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Sermon #65 (27th November 2022 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n I wonder what comes to mind, for you, when you hear the phrase \u2018Be Prepared\u2019? Personally, it makes me think firstly of the boy scouts (and the girl scouts). Baden-Powell, the founder of the scouts, wrote over a hundred years ago that to Be Prepared means \u2018you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.\u2019 And more recent versions of the scouting handbook unpack this for the modern day by saying the idea was that \u2018Scouts should prepare themselves to become productive citizens and strong leaders and to bring joy to other people. He wanted each Scout to be ready in mind and body and to meet with a strong heart whatever challenges await him.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That\u2019s a pretty noble aspiration, isn\u2019t it? To be ready in mind and body to \u2018meet with a strong heart\u2019 whatever might await us? And many of the writings you find about this Advent season will feature the phrase \u2018prepare your heart\u2019 \u2013 while doing my homework this service I found dozens of Advent devotionals with that phrase in the title \u2013 But what does it really mean to \u2018prepare your heart\u2019? What exactly are we meant to be preparing for at this time of year? And how might we go about it?<\/p>\n Well, it\u2019s not the preparation of, say, the \u2018doomsday preppers\u2019 and survivalists, those people who are fanatically preparing for (or perhaps precipitating) the imminent collapse of society by stockpiling weapons, ammunition, and jars of preserved vegetables and tinned meat in their outhouses and under their beds. Though I\u2019m not really in a position to judge on the latter point because I panic-bought a lot of tins of corned beef in late 2019 when a no-deal Brexit looked like it was on the cards (it took a while to eat our way through the stockpile).<\/p>\n This sort of behaviour is preparing for the worst \u2013 and of course it has its place \u2013 if you\u2019re of an anxious disposition one way to soothe your fears about the future can be to put certain mitigations in place. An example: for my whole life people have commented on, and occasionally rolled their eyes at, the heavy rucksack I won\u2019t leave the house without (mum was the same; her handbag was humungous). But if you\u2019re ever in need of a plaster, a painkiller, a needle and thread, a charger, a lighter, or a snack, the odds are pretty good that a rummage in my rucksack (or mum\u2019s giant handbag) will turn one up. We can, at least occasionally, anticipate some of what life might throw at us, and make contingency plans. Being prepared in this sense \u2013 being ready for emergencies, large and small, by thinking through various possible eventualities \u2013 that is perfectly prudent. I\u2019m the last person who\u2019s going to knock it.<\/p>\n But. The sort of preparation we are called to do in this Advent season is, in a way, the polar opposite of this. Instead of preparing for the worst, at this time of year, we are called prepare for the best.<\/p>\n This next point might sound like a bit of a random tangent but bear with me. It\u2019ll all join up in the end\u2026 I suspect many of you are familiar with the (now famous) psychology experiment which has come to be known as \u2018The Invisible Gorilla\u2019. Participants in this study were asked to watch a video in which two basketball teams, one wearing white and one wearing black, passed the ball to each other. The participants are told to count how many times the players in white shirts pass the ball (so they\u2019ve been primed to have a narrow focus on this in particular). Mid-way through the video, a gorilla walks through the game, stands in the middle, pounds his chest, then exits. He\u2019s on screen for ten full seconds. And afterwards the participants are asked \u201cdid you see the gorilla?\u201d More than half of the participants never saw the gorilla at all. The experiment is meant to show \u201cinattentional blindness\u201d. We don\u2019t see what we\u2019re not looking for (even when it\u2019s a massive gorilla staring us in the face).<\/p>\n In the season of Advent, when we are encouraged to \u2018prepare our heart\u2019, what might that mean? Well, I reckon (at least in part), it\u2019s about consciously redirecting our attention towards the most important things in life, be ready, so they don\u2019t just pass us by (you know, like an invisible gorilla). When times are tough, as they undoubtedly are right now for so many people the world over, we can find ourselves grimly fixated on life\u2019s challenges and disappointments, and simply unable to notice the good that\u2019s still present in our everyday lives, alongside all the hardship and struggle. But what would the world look like if we were to \u2018prepare our hearts\u2019 to attune to life\u2019s goodness?