1st Sunday of Advent (C) – December 1, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

No Patience, No Hope

Of all of the seasons we celebrate in the Church—Christmas, Lent, Easter—Advent is by far my favorite. And, predictably, this stems from the fact that whenever Advent began, whenever the Advent wreath and candles were brought out, whenever decorations come out, or you flip on the radio and all you hear is Christmas music—whenever everything shifted to this season, what started to happen? The anticipation just starts to build. Like, as a little kid you start getting jazzed out of your mind that Christmas is coming! Or as a college kid, you know that for at least a few weeks you can relax from classes and studying. It’s just pure expectation, pure anticipation.

But it’s a tricky thing—Advent is a little tricky. Advent: it’s not a time to let us get ready to celebrate Christmas. (And I know, my siblings hate when I say things like this, because they’re like, “Mike, you are such a Scrooge.” And that’s true.) But it’s also true: Advent is not some four-week countdown to Christmas, or a reminder to get your Christmas shopping done, put up a tree, bake some cookies, watch all 41 of Hallmark’s new Christmas movies (41!). That’s not what Advent is for. Advent is not even our time to get ready to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. And I know that sounds weird, but just think: Jesus’ feelings are not going to be hurt if he doesn’t get a birthday party. At Christmas, we’re not celebrating Jesus’ birthday for its own sake.

So then what is it? What is Advent? Advent should evoke a sense of hope and joy and excitement. We got that right, so that’s great! But as we mature in our faith (and this is the point)—as we mature in our faith, those things we usually associate with Advent and Christmas become less and less helpful unless they remind us about what’s actually going on. So what’s going on?

Advent—here you go—Advent is the season of hope. Ultimately, the hope, that deep desire, the expectation we have for eternal life. As Christians, as Catholics, our hope, the expectation we have, is for Jesus’ return and of living with him forever. In fact, on Christmas, Pope Francis will inaugurate the Jubilee Year of Hope, an entire year dedicated to this. But why?

We Are A People Who Do Not Hope

Well, let’s be honest: we are terrible at hope, at expectation, at waiting. One of the comedians I really enjoy has a whole bit about this. He’s talking about Amazon Prime. But he’s joking about how we can’t even wait for Amazon Prime anymore! Two day delivery?? Too slow! Same day delivery? Un-American! Two-hour delivery? No! “Prime now! …In America there should be no lag—zero lag—between when I press the button and the item is gently placed into my hand, so I can us it…now!” Again, we are the worst at waiting! (I’m gonna say this real gently, not accusing anyone, not trying to make anyone feel guilty—maybe only a little)—but think about how we are already celebrating Christmas. And again, I know I sound like a Scrooge, but think: we are bad at waiting.

But then on top of that, we don’t even know what to wait for anymore, we don’t know what we should be hoping for. Remember, our ultimate “hope” is for eternal life. But we’ve lost sight of it. I was talking to my sister-in-law on Thanksgiving and she’s finishing up her Ph.D. work, writing about how the faith is handed on, how more and more people are becoming people of “no” faith (“none’s” as we call them. When asked what religion they are, or if they have faith, they mark “none” on the survey). And in her research, she found that only 15% of people say that “heaven” or “eternal life” is important to them when living the faith. Only 15%!

Instead, we’ve fallen into the temptation to decide when the answer to our hope should arrive and what it should be—and so we find that we don’t wait expectantly, we don’t live with any real hope. Again, just think: we are already celebrating Christmas, we started listening to Christmas music weeks ago, we’ll be done celebrating it by noon on Christmas Day.

Hope, true hope—and this is my point—true hope has been sabotaged. And it’s been sabotaged in two ways that I can see. First, hope has been sabotaged by the countless distractions in our lives, the distractions that fill our daily lives (evagatio mentis). We get sucked into small things, sentimental things, absorbed in everything in life. And then what happens is that we begin to accept all of these small satisfactions, one after another in a row, on the weekend or in our free time—seeking distractions from it all. And the crazy thing is that we know, we know before we even do them—we know that these won’t satisfy us! But they’re good enough. And we settle for them. The second thing—the second thing that sabotages hope is that we stop desiring, we stop hoping, for great things. And instead, we start making a list of other things: “I’ll be happy and fulfilled if I have a spouse, or children, or if I have a good job, or a house, a car, if this, if that, if, if, if.” We don’t hope for anything great, just a laundry list of a bunch of things that are nice.

