Sermon by Rev. Russell Daye

What are we Waiting For?

Psalm 25:1-10; Luke 21:25-36
St. Andrew's United Church, Halifax
Advent 1

Terry Kelly's video A Pittance of Time describes a scene playing out in a grocery store. It is 11am on Nov. 11th and an announcement comes over the store speakers asking shoppers to pause for two minutes in remembrance. Everyone does so, respectfully. Everyone, that is, except for one hurried shopper who continues to gather his goods. He looks at the people standing with their heads bowed, the contemptuous look on his face seems to be saying, 'what are you waiting for?!' He then moves to the counter and rudely demands service before the two minutes of are up. When the cashier remains still, holding her observance, he glares at her and again seems to be demanding, 'what are you waiting for?!'

The piece evokes well our outrage at one of the common sins of our culture: lack of gratitude for those who have made sacrifices to provide us with safe and comfortable lives. Apparently, the video is based on a real experience that Terry Kelly had one Remembrance Day. I wonder if the man whom Kelly witnessed wasn't suffering from another flaw common today: a deeply pathological relationship with time. How have we become so busy that we experience a two-minute pause as a terrible imposition?

Signs of this malady are legion: the shuffling at the Superstore cash registers to find a line just one person shorter; the fury expressed in traffic when someone's progress is delayed by just a few seconds; the frustration we feel when our super high-speed internet makes us wait ten seconds for a page. I'm a sufferer myself. When the traffic light turns green and the driver ahead is slow off the mark, I often cry out in my car, 'what are you waiting for?!'

I've been watching episodes of the BBC show, Life on Mars lately. In the show, the main character is hit by a car in 2006 and wakes up 1973. Life is very different. It's reminded me of all the spaces we had in our lives back then. Correspondence didn't fly back and forth in cyber-time. We waited days or weeks for letters, and had plenty of time to ponder the implications of what had been said and what might be said. The drive to Cape Breton was an hour longer then, the drive to St. John two hours longer. Most families only had one car; we used to walk a lot more, and occupied our minds with leisurely observation or daydreaming. Now, if we're forced to walk we crowd our thoughts with I-Pod music or cell phone chatter. We waited through the week for our favourite TV shows to come along instead of popping in a DVD as I have been doing with Life on Mars.

I've spoken before in sermons about how shocked I was to return to Canada after three years in the slow-moving South Pacific. During the first months back I kept reliving the same experience. I would be dawdling in the isle of a grocery store or an airplane or some such place and would suddenly discover someone behind me with his eyes screaming at me, 'what are you waiting for?!'

Our lives are so full, full, full! And not just temporally. Our days are just as full of things as they are of activity. Even more disturbing than the Terry Kelly video is the footage of US shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving: fistfights broke out as people scrambled to snatch up discount items. Many of these products - microwaves, computers, MP3 players, Play Stations - are the very instruments that make our lives frenetic. Wealth, pace, and consumption mutually reinforce each other in a vicious circle: we work harder, we make more, we buy more, the advertisers work harder, we want more, we work faster, we buy more, the manufacturers produce more, we consume more, r & d departments invent more, we covet more, we work faster still, we buy more … O' God help us off the treadmill!!! We know deep down that we have to get off this treadmill, but we don't. What are we waiting for?!

We pay a great price for all this, and we pay it in depth. Just as the power in music often presents itself in the silence between notes, the deep meaning in life often comes in quiet spaces. If we never lie fallow, how can we expect anything to grow in us? What are we waiting for?! When will we stop trading depth for pace? When will we stop sacrificing wisdom for hustle? What are we waiting for?!

We pay a great price for this but, even more tragically, the Earth pays a great price. As we work faster and buy faster and manufacture faster and invent faster and pollute faster we impact all of the planet's systems with a force and a pace that they cannot absorb. Like our souls, with our souls, these systems break down. We know we have to get off the treadmill. What are we waiting for?!

Now is the time to answer this question. In the liturgical year, Advent is the time of waiting, the time of yearning, the time of slowing down and moving into darkness as does the natural world around us. This is what 2000 years of Christian tradition compels us to do: to slow down even as the consumer culture around us speeds up. This is what we are counselled to do: go deep just as the society around us gets giddy with jingoism. We ignore this counsel at the peril of our souls. We know we need to do it. 'What are we waiting for?!'

The author of Psalm 25 knew what he was waiting for: 'To you O God, I lift my soul; …. Show me your ways; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me …. For you I wait all day long.' What are we waiting for? The author of Luke knew what his people were waiting for 'Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape these things, and to stand before the Son of Man.' What are we waiting for? The first Christians knew what they were waiting for: the return of Jesus the Christ in his glory. What are we waiting for? The Christians in Latin American base communities know what they're waiting for: the coming of the Reign of Peace and Justice. What are we waiting for?

I want you to answer this question. I want you to answer it at two levels. First, for yourself. What treadmill do you need to get off? What are you waiting for? What does waiting and watching and suffering the darkness look like for you. What are you waiting for? Second, for St. Andrew's. What are we waiting for? We have finished our Jubilee. Now we need to start to paint our future. What do we need before we can lift the brushes? What are we waiting for? Advent will be a time of transition for us. For 2006 we have talked and listened. In 2007 we'll get to work. But first, for one month, can we sit in the twilight seeking signs that indicate what the rebirth of Christ will mean for us? What are we waiting for?