Evangelii Gaudium is the way
it calls us both forward and back to what Christianity is all about. “The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus,” says
Francis. “Those who accept his offer of
salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With
Christ joy is constantly born anew.”
Those are the pope’s words, and I believe he speaks for all of us who
seek to follow Jesus, at least for that part of us that is truly awake and
alive.
Advent—the four weeks before Christmas—is an interesting season,
and it works in a totally counterintuitive way.
On this First Sunday we look not back but forward, to “the last
day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living
and the dead”. Jesus comes among us
yesterday, today, and tomorrow. We must wake up and be ready to meet him.
What does it mean
to be awake and ready to meet Jesus? In
the history of Christian liturgy, the First Sunday of Advent has had every
possible liturgical color. We here at
the cathedral use blue because that’s the English Sarum color from Salisbury
cathedral, a color traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary. In many churches they use purple as a
penitential color, turning Advent into a mini version of Lent. In the middle
ages, though, the color for today was black, because even at its height the
imperial church had enough self-understanding to know that the second coming of
Jesus would be bad news for the powerful.
And in oppressed communities, in times and places where being a
Christian has been dangerous, the Advent color is often white because those up
against it know they will readily greet Jesus with joy.
What color does
this Advent Sunday hold for you? The
great Swedish bishop and New Testament scholar Krister Stendahl was once asked
about the difference between judgment and mercy. He thought for a minute and replied, “There
is no difference. God acts, and we
experience that action as either judgment or mercy depending on where we stand
in relation to it.” Do you need to clean
up your act? Or do you need to pray for
liberation? Whether you experience God’s
love as judgment or mercy, this Advent Sunday asks that you wake up and get
yourself ready to meet it.
Advent and Christmas present an invitation to encounter
Jesus. As Pope Francis says, “The Lord
does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards
Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open
arms.” This
is the season to remember why we follow Jesus in the first place. Some follow Jesus because they are afraid of
what will happen if they don’t. Others
follow Jesus because they see him as the champion of their causes. Francis
calls us both back and forward to the realization that we follow Jesus because
the life he offers is itself a joy. The
Gospel is good news: the God who made
the world made you, and that one loves the world and you in an infinitely deep
variety of ways.
So wake up! In
Francis’ words, “I invite all Christians,
everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus
Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them.” It won’t be Black Friday forever. Even the holiday season will pass. The joy of
the Gospel will remain. Jesus is always coming toward us, ready to meet us as
prophet, as teacher, as infant in the manger, as judge. In that meeting you will know love and
justice and hope and peace, forgiveness and blessing, and above all joy. And that will be an encounter worth staying
awake for. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment