First Sunday of ADVENT(ure)
Advent is not a spectator sport.
It’s not like watching the Detroit Lions game on the couch.
You don’t do it while you are doing something else.
Advent requires engagement.
It requires something more than plastic greenery
with the four candles as condiment.
We have to get up and begin — be willing to do it differently
It is an illusion to think that Mary and Joseph
knew the ending before they began.
They didn’t.
Nor did Abraham and Sarah or Moses and Miriam.
To live an active faith is to be willing to ADVENT
To be open to the ADVENTure
Our lives of Advent aren’t found as they might have been in a generation passed.
We live it in the shadow of the Christmas tree while Silent Night has been playing since Halloween.
Once upon a time stories about Advent take us to a place of make believe
Advent — and the birth of Emmanuel (God with us) is not a fairy tale.
It happened because God gave real people
a message, an invitation, and the grace to see it through.
It took sacrifice, grit, fear, humor and friends.
And we think we need so much more.
It’s Advent-ure time — so we begin today
by remembering what the wreath is about
Round — without beginning or end — candles to mark the four weeks from darkness to light
And evergreen to refuse to give way to those forces that want us to despair
My mother told the story that she received from the homesteaders just two 
generations before her
generations before herAs her grandmother told her the story of being alone with five children in Dakota territory after her husband had died of the “fever”
And she did as they did in her native Ireland in the weeks before the Solstice and the celebration of new life of Advent.
She took a wagon wheel and brought it into the house — cleaned it and adorned it with greenery and candles.
Advent is about being real.
My mother refused to have a microwave oven in her kitchen — said it wasn’t good for my father’s health
She didn’t like artificial sugar, artificial butter or processed bacon — the real things.
She was real — good and bad, it was as it was.
Advent was the same. Real journey for real people — but people who are present
I can hear her whistle now as she hands me the scissors and says,
“Get outside and cut something green for this wreath” — a palm leaf, a vine, an evergreen, some leftover ground cover —
Advent calls for the real thing.
So today, make a wreath and cover it with REAL green and find those candles to pierce the darkness
Three purples and a pink are best, but the meaning overtakes the color.
For it is Advent — the time to begin the journey
From here to where we are going…in the same way those who have gone before us have pierced the night of doubt
and have embarked without knowing the destination
For here, in this House — we do Faith, Not Fear.
Advent Prayer is coming your way!
(Go, Lions!)
