Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Grace Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Advent 1A, December 1, 2019
May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Beginning when I was in third grade, my mom and I started a tradition we called “People Trips.” I loved to read biographies. We would spend the winter reading biographies about someone and then plan a trip to where they lived and worked. We did trips on John F. Kennedy, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables), Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, and Eleanor Roosevelt. That last one being was probably my favorite and the most memorable. In addition to visiting Hyde Park and Valkill, we spent one afternoon riding in a cab around New York City. My mom had dutifully made a list of all the places Franklin and Eleanor had lived in the city. And then we ended with a stop to her memorial on Riverside Drive at the United Nations. Emblazoned on that memorial is a quote from Adalai Stevenson about Eleanor. He said, “She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” Indeed.
As I read our readings for today, I could not help but think of this quote. Paul, in our letter from Romans, and our Collect invite us to “put on the armor of light.” I don’t know about you all, but I really appreciate that our readings this time of year focus on increasing the light. Of course, for those of us in the Northern Hempisphere, this fits exactly with what we are experiencing. We are only a few short weeks away from the longest night of the year. We are quite literally aware of the increasing darkness, and I would guess that most of us are craving more light.
There can be a certain coziness to this time of year. More time spent inside, reading, cooking, playing board games. More sleep! But I would imagine that for most of us, it isn’t just the literal daylight that we crave. We crave a world that more deeply reflects the light of the Gospel. There are acrimonious divisions among our politicians, we are country deeply affected by the sin of racism, there is so much violence in our headlines, natural disasters seem to be an almost weekly occurrence. If we want to point to things that make the world feel dark and scary, there is no shortage. And it would be easy to just keep up the litany of complaints, to keep pointing out what is wrong with the world. It is the pastime of humanity from the dawn of time, complaining about the state of the world (see Genesis 3 and Adam and Eve’s first conversation with God, see the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness, etc.) You get the idea. Complaining is easy.
Signing up to be a part of the solution? Take the initiative to choose a different path? Those are more challenging. Sin and evil are real. The devil likes nothing more than to paralyze with fear or to get us to think that we are powerless to change something. We are not powerless. Not by any means. And we are going to be held accountable for our actions. That is what our Gospel reminds us of today. What we say and do matters. How we live our lives matters. We have power. We have a choice. We can give in to complaining or we can choose to live lives that light up the world. We can choose to live lives that share the light of Christ, share the Good News of God’s love with the world. We don’t have to do everything or fix everything. We do not bear this light alone. We just need to do our part.
Think about the image of a candle. Think of how one small flame pushes back the darkness. Think about what happens when you use that single flame to light other candles. Pretty soon the whole room is full of light. All it takes is a little bit of light, a little bit of hope.
So, my invitation to you today is to reflect on how you can put on your armor of light, of how you can stay focused on light and hope, even when we feel profoundly aware of the darkness that surrounds us. I invite you to think about, and keep at the forefront of your mind, whatever it is that fills you with hope. Maybe it is time spent with children? Maybe it is witnessing or doing small, simple acts of kindness? Maybe it is knowing what a difference the feeding ministry and Christmas giving programs make here at Grace? Maybe it is a conversation with a good friend whose presence and voice just lift your spirits? Maybe it is the beauty of creation? Maybe it is time spent in prayer or reading Scripture? Whatever it is in your life that brings you joy and fills you with hope, I invite you to do more of it. To help you have a tangible reminder to have more light in your life and to be God’s light to the world, I have baskets of candles in the Narthex and here on the front pew. It is just a small battery operated tealight (so you can use it anywhere), and I hope that it will be easy to place on a windowsill or bedside table. Somewhere you see it often. May it be a reminder of the power of a single flame to push back the darkness. May it be a reminder that there is always a reason to hope. AMEN.
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