"Feathers and Advent"

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I mentioned Advent to a friend in another Unitarian Universalist congregation and he responded, ?I don?t know anything about Advent except getting a little chocolate drop every day.? He was talking about the Advent Calendar.

An Advent calendar has little ?doors? or ?slots? which are to be opened one day at a time each of the twenty-five or twenty-six days prior to Christmas. Some Advent calendars include treats-chocolates-behind each little door. When our children were young, they always looked forward to the Advent calendar with a small chocolate each day. They did not enjoy those times when we purchased Advent calendars from some charity, because often the little doors had only a verse rather than chocolate. Advent calendars were meant to help children, youth and adults consider the importance of waiting.

Advent is from the Latin, adventus meaning to come; also the root of the English, adventure. Advent is not only about calendars and chocolates, it is about the adventure of waiting. If you were in one of the mainline Christian churches this morning the texts appointed to be read would have something to do with waiting or watching for an event.

I should say something about the ?texts appointed to be read.? Many mainline churches use the Lectionary, a selection of passages from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures which are to be read each Sunday. I checked the Lectionary passages for today and each has some message about waiting or watching for some special event.

So, Advent is a time of waiting for something to happen. Depending upon the particular denomination, the emphasis on the ?waiting? might be past, present or future. For example, in most churches Advent waiting has both a past and present tense. When the emphasis is on the past, the point is to remember the stories of the Jewish people in persecution who looked forward to ?Emmanuel.? You hear this emphasis in the familiar hymn, ?O Come, O Come, Emmanuel? with the plaintive cries to ?ransom captive Israel.?

When the emphasis is on the present, Advent has to do with waiting to re-enact the Christmas story, much as you do here each Christmas eve. One of my fondest memories of our time together a few years ago when Judith was on sabbatical is the Christmas Eve service. I can still see the ?camels? coming down the center aisle; fathers with ?camel suits? with their children riding on their shoulders dressed as magi. Probably this present emphasis?waiting for Christmas is the most popular understanding of Advent.

In some, more conservative Christian denomination, the Advent emphasis is related to the future. The notion being that not only was Jesus born in the past; but that he will ?come again? in the future; so Advent has this eschatological emphasis?namely getting ready for what is known as the ?Second Coming.?

I have just tried to provide for you, as I did for my friend, Ken, a ridiculously brief understanding of Advent. What I have said is only a summary. I make no claim to having exhausted the subject of Advent. Suffice to say that for most people, Advent is more than a calendar with daily chocolates. Advent is a time of waiting; usually related to waiting for Christmas.

So we wait during Advent, but we do not wait in resignation. Whether the emphasis is past, present or future, this period of waiting is pregnant with hope. As John Westerhoff says in the Reading for today, ?Something?s Coming.? Just as children?well all of us?wait on the curb for the Macy?s parade, so we wait and hope. In her book about Lincoln?s Cabinet, Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin says, ?Hope is more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right; it is believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.? (p.631)

I read somewhere about a survivor of the death camp at Auschwitz who reported that because he had made a date with a woman prisoner, with the promise that once they were free they would go on an outing, that hope for a future date with the woman kept him alive. (Robert Whitaker, The Mapmaker?s Wife, p.272)

Hope is, finally, an act of trust. It is an expression of confidence that even if our savings?our 401k?has tanked; even if equities we purchased after excellent advice have now lost 40 or 50 percent of their value, even if our pension for next year has been decreased we will live to see a better day. In the words of a Unitarian Universalist document, ?we affirm the power of hope.? I am well aware, through personal experience, trying to affirm the power of hope, particularly related to personal finances, is much easier said than done. And yet I wait in hope.

So far, so good, except. Except that my friend John says he no longer has hope. He has not ?given up,? but because he is deeply involved in Buddhist practice, his understanding is that hoping for a better day is another form of ?attachment? to be relinquished. If John?s thoughtful refusal to hope isn?t enough, let me tell you about the morning of November 12?just a couple of weeks ago.

The Mayor of San Diego had proposed mid-year budget cuts which would include closing seven branch libraries. Betty is President of the Friends of the Library at our local branch, one of the libraries slated to be closed. So, because Betty was teaching, I was assigned to go to the City Council Budget Committee to ask that libraries not be closed.

Attending a City Council meeting is an exercise in long, drawn-out waiting bordering on boredom. So, while waiting to make my two minute speech, I was reading a wonderful book, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by a French philosopher who begins and ends his book declaring that he is an atheist. He also tells about a spiritual experience he had.

Back to November 12: As I was sitting in the City Council Chamber, waiting, I read pages about hope in this little book. He talks about the ?trap of hope,? saying, ??with or without God?the hope for tomorrow?s happiness prevents you from experiencing today?s? (Andre Comte-Sponville, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, p.51).