<\/p>\n Think of our first hymn today \u2018People, Look East\u2019, with its imagery of looking to the horizon in a hopeful spirit for what\u2019s coming \u2013 love, light, beauty \u2013 and making a place ready for its arrival. Or Richard S. Gilbert \u2018holding out the chalice of our being to be filled with the graces of life that abound\u2019. Or Mary Oliver\u2019s image of \u2018making the house ready for the Lord\u2019 (only, as she hints, the Lord comes to her in the form of mice and squirrels, dogs and cats, sparrows and foxes, and she welcomes them all). These are all metaphors of receptivity and openness \u2013 to love, light, and beauty \u2013 \u2018come in, come in\u2019. In this sense, to \u2018be prepared\u2019 is to anticipate, expect, get ready, and \u2018look east\u2019 to the horizon \u2013 for whatever unexpected arrivals might visit your life next \u2013 with a hopeful and receptive heart.<\/p>\n There are some words from Daphne Rose Kingma printed on the front of the order of service which speak to this (the full service text is also on the website). She said: \u2018To be available to the mystery means you are open, expectant, waiting \u2014 continually poised on tiptoe, prepared to be illumined.\u2019<\/p>\n Or to return to the more conventionally Christian framing of the season that I shared at the start of the service, in the words of Mark Burrows (which I realise might be a bit challenging for some of us), this is a time when \u2018we ready ourselves for Christ\u2019s birth in us\u2026 the coming of God in our lives, here and now\u2026 in the realities of our daily lives. God longs to be born among us in our world \u2013 and in your life.\u2019 Even if you find that language a bit tricky, I encourage you to do a bit of inner translation work, and make your own meaning of it. God \u2013 or love, light, goodness, beauty, truth, if you prefer \u2013 God (in all God\u2019s forms) is already present and at work in our lives. During Advent we are called to see it and be it. To notice where God is emerging in our everyday lives and be ready to join in with all this Godding too.<\/p>\n As the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart says, in the other quote on the front of the order of service (again, it\u2019s all online too): \u2018Above all else, then; be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive.\u2019<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a metaphor that Eckhart would have recognised but you might even think of yourself as a radio antenna or satellite dish tuned in to God \u2013 or love, light, goodness, beauty, truth \u2013 in the everyday. And in that spirit I want to issue a little challenge \u2013 an Advent project for you to join in with, if you fancy \u2013 I\u2019m calling it an \u2018Advent Treasure Hunt\u2019. Those of you who are present in-person can find a little yellow slip in your order of service and I\u2019m happy to email it out to anyone who\u2019s watching at home but essentially it\u2019s just a little list of dates from now until Christmas. Every day this Advent (starting today!) I encourage you to look out (\u2018look east\u2019!) for moments when God is breaking through in your life \u2013 what I\u2019ve written on here is \u2018moments of love, kindness, beauty, truth, peace, insight, mystery\u2019 but feel free to adapt it to suit the particulars of your own theology \u2013 and each day make a note on this page, or in a journal, or on your phone. If you want to take this further, maybe take a photo or even a video to represent your daily treasures or \u2018God-moments\u2019 throughout the month. And if a bunch of us keep it up perhaps we can share some of our reflections and photos with a follow-up congregational service early in the New Year. Sharing all the treasures we\u2019ve noticed. If you do give this a go please don\u2019t let it become burdensome \u2013 if you miss a day or two you can always return to it without any guilt \u2013 nobody\u2019s going to tell you off. Let us know how you get on.<\/p>\n And to close, I invite you to join in setting an intention for the Advent season with some prayerful words from Victoria Weinstein, an echo of the prayer we prayed together earlier in the service:<\/p>\n Let us pray that we may notice and accept the Divinity of tiny things; Sermon by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n An audio recording of this sermon is available:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\nthe Divine of ordinary miracles and even in the awkward mistakes.
\nWe pray this moment to keep tender vigil over our precious, imperfect lives.
\nTo know each one as a vessel, however cracked or broken, of the Holy.
\nSo may we strive to recognize the indwelling presence of God
\nin all people, in all living things, and even in ourselves.
\nMay it be, so for the greater good of all. Amen.<\/p>\n