Advent allows us to experience the slipperiness of time, the already and the not yet, and whether we keep awake or not, God the Potter will not abandon us on the wheel.
Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The First Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37
Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’m not a potter.
I have thrown one or two pots in my life but they are much too embarrassing to show anybody. Maybe then, it is not surprising that what I remember most about the experience is being pretty frustrated. Frustrated that I wasn’t very good at it. That the clay didn’t move the way that I wanted it to. And that more than once I had to collapse the whole thing down into a ball and start again.
When the prophet speaks in Isaiah of God as the potter and as all of us as the works of God’s hands — I have to believe that God is a much better potter than I am. That God does know how to shape us, and will resist the impulse to abandon us, half-formed on the wheel. And yet, while I am absolutely convinced that God is entirely in love with each and every creation, I wonder if God isn’t also sometimes a bit frustrated. I wonder if God, like me, sometimes wishes the clay would cooperate a little bit better, would become what it was meant to be just a little bit faster.
And I say this because I think you can hear some of Jesus’ frustration slipping out in our gospel reading today. We have left Matthew now for Mark’s account of Jesus’ last days. This section, which is often called the “Little Apocalypse,” contains the last teachings of Jesus that Mark records. Some of the last words he speaks to his disciples.
And they are in response to a question: Earlier in Mark chapter 13 the disciples had been marveling at the very large stones, the enormous blocks that made up the foundation of the temple, and Jesus had replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
At which point, the disciples ask him, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” They want to know the date.
They want to know about the when – about time.
And Jesus knows that time is exactly what he is running out of. He is running out of time at the potter’s wheel. But these disciples, these bits of clay, are just not getting into shape! And it’s frustrating!
“Keep awake!” he says again and again. “Pay attention! Don’t worry about what’s going to happen, be awake to what’s happening now!”
These are exactly the same words he will speak in the next chapter. The same frustration that will bubble up in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he pleads again with the disciples, “Keep awake with me! I’m running out time!”
But none of them did.
And, as I was thinking more about my limited and unsuccessful attempts at pottery, I began to wonder if part of the reason that Jesus gets so frustrated might be because “time” is such a slippery thing.
Because while I was giving my whole attention to the clay beneath my fingers, when I was fully and utterly absorbed in the task, I had no idea how much time was passing. It could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours. It wasn’t just the clay that was slippery, time itself had slipped through my fingers.
And, of course, we experience the slipperiness of time all the time. It speeds up and slows down. It slips and skips. It fluctuates with our attention.
Which is why Advent is such a gift.
This is our liturgical season specifically dedicated to time and attention: to waiting and watching. Advent gives us the opportunity to notice and to experience this slipperiness of time.
Time is slippery in Advent when it moves fast and slow — fast for grown ups, for whom the days will pass by quickly, and the longer our to-do lists, the more quickly it will go. But for children it will be agonizingly slow — “When will Christmas get here?!?”
Time is slippery in Advent because it begins at the end. It it is the beginning of our liturgical year, but our reading from Mark is not from the beginning of Jesus’ time on Earth, but from almost the end.
Time is slippery in Advent because it is our season of already and not yet, when we try to wrap our heads around how God already came to be with us in person, how God is here with us now, how God will come again finally in glory to set everything to right forever.
And it sure seems like it’s about time for that last part, doesn’t it? It sure seems like it’s about time that all the shadows be banished by the Light of the world. About time for injustice to be washed away by a flood of righteousness.
It sure seems, God, like it’s about time for you to get here! It’s about time.
Advent is about all these kinds of slippery time. Because although we will celebrate Christmas exactly 22 days from now, Advent forces us to think about the kinds of time that you can’t read on a clock or circle on your calendar. And maybe that’s the precise reason that Jesus told his disciples not to worry about it. Don’t worry about the when.
Instead, he said: “Keep awake!”
Sometimes keeping awake is easy. “How did it get so late?” we might ask ourselves when we are absorbed in a task or enjoying the company of the people we love, or energized by life in the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes keeping awake is excruciating. “When will this moment pass?” we might ask ourselves when we are deep in dread or anxiously awaiting, or gripped by a spiritual insomnia when evenings and midnights and cockcrows pass by with agonizing slowness, when we are weighed down by regrets and fears and worries and resentments.
And sometimes keeping awake is impossible. Worn down and weary, we just need to shut our eyes for a while. To shut our eyes to the suffering of those around us and to death and decay and disappointment. When we are desperate for a little slice of oblivion and ignorance, we can’t help it. In our own Gethsemanes, we fall asleep.
And here’s some good news.
Even if, even when, we fall asleep, the God of time is still at work. It didn’t matter, in the end, that the disciples fell asleep in the garden. Christ died for them and for us all anyway. God is faithful. Always.
And here’s some more good news. God, unlike me, is a good potter. God will hunch over the wheel as long as it takes. God will give you the full time and attention to become what you will be, the work of God’s hands. And you are not just a lifeless pot, you are the clay that is called into partnership with the Potter.
God wants to partner with you.
Wants you to keep awake — to pay attention to the way it is about time for some peace and hope and joy and love. About time for something radical, something that will tear down the stones of corrupt systems, something that will shake the mountains of oppression and hatred, something that will shake the very stars out of the skies, something that will never pass away. And it’s coming whether you keep awake or not.
But if you keep awake, if you are paying attention as much as you can to what is happening right now —
If you let your clay be supple and responsive to God’s warm and gentle hands –-
If you lean into the already and not and yet and embrace the slipperiness of time –-
What a morning, what a dawning, what a sunrise you will see!
The dawn is coming. Already and not yet. It’s about time.
In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
