Sermon by Fr James Heard, 3 December 2017, United Benefice of Holland Park, Advent 1
Sermon by Fr James Heard, 3 December 2017, United Benefice of Holland Park, Advent 1
Happy
New Year! Our new year begins with this season of Advent, a very short
liturgical season, just four weeks. It’s become increasingly difficult to view
it as anything other than a pre-Christmas period. A season challenged by Black
Friday, Cyber Monday, along with office, school, and residence associations
mulled wine and mince pies celebrations.
It’s
therefore rather counter cultural to see Advent as a time which evokes a
longing, of waiting, and with expectancy which reaches far beyond the
celebration of Christmas.
Advent’s
yearly symbols of darkness and light are powerful to reflect upon
theologically. Because we are conscious that our world is filled with darkness,
and it seems to be ever more fragile: this year we have witnessed a number of
terrorist attacks here in the UK and elsewhere; in Egypt Muslims killing
Muslims and Christians; Buddhists killing Muslims in Myanmar; random eruptions
of gun violence in the United States; North Korea determined to procure nuclear
weapons. Faced with all this, it’s tempting to become dulled by apathy and
numbed by fear. The reading from Isaiah is particularly relevant. The prophet/
poet cries out: ‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that
the mountains would quake at your presence’. O that we might see God’s rule of
justice and righteous take hold.
Into
these situations around the world we are invited in Advent to be awake, to be
prepared. Both Jesus and Buddha say the same thing: “Stay awake!” Be alert. One
of the ways of preparation is to enter in to stillness and silence.
To
enter into stillness and silence in the season of Advent is not to escape from
the world but to come to see it more clearly. Our culture resists silence. Our
culture is certainly alert. It’s alert to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook
feeds, updated by the second. This can so easily lead to a compulsive and
addictive alertness to social media, yet a profound lack of alertness to what
really matters. Our culture refuses to allow us a space of stillness, but this
is what we desperately need.
The
Dominican, Timothy Radcliffe, quotes Pascal: ‘I have discovered that the
unhappiness of human beings comes from just one thing; not knowing how to
remain quietly in a room.’
Radcliffe
insists on the importance of silence so that we may be ready to be surprised by
the gifts of knowledge or insight.
By
creating a space for silence in our lives we can experience something of God’s
grace, to see things a bit more clearly, to be nudge toward compassion. Advent
offers this invitation: an invitation to create a space of stillness, a time of
darkness, a place of waiting in expectant trust. The liturgies of Advent starts
in complete darkness: they do not cloak our fears but unmask them so that we
may face the shadows and yet proclaim our hope.
Advent
is the time of quiet expectancy akin to that quiet just before dawn breaks. It
is a time which offers us a ‘breathing space’. A space for waiting, of longing,
of being alert.
We
in the West have a particular problem though. One I’ve already mentioned, a
frenetic activity, no space to stop, to be still. That’s why contemplative
practice is so difficult, and it time and effort to learn.
The
other is that we value and spend too much time in our heads, in the rational
dimension to our existence. That’s why music, art and poetry are so important.
You may remember the exhibition at the National Gallery a few years ago called
‘Seeing Salvation’. Neil MacGregor, then Director of the Gallery, commented on
the power of images. He described how the Protestant reformers, suspicious of
the image, insisted on the word alone [again, the cerebral, rational part of
us], whereas the Catholic tradition with its rich sacramental understanding had
always defended representation. MacGregor offers a contemporary perspective:
‘Theological concepts must be given human dimension and if only words can
tackle abstract mysteries, paintings are uniquely able to address the universal
questions through the intelligence of the heart’.
I
love that fascinating and insightful phrase, ‘intelligence of the heart’.
MacGregor recognises that we come to understand not simply through rational
thinking but also through a felt intelligence, that of the heart.
The
temptation for us in the West, when looking at art, is to remain to the head,
to start analysing, critiquing. We find it difficult to respond with anything
other than our head: we find it difficult to simply allow a painting to speak
to us, in the core of our being. And to move beyond this it’s worth pondering,
what feeling does Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, for example, mean to you.
Moving deeper into the painting, beyond the art history questions of who’s
holding what, what particular colours are supposed to signify, and so on,
moving more deeply to ask what God might be saying into our lives through a
painting. It’s part of the reason I like Mark Rothko’s images (he didn’t like
the term painting). Being nonrepresentation, one is faced with… a presence. A
rather dark yet powerfully vivid presence.
The
Rothko Chapel in Houston is one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces. His work
was commissioned by John and Dominique de Menil and he worked on the paintings
in the mid-1960s. Dominique de Menil describes his work at the dedication of
the chapel in 1971, a year after Rothko’s death. ‘We are cluttered with images
and only abstract art can bring us to the threshold of the divine.’
I’m
not convinced that’s entirely true, but I get what she’s saying. And it’s something
about meeting or having an encounter, something beyond our rational minds, with
the divine.
Drawing
the two themes of this sermon together – silence, stillness, being alert, along
with being liberated from our overly analytical rational minds.
Firstly,
this Advent, perhaps make some time to engage with the arts – music, poetry,
art. Make sure you allow yourself to be moved beyond the thinking dimension and
engage the imagination of your heart. Become present to the divine in art.
Secondly,
I encourage you to create time for stillness and silence this Advent. We have
morning and evening prayer Monday to Thursday here at St George’s. Just 15
minutes in length. The meditation group meet every Monday evening at 6pm for
about 30-40 minutes. There is an opportunity in Advent to meet together on
Wednesday mornings at 8.45am before morning prayer – do talk to Jenny if you
aren’t interested. Or you might simply carve out time to be still on your own.
Or join a yoga class, or do a mindfulness course.
In a
nutshell, refuse this Advent to allow our consumerist culture to take first
priority; become more alert to our culture’s addictive and compulsive tendency
to check our smart phone/ tablet devices. And instead create space for…
stillness, for silence.
Lastly,
it’s worth being aware that doing this, looking within ourselves through
stillness or through the arts, can be frightening. We might find things –
attitudes and thoughts – we don’t expect. But if we open ourselves to God’s
healing love, it is a process that can be transformative. And words from Isaiah
provide hope: ‘O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our
potter; we are all the work of your hand.’
It’s a wonderful few verses that emphasizes that God,
as our loving father, remains constant, even when we, God's creatures, do not;
that the potter will not disown the clay he has molded, and may even be
prepared to start again, re-molding it in a creative way and in an even more
beautiful form.