ADVENT 1 – 2017
St Georges Ivanhoe East
Helder Camara – onetime Catholic Archbishop in South America, a strong advocate for the poor and dispossessed, and a champion of Human Rights, wrote these words:
“When I dream alone
that remains a dream;
When we dream together
that is the beginning of reality.”
Most of us dream from time to time. Our dreams can be imaginative thoughts we experience while awake or asleep. Sometimes we indulge our dreams with wishful thinking or fantasies. Our indigenous brothers and sisters describe their history, spirituality and culture in what they describe as the “dreamtime’, the place and space for their beliefs and understanding of life and its relationship with Mother Earth. I wonder what you dreamed about last night. {Do not worry you do not have to share them}
In our sleep, dreams often appear to come from nowhere. Where did that come from we ask ourselves. Some of our dreams frighten us because they raise aspects of our thoughts that we find distasteful or painful and often challenge our identity of who we believe we think we are. We wonder where such ideas, thoughts or experiences have come from.
Parents, at the birth of a child, couples who commit themselves to marriage, or a new graduate entering their chosen profession, dream and hope for the future. Dreams and hopes give us adrenalin; they provide the impetus for our daily living and our relationships. Sometimes our dreams can be impractical or impossible to us but not to others.
Dreaming and hoping seems to be difficult for many of us in our own Church. We often want to cling to the familiar and comfortable and seem unable to dream of a future that embraces the different or challenging.
In a visit to Australia in 2002, the now Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, spoke about the task of the Church as being to inspire the people of God to express the hope of God’s dream for the creation, and to be distinctive by its prayer and worship. He went on to say how worship is the drawing together of the earthly life and human experiences we all share together, and when our Eucharistic gatherings are devoid of the experiences of our human family, our worship is diminished.
Like the wider community, we are tempted are we not to put aside our dreams and possibilities that may be too challenging and costly, or that threatens us and divert our thoughts into reality TV, backyard renovations, the Great Outdoors and, in my case, Irish music.
Today, we begin the season of Advent:
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A time of waiting;
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A time of reflection;
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A time for preparation;
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A time for dreaming and hoping.
We are invited by the Church to hope for what God has promised. Advent, taken seriously, has the potential to disrupt us and call us a fresh to look at what is happening in our Church, in our relationships, in the workplace and wider community.
It is a call to model our own leadership as the ‘body of Christ’, on the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, not as some magical, mystical hour upon which he is to return in the future, but in the present, while we wait and live between the beginning and end of God’s time. At our Annual meeting that follows this service dare we hope to dream what may be possible for this parish? Are we prepared to embrace a leadership model that seeks to engage beyond ourselves and to reflect our Lord’s passion for all in need?
Advent reminds us that ‘waiting upon God’ is an important ingredient in our Christian journey, and that our dreams, may not be God’s. Advent reminds us to be patient, alert and ever ready to embrace the disturbing actions of the Holy Spirit of God. Advent calls us to look afresh at Scripture and to apply our God given intellect and the wisdom and traditions of the Church to the issues of the day. To identify the stumbling blocks which divert our attention, or cause us to retreat into our cocoon, or the safety of the sanctuary?
Advent calls us to prepare to receive and celebrate the holiness and mystery of life as experienced and told in the story of the Christ child. Our faith is what we say today as counter culture. It challenges those who wish to dismiss the birth of Christ at Christmas and to rename Christmas trees as Holiday trees or to exclude nativity scenes or to sing carols at schools and in other public places.
As we gather as a faith community this day, our very act of worship, the words, symbols and actions of our Eucharist together is a sign of new life, hope and promise as we say in the words of the second form of the Great Thanksgiving prayer:
‘At the dawn of time you wrought from nothing,
a universe of beauty and splendour,
Bringing light from darkness and order from chaos.’
So, as we gather on this Advent Sunday, I invite you to journey with me and the whole Church, to dream about the possible, to set aside the distractions, to revisit the great Christian claim and fundamental, that whoever we are, and whatever the distractions and challenges we face, God loves us, and we are to love another.
As we observe Advent, and focus our thoughts on Christmas, the Baby born at Bethlehem, fulfils the promise and hopes of the Hebrew Scriptures, but does much more; the baby becomes the promise of much more – the promise of God. We no longer await his birth, but the return. Dreaming the impossible dream for a creation and humanity at one with God and each other is the dream of God. He offers this dream and invites us to share it with him.
May your dreams this Advent be for God’s Kingdom. May they be filled with passion, creativity, and rejoicing, confident that in our dreams for a better world, so there will be God.
Amen