And you put all of this together and what happens? We begin to slip into this weird place where we just don’t really hope at all—not really. Hope, true hope, is sabotaged. Life is just kind of “blah.” And yeah, we’ll have some good days, some great times, something to post on Facebook to let everyone know that we had a happy day. And I try to be a good person. And religion is fine if that helps you to be a good person. But hope—true hope, hope to God, hope for salvation, for eternal life—all of this is just pushed out of our life. Only 15% of parents think it’s important for their kids.

What does Jesus say in the Gospel today? (This Gospel passage all about maintaining this hope, this expectation?) “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life” (Luke 21:34). I think this is where we are so often at—I know it’s true for me a lot of times! Our hearts are “drowsy,” they are not awake (you know how you could’t even sleep on Christmas Eve as a kid?). Well now we are “drowsy,” we have medicated our hope away, our life is overwhelmed by the anxieties and distractions of daily life. Hope has been sabotaged. Our desire for God, for Jesus, for heaven, eternal life—it’s not there.

“There was no room for them in the inn”

But here’s the thing—and this is very important! It’s not that we don’t want God or eternal life. I am 100% confident that if I put the question on a quiz, “Do you want to go to heaven?” You would answer “Yes.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I mean, our problem is that we have pushed this possibility out, pushed it away, because our lives are too full already: too full of the countless distractions, too full of all of the things we have already decided that we really need. And when the whole “Jesus thing” comes around, we are too full. (It’s like Thanksgiving, you filled up on appetizers and had no room for the dinner or the pies. Idiot!) Or think, think about the line we are going to hear very soon. Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem, looking for a place to stay. And place after place, what do we hear? “There was no room for them in the inn.” There was no room. Jesus himself arrives, Jesus, God—God arrives and they have no room. Do you think those innkeepers hated God? They didn’t want God to be with them, to stay there? No, that’s not it. They were too full already.

My problem—and maybe you have this problem too—my problem is that Jesus shows up, hope shows up, a new hope arrives, and I do not have room in my life for it. I started listening to podcasts a while back, but now podcasts are always on—I’m never in silence, I always have something, some distraction. There are always more articles to read, books to read, videos to watch. My patience has gone way down. I always have more work to do, more things that I can do. I’m busy. Very, very busy. And as a result of that? My life slips into this “blah.” Hope is sabotaged. And again, I doubt that I’m the only one. We turn to our Christmas music and Hallmark movies now, but in a few weeks we’ll have something else, more distractions and small things to get us through the day.

The Challenge: Full of Hope

But what if we could grow in hope, in real hope—be full of hope? Again, I don’t need to try too hard to show that we—personally and as a nation, as a state—we are suffering from a lack of hope. 1 in 5 adults has clinical levels of anxiety, 1 in 3 teenagers. Pope Francis will begin this Jubilee of Hope precisely because of stats like those. What if we could grow in hope? Be people full of hope? That would be something worthwhile, I think.

So what do we do about it? Well, I want to challenge you this Advent. And the challenge is two things: Silence and fasting. Why? Because these two things work to combat the two things that sabotage our hope. Silence. Why silence? Well think, we spend so much of our time drowning ourselves in noise: the news, radio, music, videos, movies, TV shows, Netflix, on and on. So instead, what if we embraced silence again? I talked about this back at the beginning of the year during “Reconnecting…”, how important, how essential silence is. What if we took that seriously? So my challenge for Advent, for these next 24 days: embrace silence. And I want you to pick, pick one way to keep this uber practical, four levels. You could do one hour of silence a day, 30 minutes a day, fifteen minutes a day, or an hour a week (like during Adoration). Pick one.

So silence. The second thing is fasting, and in particular, fasting from technology. Maybe you don’t use a phone very much, maybe you don’t watch TV—ok, so you might want to pick something else. But statistically, fasting from technology is what we want to do. Why? Because technology is the number one way that we distract ourselves and the number one way we stop hoping for great things and instead settle for a bunch of little things. (I’m going to save my technology rant for another day.) And again, with this, a few options, four “levels.” You could give up all unnecessary technology for Advent—TV, Netflix, YouTube, music, football, news. You could pick one or two big ones to give up (like Netflix and YouTube). You could pick just one to give up. Or, you could pick a time during the day that you usually use it, and not use it then (for example, in the evenings, or after 8pm). So two things: silence and fasting, in particular fasting from technology.

This series for Advent is called “Full of Hope.” Why? Because this Advent, and especially as we prepare for the Jubilee Year of Hope, my desire is that we can, all of us, grow in hope, true hope, be full of hope. Here in this time when so many of us have fallen into a “blah,” or are just trying to get through the day, or are full of anxiety—what if we could be renewed in the hope that only Jesus Christ can give? What if we could be transformed be a renewal of hope? Because that’s what the season of Advent is all about.