Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, December 8, 2024.

You may have noticed that lately I’ve been leaning into the Hebrew psalms and prophets. These ancient writings can use some interpreting and improvising to be accessible in the context of our days, but can be prophetic and poetic and helpful , can’t they? Like in the words we just sang—did you notice that they come from Isaiah, chapter 55? I love that the ways these psalms and prophets addressed the challenges they faced back way then— 2500 to 3000 years ago—can still speak to our human condition today, even though the context of our lives is so different.

Some years ago I was at a talk when the speaker said something that really struck me: that most of the problems we face in America face are of excess, because there’s too much, rather than not enough. Who among us hasn’t said, “I have too much to do!”? Or, “I have too much stuff. There’s too much traffic. There’s too much waste. Christmas has become too much about buying stuff.”

This is not typical of most of the world, where problems often come from scarcity, rather than abundance. And there is certainly plenty of scarcity and poverty in this land, here in the richest nation on earth. Which should pain all of us, shouldn’t it?

Among spiritual teachers it’s widely acknowledged that there are at least two paths to the Holy, and two different seasons of the spiritual life. These are the way of abundance and light, called the via positiva, and the way of absence and shadow, the via negativa. One isn’t necessarily better than the other; they are like two sides of the same coin, and a healthy spirituality knows something about both. The negative way doesn’t mean negative in the way we normally hear it, as bad—more like how a battery has both positive and negative terminals—you need both. You know that in our lives none of us get to live in the sunshine all the time, and that’s a good thing; sometimes it is from out of time in the darkness that we find the greatest growth and depth.

We just heard this in the first line of Psalm 130:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O God;
    Please, hear my voice.

In this season of Advent, in this month when our worship theme is “wonder,” I want to commend to you a simple and oft-neglected way into a deeper spirituality and more meaningful life; a counter-cultural way, which is the practice of emptying one’s self. Rather than doing so much, it is the practice of waiting. 

This is not something many of us are good at. I once heard some say that sitting at a red light is a wonderful invitation to meditate or pray. I haven’t gotten there yet; I hardly ever think about it! I’m morel likely to channel these words of the psalmist: “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13:1). I want things to move as efficiently as possible, and the Spirit doesn’t seem particularly interested in that. One of the things that annoys me, and I wonder if this bothers, you, or if you’ve ever even noticed it, is when someone  pushes the walk button at a stop light, but then gets impatient and moves on. This just happened to me, at the intersection just out there, three days ago. I was waiting for the light to change, watching the pedestrian across the street, who all of a sudden stopped waiting and moved down the sidewalk. I thought to myself, “I hope he didn’t push the button!”

Well, he did. So the pedestrian was gone but still the traffic was stopped in all directions and we just sat there. It must have been for like thirty seconds at least! So please hear my confession that I need to be reminded to practice waiting as much, probably more, than any of you.

I tend to think of Advent as waiting for something, like waiting for the wonder of Christmas, the promise of the Incarnation, the presence of God in our midst. But what if the gift is in the waiting itself? What if a practice of emptying one’s self is a kind of making ready that can be a blessing in itself? What if absence has as much to teach us as presence?

The cry that begins Psalm 130 is the voice of desolation, but it is also a cry of hope. Hope that there is someone listening; that even and especially when you are in the depths of despair, that you are not alone:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O God;
    Please, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cry for your presence and mercy.

The hope and the promise is that the Holy is here, with us; as one song puts it, “the power of the universe knows my name” (Bernice Johnson Reagon, “I Remember, I Believe).

So here’s my simple message for you on this second Sunday in Advent: that the way into more depth and more peace, and even a fuller life can be found, paradoxically, by doing less, by striving less. By waiting. Just waiting. 

A practice of waiting isn’t complicated. It just takes some intention. You could find a quiet place, where you can be quiet and still. Maybe light a candle, maybe enter the time by reading some lines from a simple poem or psalm. Christine Robinson’s psalm 130 is good:

Out of my depths, O God, I cry to you.
Are you there?
I know I’m far from perfect,
but if perfection were required,
who would pass muster?
So, I wait and I hope;
like a sentry waits for the morning.
Help me to stay alert, and keep an open heart
for whatever comes.

Help me to sit here and just wait. For whatever comes. This may be challenging at first. “Couldn’t I, shouldn’t I be doing something more productive?” When I first started a prayer practice, and not much happened, I wondered what I was doing wrong. But this kind of practice isn’t about short-term results. It’s about being still, waiting, and watching. Trusting that there is value in that. 

And these weeks when the sun is low in the sky and setting so early, these Advent days, they seem to cry out to us to slow down, to sit in the darkness, to pay attention to our breathing, to let the world fall away for a time. A time when you can better sense that there is something quiet underneath all the effort and movement and busyness of our lives. There is foundation upon which you can rest, a still center where you always have a home. A good enough prayer for these days is this: “I am waiting, I am waiting.”

Though this is often a solitary practice, you can find support and companions here—you don’t have to practice all alone. For years Bets Robertson has led an insight meditation group here, and this committed committed group of practitioners meets here on Tuesdays at 7 pm. They know something about this way of quiet and waiting, and would welcome you to join them. You could ask Bets about it, or read the lovely piece she just wrote for the Communicator, our monthly journal of reflections.

In my own practice I often return to those last lines of Psalm 130:

I wait for you, O God
    more than the watchers wait for the morning,
    more than the watchers wait for the morning.

And I love that image, of waiting in the dark, or in the dawn, waiting for the light to return, waiting for the Spirit to come. One could do worse that to be a person who waits. In these days, who waits for light, for hope, for the Spirit to come into one’s midst. Or who simply waits, in the not-yet space that is this season of Advent; just waiting, holding open a space for what might come to dwell, in your heart, and in our world.

Hear these words about waiting without attachment or expectation from the poet T.S. Eliot:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Can we practice this kind of waiting? Trusting in our Universalist faith, that we are held by a Love which will not let us go, so we can try to empty ourselves of worry, can practice letting go of fear, and just be present in this place of waiting. We can Just Wait. Can’t we?

The lines that follow in Eliot’s poem are these:

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

This sounds kind of Biblical—the darkness shall be made into light; and out of your solemn stillness shall come dancing. 

We live in such a transitory world, it’s so easy to be discouraged, to fee tired and weak and worn. We all do sometimes. And still… and yet… there’s more to the story.

There are lines from Whittier might be my favorite in our hymnal; they express this faith  and this truth that underneath all that is temporal, our work, our worries our striving, there is something that is for always:

The letter fails, the systems fall, and every symbol wanes,
The Spirit overseeing all, Eternal Love, remains.

The Spirit is always moving in our midst, as close as our breath. Whispering, “Be still and know that I am with you” Reminding us that it is still a beautiful world. And that what we have to give is needed. Inviting us, in this season, to just wait. Wonder is on the way.

Amen.