To listen to this sermon on contemplation in the Advent season, click here.
Gospel Reading—Luke 1: 18-25
I would like to begin this morning with a parable. We will call it “The Parable of the Perfect Exchange.” It begins as follows: Once upon a time, there was a mountain village that was home to both a monastery and a reform school. The two existed side by side, but over the years had very little contact with each other. One day, however, the abbot who presided over the monastery found himself at the local post office at the same time as the headmistress of the reform school. The two exchanged greetings, and the abbot inquired as to how the students of the school were fairing that year. The headmistress replied with great distress and exasperation that the children at the school were testing her patience and resolve more than any previous year. The children were all boys, and they had broken into warring factions. Gossip, teasing, and bullying had become the norm. No student escaped from being the focus of ridicule by those belonging to an opposing clique. The students seemed to have an utter disregard for each other. The headmistress had tried every technique and method at her disposal in trying to bring about a lasting peace among the students in her charge.
The abbot listened calmly, and after hearing the headmistress’s tale of woe, replied that he believed his monastery had what the children needed and that the children had what the monastery needed. He then said that if the headmistress could bring the children over to the monastery the following afternoon he believed all their problems would be solved. The headmistress did as the abbot suggested. The next day all of the students from the reformatory filed into the courtyard of the monastery. The abbot gave them a warm welcome and proceeded to give the following instructions: Each of them was to take a vow of silence for the next hour. During that time, they would each go their separate ways in the monastery’s extensive rose garden. Their first task was to find a rose bush that caught their eye as being particularly beautiful. Each bush could be selected by only one student. Once each student found a rose bush to his liking, he would then take responsibility for feeding and watering the bush. Each student was to come to a large mound by the greenhouse that looked like a gigantic mix of coffee grinds, banana peels, and spoiled tomatoes. With a trowel, each was to scoop this mysterious concoction of organic fertilizer into a bucket and then carry the bucket to the bush, so that they could nourish it with the bucket’s contents. After this, the boys were then to take their buckets to the well so that they could fill them with water for their bushes.
When the hour was over, the abbot told the headmistress to observe that evening whether the behavior of her charges had improved. If it had, they would be welcome to come back the next day for more of the same. As it turned out, there was a notable difference in the behavior of the boys that evening as they ate dinner and went to bed. They no longer carried the same level of disregard for each other that they previously had. The next day when the headmistress brought her students back to the monastery she asked the abbot what his secret was. What was it about tending to these roses that was leading to such positive results? The abbot replied that when he heard how the problem among the students was one of insensitive disregard he knew that his monastery had the perfect antidote. The opposite of a callous and insensitive disregard for others was a caring and contemplative regard for the world around you. The abbot explained that monasteries were built for contemplation. Even when monks took on the ordinary tasks of the day such as washing dishes or gardening, they did so with a contemplative spirit. Maybe the students in the reform school were not ready to care for each other, but they were ready to care for a bush full of roses.
This made sense to the headmistress, but she realized there was something that she still did not know. She asked the abbot, “You said that the monastery had what the children needed and the children had what the monastery needed, so if the children got contemplation from the monastery, what did the monastery get from the children?” The abbot explained that what the monks in the monastery received from the children was a break. The children did all of the work while the monks could go take their afternoon nap. And that is why this is called the parable of the perfect exchange.
In many ways, the world can be a lot like the reform school. Most of the world’s problems whether its poverty or war, office politics or family squabbles typically involve at some level a disregard for others. Sweatshop exposés on the making of iPhones, for example, are revelatory because they shed light on places where the humanity of workers had been previously disregarded. Meanwhile, and I wouldn’t know anything about this, but I understand that married couples sometimes have trouble listening to each other, recognizing each other’s needs, and generally providing the attentive, empathetic regard a healthy relationship requires.
