Advent1B, 2005_2008
Mark 13: 33-37
STAY ALERT! ADVENT ‘INCARNATION’ FROM THE LANDSCAPE
The church has its own calendar of seasons.
And in that calendar a new liturgical year begins today,
the first Sunday of Advent.
So the biblical readings have changed, especially the gospel readings.
From today, we begin to hear an emphasis on Mark’s stories.
And a new symbolic colour is in evidence - blue.
All of this is picked up in a resource collection we call the Lectionary.
The Revised Common Lectionary to be exact.
And about that Lectionary I want to make some observations.
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The Lectionary is primarily a foreign document.
A northern hemisphere document.
And that’s a problem for those of us
who live in the southern hemisphere.
In the Lectionary each of the church seasons were originally alined
to the seasonal changes of the northern hemisphere natural year.
For instance, Easter is a northern spring festival of new life.
But in the southern hemisphere Easter occurs in autumn,
a season of change, of ‘little deaths’,
as leaves - millions of them - fall from ‘northern’ trees.
While Christmas, as many cards show, is a northern,
primarily indoors, midwinter festival,
urging the return of the sun.
But in Australia Christmas is a midsummer outdoors festival
in the midst of the heat and glare of the sun,
often bush fires, and usually blow flies.
I have tried for many years to do a reshape and a rethink on the traditional church seasons.
But powerful controlling conservative ecumenical forces
have prevented any serious rethinking or reshaping
of the Lectionary, from a southern hemisphere perspective.
So we seem stuck with its ancient cosmology and seasonal irrelevance!
Australian poet Les Murray has said that
the four traditional seasons of the northern world
are the greatest and most significant cultural import Australians have seen.
I agree.
Similarly, Sydney priest David Ranson has suggested that by limiting ourselves
to a cultural colonialism with northern or European origins,
we risk missing or not seeing what actually ‘is’.
As in the Central Highlands (Vic) from mid-August:
local wattles - yellow and gold - start to bloom
heralding a new dawn after winter's inactivity.
As in the Central West (NSW) from mid-November:
the smell of drying earth and blossom
fills our nostrils with bursts of Jacaranda purple.
In the 'Introduction' to A book of Australian verse she writes:
“For many years, a conception of Australia as a country to be loved and valued for its own sake was rare and difficult to uphold… What did arise… was, not a love of the country as such, but rather of the freedom its great distances provided” (Wright 1968:2).
from the traditional ‘northern’ four seasons mode
and seek to replace them with celebrations
which are aligned to what happens where we are.
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In the early 1980s (NN) and I moved from Creswick,
in the Central Highlands of Victoria, to the Western District, to Colac.
And very quickly I discovered that one of our near neighbours
was John Wheeler of Five Australian Christmas Carols fame.
I remember the first time I sung ‘Carol of the birds’ in St Andrew’s.
It was magnificent!
Out on the plains the Brolgas are dancing
Lifting their feet like war-horses prancing:
Up to the sun the wood-larks go winging
Faint in the dawn light echoes their singing -
Orana! Orana! Orana! to Christmas Day (Wheeler).
Our own hymnbook, Together in Song, has the James/Wheeler classic,
‘The north wind...’.
Around the time I was discovering my near neighbour,
the then Australian Council of Churches ran an
Australian Advent hymn-writing contest.
One of the entries, penned by Jeff Guess, offers this:
Come, see the light break, come watch the sun
Here on this new day, Christmas begun,
Start from the dark branch, crown of a King,
Flowers of purple blossom and cling.
Melaleuca morning mantle
Cascades from heat and from night
Bears upon its royal holly
Birth of peace and love and light.
Since those days others have also composed new, southern hemisphere, hymns.
We sing many of them here at (NN).
One which is most appropriate, I reckon, is written by Shirley Murray:
Carol our Christmas,
an upside down Christmas;
snow is not falling and
trees are not bare.
Carol the summer, and
welcome the Christ Child,
warm in our sunshine and
sweetness of air (coc).
By limiting ourselves to a cultural colonialism with northern origins,
we risk missing or not seeing what actually ‘is’.
oo0oo
Advent is the beginning of a new year. A new church year.
But with a beginning there is also an ending.
An ending of a year.
And for some, if not for many, the past year has been a difficult year:
wars have continued,
bank closures on family homes have left people with shattered dreams,
the gap between rich and poor continues to rise.
Closer to home in (NN):
Loved ones got ill.
Some moved away from our suburb, or died.
Others become unemployed.
And all of us continued to struggle with “the vicissitudes of time”.
So, as an overseas colleague asks: where’s the ‘good news’?
The answer to that question, she suggests, is:
exactly where it has always been - in and among us (Lennon P&F web site).
For me part of that ‘good news’ this Advent
is to become more aware of, more sensitive to,
the God-given moments in our ordinary daily events,
despite all the seasonal advertising over-load.
Especially as these moments sneak up on us, almost incognito,
in the landscape of this southern hemisphere - in all its diversity.
Our gospel storyteller of mysteries and warnings, whom we call Mark,
has set one scene for this new year: ‘Stay alert!’
Ears tuned.
Eyes open.
Aware of.
Sensitive to.
Not to some supposed terrorist threat or ‘heavenly’ future event or time.
But to now, the present moment, in this place, among this people.
Engaging meaningfully in life.
Another, the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, says:
“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion” (Quoted in Earth Prayers).
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Advent - rooted in our everyday experiences.
And in the landscape and world around us.
Incarnation, southern hemisphere style.
With an incognito God.
Let’s dare to stay alert and celebrate that!
Notes:
Carol our christmas. A book of New Zealand carols. NZ: Raumati Beach. The New Zealand Hymnbook Trust.
Roberts, E.; E. Amidon. 1991. Earth prayers from around the world. 365 prayers, poems, and invocations for honoring the earth. NY: New York. HarperCollins.
Wheeler, J. 1948. Five Australian christmas carols.
GtB: London. Chappell & Co.
Wright, J. (ed) 1968. A book of Australian verse. Vic: Melbourne. Oxford University Press.