What Are You Waiting For?

What are you waiting for?What are you waiting for?

First Sunday of Advent

December 1, 2019

I was in the bookstore last week and I saw this book – it was in the “sale” rack by the check out.  It caught my eye because it was written by a woman whose name is Rachel Held Evans who I had only heard about a few months ago.  Sadly, Evans died quite suddenly last year after a short illness. She had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic she was on, so was put into a medically induced coma for severe brain swelling, and she died within a few days.  I did not know anything about her before her death but the reaction to her death on print and social media was extraordinary.  She was much loved and admired.  She was only 37 years old, and she died leaving a husband, and two young children. She was a remarkably talented spiritual writer and she was an Episcopalian.

Rachel Held Evans started life as a conservative evangelical from Alabama and moved to the Episcopal Church largely for its more inclusive theology. One of the major driving forces was its inclusive stance on LGBTQ rights.  She wrote about this move in her third book called Searching for Sunday. Another factor that she wrote about in her book was that she wanted a space where it was okay to be broken. She wanted to find a church that acknowledged human fragility and failings, including her own.[1]

Here’s a great paragraph from her book Faith Unraveled. She writes

My story is about that kind of evolution. It’s about moving from certainty, through doubt to faith. It’s not about the answers I found but about the questions I asked, questions I suspect you might be asking too. It’s not a pretty story, or even a finished story. It’s a survival story. It’s the story of how I evolved in an unlikely environment, a little place called Monkey Town [which is a conservative town, Dayton, Tennessee – famous for its 1925 trial of a teacher, John Scopes, who allegedly taught his students evolution].

So, what does this have to do with Advent Sunday? Advent is an interesting season and holds two distinct qualities of waiting.  The first is the waiting for the annual coming of the Christ child into the world at Christmastime. The second waiting is the waiting for the second coming of Christ at some unknown future moment in time. This is what our Epistle Lesson and Gospel lesson are about this morning.  What they both have in common is the waiting.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is an exhortation to the recipients of this letter not to wait in idleness – and in bad behavior that sounds like an office Christmas Party gone terribly wrong.  Paul urges the recipients to put on the armor of light, and to live honorably.  The time is now.

In the Gospel lesson we hear a similar sentiment when Jesus warns his disciples to be on guard for the second coming of the Son of Man.

So, Advent is about waiting and yet not waiting in idleness but purposefulness. As I think about Rachel Held Evans’ life – I am glad she wrote about her journey through Christianity and her arrival in the Episcopal Church and that she did not wait until she had it all figured out.  She of course had no sign that her life would be cut short so thank God that she used her gifts early.

If her life serves an example, the lesson is “do it now”. Don’t let the sun set on your good intentions. Make that phone call. Write that book. Make amends.  Invite that person over for dinner – the one to whom you have been telling for months, “we must get together sometime.”  Now is the time.  Don’t wait until the house is cleaned up. Don’t wait until you a have time to cook a fabulous meal. Order pizza. Make grilled cheese sandwiches. That’s what we all really want to eat anyway.

The quality of waiting in Advent is active.  It’s like always bringing a book with you so you make good use of your time if you are kept waiting. Use your commute to listen to something that enriches your soul.  Or use your leisure time for things that are frivolously and joyously fulfilling – a Hallmark Movie, Cat Fancy Magazine, or take a nap. Advent invites us to value the journey as much as, if not more than the destination.

Evans was most noted for her honesty, her authenticity, her humor, and her vulnerability. In an article in Atlantic Monthly, the writer Emma Green comments, “Evans did not lead a denomination or a movement or even a church, but she did invite people to come along as she worked through her relationship with Jesus…Evans spent her life trying to follow an itinerant preacher and carpenter, who also hung out with rejects and oddballs. In death, as that preacher once promised, she will be known by her fruits.

This Advent, what will be your fruits? If you are not sure what you are being called to, I invite you to take the Way of Love Advent (Calendar (https://episcopalchurch.org/files/documents/wol_advent_2019_calendar_english.pdf). Each day there is a small task that will probably take you less than five minutes to complete.  Each task is a symbol of the fruit of love.

And if you have a little more time, I encourage you to read one of Rachel Held Evans books. There are four to choose from.  As you read her words, you will be taken alongside her in your journey of faith.  She will be your companion as your travel through Advent.

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[1] Atlantic Monthly, May 6, 2019, Emma Green Rachel Held Evans, Hero to Christian Misfits