It’s in the midst of all of these micro and macro problems that we receive the true gift of Advent. The gift is that of contemplation. I arrived at this recognition after a fair amount of wrestling with our scripture for today. In our Bible Study on Tuesday, a good number of us were turned off by the punitive response of the angel to Zechariah when he voices what seems like a reasonable question. He essentially asks, “How will I know this rather unbelievable promise is real? Elizabeth and I are not exactly at the peak of the reproduction cycle.” Gabriel’s response almost made me want to entitle my sermon, “An Angel with an Attitude.” Gabriel becomes rather indignant and in more or less words says, “Don’t you realize who I am? I am an angel who is on close terms with God. How dare you not believe what I have to say?” He then continues, “You’re just going have to zip your trap for the next several months until the baby arrives.” That’s the modern translation. Not only does this lengthy punishment of silence seem to deviate from the unconditional love of this God whom Gabriel knows so well, but it also seems to be rather disproportionate to the alleged offense.
Of course, we are not dealing with a literal historical account here of an angel from heaven. We are dealing with a story that is ultimately meant to convey the significance and purpose of John the Baptist, the one who Gabriel says is going to prepare people for God. Maybe this kind of message needs an angel with an attitude to capture our attention. Still, in reading the scripture, I sympathized with Zechariah and what he had to go through. Upon leaving the sanctuary after Gabriel’s visit, Zechariah has to play charades with the people who have been waiting for him to appear outside. I can just imagine him trying to pantomime the exciting news about Elizabeth’s upcoming pregnancy. I then try to think about what it would have been like for him to spend the nine ensuing months being unable to speak. Several verses later we know that when his tongue is finally loosened the first thing he does is give voice to what has been called the song of Zechariah. He sings in praise of the coming savior promised by the prophets of old. We can see that the angel with an attitude didn’t turn Zechariah off from God or make him doubt God’s love. He sings, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
It would seem that rather than becoming bitter Zechariah turned those months of quietude into something that was almost like a monastic vow of silence. He took that time to contemplate the good news of what was transpiring. In a world in which people were straying from God’s ways of love, peace, and justice, his wife was giving birth to a son who was to help get the people of Israel back on course. In a world defined by the nighttime circumstances of violence and death, a new light was breaking forth to guide people on the way of peace.
Zechariah’s period of silence and contemplation reminded me of a chapter in Desmond Tutu’s book God Has a Dream. It’s a chapter on the stillness required to hear God’s voice. We might say that the angel with an attitude thought Zechariah needed some stillness to make sure he would hear God’s message for him. Tutu believes there is a place of prayer that goes beyond words. He says, “There comes a time when we evolve, we grow, and we realize that all that actually matters in prayer is being with our Beloved, being with God.” He compares this time of togetherness with the time spent by a couple who simply savor being in each other’s loving presence. Tutu declares, “Words give way; they are almost superfluous and totally inadequate. Just as if we were to describe a sunrise or the birth of a child, the most eloquent thing is silence. We don’t always need to be talking with the one we love.”
Tutu is aware that such comments could sound like the piety of those who fail to engage a world full of suffering as they devote themselves to prayer. Nevertheless, after the National Peace Accord in South Africa in 1991, Tutu spoke to his fellow bishops about the need for contemplation because he believed it would provide the inner resources required for a turbulent time of transition. He writes, “Discovering stillness, hearing God’s voice, is not, as I have said, a luxury of a few contemplatives. It is the basis for real peace and real justice.” Some of us who have trouble thinking literally or metaphorically about a God who speaks to us might prefer another image that Tutu provides. He likens contemplation to sitting by a fire on a cold winter day. He explains, “We don’t have to do anything. We just have to sit in front of the fire and then gradually the qualities of the fire are transferred to us. We begin to feel the warmth.” In other words, when we consciously think about our lives in relation to God’s love, God’s love spreads its warmth into our hearts. Through the process of contemplation, we in effect become more Christ-like in our own lives.
In relation to Advent, contemplation is our great gift because it is what ultimately prepares us for our own spiritual rebirth on Christmas day. While the rest of society runs toward Christmas with black Friday madness, Advent compels us to walk toward Christmas with heartfelt reflection. Advent slows us down. It makes us think about why this season is meaningful. It makes us consider how God’s love is present in our lives and how we can help further that love. Advent makes us think about how we can prepare ourselves for Christmas day. Thank God for Advent. Thank God for the gift of contemplation. Amen.