None of this may sound very significant to you, but let me put it in a wider personal context. On October 31 I had sent Melinda Ewen a ?blurb? about today?s sermon to be used in your church newsletter, in which I had committed myself to talk about hope. Then, a week later my friend, John, declared he no longer had hope. Then a week after that, reading a book with which I feel very compatible, I discovered a sentence about the ?trap of hope.? All this is against the backdrop of the election emphasis on hoped-for change. ?What?s a preacher to do!??

Well, the answer came the evening of November 12, at the Joan Kroc Center for Peace and Justice, where Betty and I have done some volunteer work. We had accepted an invitation to a presentation entitled ?The Faith Club,? featuring three women. These three women, one Muslim, one Jewish, and one Christian, had met shortly after the tragedy of September 11, at the invitation of the Muslim woman.

They had shared their understandings of faith; and their hopes to reach an interfaith understanding which was not only personal but poignant. More than anything else, that presentation gave the lie to what I had read just nine hours earlier the same day. I repeat for emphasis. In one day, November 12, I was led to move from ?the trap of hope? to three women whose story of sharing and arguing and consulting had resulted in an unusual book, The Faith Club which made interfaith cooperation not only possible but actual; and all because one woman, a Muslim, dared to hope for better understanding.

Well, my hope for this sermon was to introduce Advent, particularly an understanding of Advent with an emphasis on hope. The title I gave to the sermon includes both Advent and hope, using Emily Dickinson?s poem. But then a strange thing happened on the way to the pulpit. An emphasis on hope began to seem not very hopeful for me. My friend John?s thoughtful disavowal of hope gave me pause. Then reading a book which I have thoroughly enjoyed, only to find a sentence about the ?trap of hope? was almost enough to make me reach into the barrel for an old sermon.

However, as is so often the case, I was in C.S. Lewis? words, ?surprised by joy? well, ?surprised by hope.? First on the evening of November 12 we heard the three women talking about their struggle to become truly interfaith not merely in theory or words but in practice.

Then, just last week, my friend?the same man who had questioned me about the meaning of Advent?gave me this book, Leading from Within. It is an unusual book because no matter where the book is open, there is a poem on the right page chosen by someone who makes a comment about what that poem means to them on the left page.

The people who selected the poems and wrote the comments are from all walks of life: leaders of non-profits; CEO?s of business, teachers, ministers students. I opened the book to pages six and seven. A student, Nicole Gagnon, a senior at Smith College had chosen as her poem, Emily Dickinson?s ?Hope is the thing with feathers- That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops?at all-?

In her comments about the poem, Nicole, remember a student in college, told about her experiences as a summer volunteer teacher in Ghana. She writes: ??On the day that I arrived in (Ghana), my host mother brought me to the classroom where I would be teaching. After introducing me to the students, she indicated that I could begin to teach. I was jetlagged and hungry, but I dove in headfirst.?

She continues: ??The school I taught in was in desperate need of staff, and there were no teaching materials other than chalk and a blackboard. Still, I had to teach French, English, religion, art, math and physical education. I found myself running from one thing to the next?Each day I struggled, feeling as though I wasn?t making an impact. ?Ultimately, I just had to get up each morning and offer the kids my best.?

Then Nicole concludes with this testimony about Emily Dickinson?s poem and about hope: ?This poem sustained me during that summer when I was feeling so doubtful. It sustains me still. When I become pessimistic about the situation in Ghana, I fall back on hope. I have to hope that there will be something better for these children eventually. I have to hope that things can change. I have to hope that my own talents can make a small difference.?

Yes! Oh, yes! Hope which is more than simply an abstract idea can make a difference. I truly believe John is wrong, or at least his pessimism about hope is limited. Hope, when accompanied by intention to make a difference is ?the thing with feathers? that continues to sing ?and never stops at all.?

That kind of hope is what motivated the ancient Druids, when days were short and getting shorter, to hope for the return of light, kindling bonfires, still celebrated at Winter Solstice. That ancient primitive story of hoped-for light was appropriated by the Church for the story of the birth of Jesus.

To be sure much of that story is myth, copied from other ancient myths of the births of gods and goddesses. Were there Wise Men? I doubt it. However, there is wisdom in the hope which propels us to try something better. The Wise Men, according to W. H. Auden followed the star ??to discover how to be human.? That?s a wonderful hope.

Were the Shepherds actually visited by angels? I doubt it. However, they found a new appreciation for life after, again as W. H. Auden says, having ?walked a thousand miles, but only worn the path between their work and home away.?

Finally, I believe the Christmas story and the Solstice stories are universal stories which call me on the stage to act out the drama of hope. I am one of the Magi hoping to find my humanity. I am one of the shepherds hoping for something other than tedium. I am an ancient Druid lighting fires of hope in the dark night of recession.

My Advent wish?hope?for you is that you may have a rebirth of hope in spite of whatever circumstances confront you. Let?s go ahead and ?sing the tune without the words, and never stop at all.? Amen.