for the First Sunday in Advent
Why, Isaiah asks the Lord. Why do you let us wander?
I think of the three year old in the supermarket, squirming in that little seat in the grocery cart until his mother lets him run free. And run free he does. Down the aisle, past the apple sauce, knocking over the display of dried macaroni and running like a demon toward that tower of Oreos, beckoning to him like the promised land. That little one know what wandering away is like a bat, if you can describe anyone running that fast as wandering.
And he’s running down the aisle, because he’s learned how much fun chasing after all the bright shiny things can be. Which is fine, except that if we spend all of our time running after the bright shiny things, we we will find we have no time for what is most important…time with the Lord.
Martha learned that lesson the hard way. You remember the story. Jesus was visiting Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. Mary, we are told, “sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said,” but Martha was running about, like a little kid in a supermarket, cooking dinner and cleaning the house and doing all kinds of stuff that just needed to be done. And in one of the most candid exchanges of the Gospels, she turns to Jesus and says: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
Jesus’ reply is spoken not only to her, but to me: ”Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Stop, sit down with the Lord and listen to him. Share with him the stirrings of your heart….
Advent is a time of waiting…waiting for the Lord. Listening for his still small voice. Hoping in his eternal love for you. Yet so often we are like Martha, running about looking for all the bright shiny things. So often we fail to stop, shut up and just listen for his still small voice.
For in order to hear him we need to empty our hearts of everything but gratitude. No grasping, no conniving or calculating. Just longing and gratitude in our still small hearts.
Especially, this week, just being grateful for all his blessings.
For the life which still flows in and out of your lungs without the help of a ventilator. For the blood which flows through your veins. For the thoughts you think and the myriad feelings which tremble through your limbs. For the people who love you and for those who are loved by you. For the thrill of a cold breeze, the beauty of the first snow, the sound of crumbling leaves under your feet, the smile of that little baby in her mother’s arms, for justice, truth and all the other joys that await us at the dawn of each new day.
But with all the bright shining things, the first thing we seem to forget is to give thanks…
Which makes me think about one of the most colorful characters to walk the fields of Massachusetts in the decades following the American Revolution, Timothy Dexter. Born in Malden, he made his first fortune by speculating in Continental currency. His continuing success was due to a combination of audacity and incredible good luck.
He was eccentric, but wise beyond his capacity, and never ceased to attribute his multiple successes to those who helped him along the way. Indeed, gratitude was, in his view, the most important of virtues.
“An ungrateful man,” he would frequently say, ‘is like a hog under a tree eating acorns, who never looks up to see where they came from.’
Remember the nine lepers in the Gospel parable who were just such narcissistic hogs? Only one came back to give thanks, but the nine who were cleansed of their disease, cured of their disability, now set on getting on with their life, with not a smidgen of gratitude and not a word of thanks to the Lord who cured them.
And we are not so very different. Sadly, ingratitude is so rampant in our day and age that we often become surprised by folks who are habitually grateful.
On the day I received my last postgraduate degree I practically sprained my wrist patting myself on the back. But did I think of Miss Lucasak who first taught me cursive in third grade, or Miss Morin who encouraged us to write those one page essays with the pictures two years later. Did I think of the Priest who first inspired me with a love for the Liturgy, or my parents who put me through College, or the inspiring professors I had come to know along the way. Did I think of the scholars who had constructed that world of knowledge in which I had gained some small degree of proficiency, or those who built the institutions which had led me through those mysteries.
No, I thought of none of them, I never gave them a thought or a prayer. I never said thank-you. Just like the ungrateful lepers, I got on with my life and I never looked back.
It’s like those who were Baptized into Christ, learned to pray, made their First Communion and maybe were confirmed, but who now seem to have forgotten where the Church is, who seldom say a prayer, feed the poor, forgive, or even seek to love others as they were loved. They go about living their lives, happy enough, but never full satisfied, getting along, but still uncertain about what it really means. For they have things to do, and they will continue to take, without looking back, and never say thank you.
And then there’s you and me. Fickle, self-absorbed, and sinful as we are, we still try to crane our necks to at least look back. To break the bread, to tell the story, and to give thanks as best we are able.
For that is what we do each day in this holy house: We celebrate the Eucharist, the thanksgiving: a memorial of recollection and gratitude, in which we remember all that He has done for us, from our first breath to our last, the love, the mercy, the sacrifice....the faith which makes sense of the darkest days and the mystery which defeats the deadly with eternal joy and eternal life.
Which is why, at Mass, speaking in the person of Christ himself, the priest calls out to us: Lift up your hearts. And we lift them up to the Lord.
And unlike ungrateful lepers or hogs, we will give thanks to the Lord our God. For it is right to give him thanks and praise, even, in the words of a modern day poet:
"O Lord, we thank Thee for this world,
For every blessing, every good.
For earthly sustenance and love
Bestowed on us from heaven above.
Be present at our table, Lord.
Be here and everywhere adored.
Thy children bless and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee."
