St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
December 3, 2023
Year B: The First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
Putting On the Armor of Light
I’ve mentioned to you before that I am a big believer in the value of weekday worship.
It’s a lesson that I learned way back at the first church I served as an assistant – a church that offered at least one service of public worship every single day of the year.
Frankly, when I first arrived there that devotion to weekday worship amazed me, and now, after being rector of a couple of churches, it still does.
Although relatively few people attended most of those services – and sometimes it was just the officiant praying alone – I came to appreciate the spiritual value of that daily discipline – the way all of that prayer changes us, in ways both visible and invisible, known and unknown.
And daily worship has a symbolic value, too.
It reminds us that the Christian life is more than something we do for an hour or so on Sundays.
No, following Jesus a 24/7 undertaking, the commitment and adventure of a lifetime.
And, finally, offering weekday services is just good stewardship.
We really should use our holy and beautiful and expensive to maintain buildings more than just once or twice a week.
So, one of my goals has been to reintroduce weekday worship to St. Thomas’, which we did first by adding the Service of Holy Communion and Anointing on Wednesdays at noon and then introducing Morning Prayer on Thursdays at 9:00.
I’ve hoped that eventually we might actually have one service every single day.
I’m playing kind of a long game here, so I’ve assumed that this would take a while.
But then, world events intervened.
As most of you know, when war broke out between Hamas and Israel, some of us felt the call to step up our prayer life.
While it’s true that armed conflicts are always raging in different places around the world, this particular war seemed extra dangerous, running the risk of sparking a wider war in the Middle East.
This horrible war also released – or maybe simply uncovered – the old demons of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
This brutal conflict and the suffering of so many innocent people tempted so some of us to dehumanize the “other side” – forgetting that we are all beloved children of God – our blood and our tears are made of the same stuff.
And so, we stepped up our prayer life by offering The Great Litany, Monday through Friday at noon in the Old School Building.
I chose the Litany because this is a prayer that people have prayed for centuries, especially in times of crisis.
It’s also an exceptionally comprehensive prayer.
In the Litany, we ask God to deliver us “from all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity.”
We ask God to “make wars to cease in all the world; to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord; and to bestow freedom upon all peoples.”
And we beseech God “to have mercy upon all mankind.”
I also chose the Litany because it’s easy: it was already right there in the Prayer Book – no creativity or bulletins were required - and it only takes about twelve minutes to pray aloud, which seemed manageable.
I wasn’t entirely sure if anyone would show up, but most days there has been at least one other person in the Old School Building and for the last few days a good friend of mine, Tina, has been joining us on Zoom all the way from Tallahassee.
Sam Shoemaker once wrote, “Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.”
“Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.”
And that’s been my experience of praying the Great Litany over these weeks.
I can’t say that the world is in any better shape because of our prayers, though you never know.
But, I can feel a difference in me – a renewed strength to face the future – a deepened confidence that God is present with us even when everything is a mess, even when the shadows grow very deep.
In the words of today’s collect, our opening prayer, praying the Great Litany each weekday has felt like putting on the “armor of light.”
Today, the First Sunday of Advent, is the first day of a new church year.
And today, and during many Sundays this year, we’ll be reading and hearing from the Gospel of Mark.
Although, it’s placed after Matthew in the Bible, in fact Mark is the oldest of the four gospels.
The Gospel of Mark was written about forty years after the earthly lifetime of Jesus, right around the Year 70, the year when the Romans brutally sacked Jerusalem, destroying much of the city, including the Temple.
The Temple was where, in a sense, God was believed to dwell – it was where the Jewish people made sacrifices in order to keep their end of the Covenant – it was simply the heart of Jewish life.
And so its destruction was a horrible blow.
In a way that we can’t quite grasp, for Jews of that time, the destruction of the Temple must have seemed like the end of the world.
And at least some Jesus followers thought that the destruction of the Temple was surely a sign that Jesus was about to return, that the Last Day, the Day of Judgment had arrived.
But in his gospel written during this time of turmoil, Mark quotes Jesus as saying that, yes, awful and terrifying things are going to happen, but we do not know when the Last Day will arrive.
So, we need to be alert, to be prepared, to keep awake.
We live in a time of deep shadows.
After an all-too-brief ceasefire, after the release of some hostages, the war between Hamas and Israel has resumed, and the risk of a wider conflict remains – and the old demons of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are still on the loose.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine grinds on, causing so much suffering, and also threatening a larger and even more devastating conflict.
Meanwhile, many of us face our own personal challenges and sorrows.
And across our country, rightly or wrongly, so many have lost trust in our institutions and leaders.
We’ve lost trust in each other.
And I still haven’t met anyone who’s excited about the next presidential election.
It’s tempting to give into despair.
But, God does not let go of us, no matter what.
And, while we may not know the future, we do know Jesus.
So, during Advent and always, we keep awake.
We offer loving service to people in need, as we will next week at the Christmas Extravaganza.
And, most of all, we pray – trusting that our prayers will change us - not just here on Sundays but every day – praying the Litany or in whatever way helps us feel God’s closeness.
In a time of deep shadows, we put on the armor of light.
Amen.
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