Sermon 2Nd Advent Sunday
The events which come to meet us at Advent often bring tremendous challenges. They confront us directly with whatever is holding us back from our true being.
This should not surprise us or throw us off course, but over years we come to discover that there really is a kind of grace flowing toward us during this time which calls us to awaken, to accept where we find ourselves, and to work on transformation: To become more spiritual and less material in our whole being.
We hear in the Advent epistle: “The veil of the soul spreads before the gaze of the Spirit eye.” Our souls are unveiled before our higher selves and before God, so that nothing remains hidden. But also there is “grace” which will shelter and redeem our errors “full of mercy in His own divine soul.”
We do not need to be afraid. But we do need to be sheltered somehow. Shelter allows us to do more things besides just keeping warm and dry. It allows us to meet one another, to create, and to pray. It protects us from the elements so that we can be productive and creative. In the Middle Ages, the shelter of the monasteries allowed music, art, calligraphy, and education to flourish in a protected place.
We can, of course, find a quiet space, finally, find a moment for meditation with no distraction and then meet an entirely different onslaught of disturbances within our own souls! And there are also people who will come to cause chaos and confusion in our lives.
Where shall we find “shelter for the soul?” Wherein do we find the protection that we need in order to continue to evolve and become? Do we not need to call upon something higher than ourselves for such protection? Have we created these wonderful houses with hot and cold running water and heat and all the imaginable comforts in order to run away from ourselves and watch Netflix and binge on food that is not food?
Archangel Michael is the guardian of Divine intelligence and stands before us night and day. We are in the middle of the transference from the total spiritual guidance of the distant past to total human freedom in the distant future. We need to take protection seriously and we need to know what for. (As Wendell Berry put it in his book of essays entitled, “What are People For?”
We, who are encapsulated light and warmth with a story, have been given certain responsibilities. We are called to wrest ourselves from the death of matter in order to participate in the spiritual aliveness all around us.
Let us guard our souls.
Let us school ourselves in prayer.
Let us earnestly seek community not only with one another but with the Angels who seek to guide and protect us.
Morning Rainbows in the Frost, December 5th
Photo from Ingrid Cowan Hass