Whenever I attend Catholic mass during Advent, as I did last weekend, I’m always struck by how it is simply assumed — how it’s a liturgical . . . no . . . an ontological given — that Christmas is no where yet in sight.
I realize that many Protestants are thought to envy Catholic liturgy and the facility with which it is “performed” by both priest and people (and I’ll admit to a little of this), but I happened to attend St. Brendan on the Second Sunday of Awkward (as the good-humored Father reminded the faithful): they were still struggling through the newly-mandated changes in the mass.
But they got, always get, Advent right — the scriptures and prayers, of course; the music, especially; and, just as important, the mood.
Why is it so hard for most non-Catholics to really embrace this season fully? We give it a wink and a nod, observing a kind of pseudo-Advent, even as our Christmas celebrations — ecclesial, civic, and familial, are in full-swing. I have complained about this so many times for so many years that I’m sick of myself on this one. I mean it. I gotta get over it. Mainline Methodists observing Advent for real, for keeps, for the duration? Never gonna happen.
It can seem like so much liturgical snobbery to beat this dead horse year after year.
“You’re a purist,” clergy friends tell me, “and congregational life is messy.”
“If I don’t let the choir sing the Christmas Cantata on the second or third Sunday of Advent there’ll be hell to pay. I could lose my job.”
“Celebrate the youth Christmas party on December 27th? You’re joking, right?”
I know these concerns. I do. Full disclosure: my spouse is a UMC pastor who does his best to lead his congregation into the riches of Advent but who, like most clergy, has inherited deeply cherished, fiercely preserved “traditions” that make it impossible to really succeed.
But here’s what else I know. Most people in the pews are up for the challenge — the mystery, the drama, the strange satisfactions — of Advent. Not all of them. Some of them will refuse, resist, raise a fuss. But they’re the ones who complain about anything seemingly new or different! Am I right? (And why do we assume that what we do in worship gets put to a vote? Even the subtle, passive-aggressive “voting” by withholding money or snubbing the pastor or whatever — acts usually tolerated with a kind of silent, ulcer-inducing fury. Pastors make themselves sick worrying if worship is “liked.” Liturgy by popular opinion, majority rule. So Protestant. But I digress).
I’ve had the opportunity to talk about Advent and the Christian year to all kinds of Christians in all kinds of churches. In my experience, lay people are interested in church history and liturgical practice (and sacramental theology and biblical interpretation and Christian doctrine and on and on). They sense the poverty of worship when so much of it mimics the banal culture around them. They long for beauty. They’re game for change.
And this is not just a liturgical matter. Our jumping the gun on Christmas before Advent is even properly underway is regrettable not so much because it violates a hard and fast rule regarding liturgical propriety but because it robs us of the gift of inhabiting fully a season of deep and necessary paradox — a lack in the life of faith that many church-goers feel keenly.
Judgment and hope are the hallmarks of Advent. Not fire-and-brimstone, God’ll-get-you condemnation nor pie-in-the-sky, cross-your-fingers optimism; rather, the judgment necessary to set right a world gone awry, to bring justice to those long-denied it, to scatter the proud and bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly (Lk 1:51-52). Our hope is that this judgment will do its redemptive work and that all of creation might share in the new life made possible by its refining fire (Malachi 3:2). The Advent scriptures heighten our awareness of these stark realities; they remind us that we are called to wait and watch, not passively, but with the expectation that the inbreaking reign of God can come like a thief in the night (another Advent theme): the thief who comes not to steal but to give us all good things.
This is the Advent that ordinary Christians long for, I believe. And so three modest suggestions for recovering (or discovering) this season in all its fullness:
1. We can’t talk about Advent only in Advent. Habituating worshipers to the rhythms of the church calendar requires a year-long (years-long) attentiveness, regular reminders that we occupy time differently, ongoing catechesis about the patterns and practices that shape Christian identity. This truth can be taught in a variety of ways (studies, sermons, and all the rest), even as worshipers embody its reality Sunday after Sunday. But it’s not absorbed by osmosis; intentionality is key.
2. Make changes slowly but resolutely. Decide long before Advent (and invite congregational reflection on) what the shape of the season will be. Maybe you’ll resolve to learn the Advent hymns you never sing; maybe you’ll organize a December study that goes deep into the Advent lections. Hopefully blowout Christmas celebrations will be saved for the twelve-day-long Christmas season.
3. Maintain a sense of humor. There really is nothing quite so obnoxious as a know-it-all who insists on liturgical correctness at the expense of harmony and goodwill. The journey out of our cultural accommodations in Christian worship is an arduous trek that takes time (see suggestion number two); not being so hard on ourselves can lighten the load and bring others along.
In fact it might be — if we’re willing to give these and other suggestions a try — that we can say, with the Psalmist on the third Sunday of Advent: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.”
Amen to that.
December 6, 2011 at 12:13 pm
For those who are wondering how to celebrate Advent as Advent and not as part of the American Christmas orgia (look up the Latin), Debra has some important and insightful suggestions.
December 6, 2011 at 7:57 pm
[…] Originally posted at Intersections […]
December 6, 2011 at 8:00 pm
As far back as I can remember, Christmas and Easter have meant very little to me. Maybe that’s because I can’t turn on my festive spirit like a tap. We bemoan the world taking Christ out of Christmas but the church has facilitated this. Let them try and take Christ out of Lent and Advent.
December 7, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Yes. That’s why we can and should use the recurring cycle of the Christian seasons, like a clock, to renew our love for God in various ways. Like we do with birthdays, anniversaries, and secular holidays (“Holy days”).
The Catholic Church uses even the calendar to remind us of God and our relationship with Him. Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, Eastertide, Ordinary Time (again), reminders of the last times and Judgement during November, “beginning again” the Church year in Advent (reminding us also that we can always begin again with God!!), Christmas, Epiphany, Feast days throughout the year, and many days to remember those who lived lives of heroic virtue. Etc. Enormous variety and use of the rhythm of life and time.
December 6, 2011 at 8:46 pm
I don’t know what seminary is like today but I felt that very little attention was focused upon the liturgy. We had one requirement for worship. While comparing notes with some Presbyterian colleagues they expressed the same concern. In the United Methodist Church I have encountered very few bishops and superintendents who have an interest in liturgy. The bishops and district superintendents appear to be more interested in results to record on year end reports. Do you need to add a fourth suggestion regarding seminary? At the same time I think suggestion number one is critical. More and more I feel a need to be discussing the liturgical year round. It is from the liturgy and silence that the counter cultural aspect of our faith is rooted.
December 7, 2011 at 10:50 am
Being Catholic gives me a perspective which most Protestants don’t have, and that is that the liturgical year in the Church is not just a couple of major holidays (Christmas and Easter) with a long stretch between them. The liturgical year begins with the First Sunday of Advent (that’s right – the liturgical YEAR). Advent leads Christmas which actually extends all the way to the Feast of the Epiphany. Then comes several Sundays in Ordinary Time, which end on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, which is the opening of Lent. After the long weeks of Lent we find ourselves at last at Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week, which is climaxed by the Easter Triduum – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. Easter lasts for a week, but the Easter season goes well beyond that, winding up with Ascension Thursday and Pentecost. Then there follow two more special Sundays before its back to Ordinary Time – Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi. Back in Time, the weeks are counted off until Advent once again arrives. Throughout all this are those major feast days that are holy days of obligation which are not connected to the any liturgical season – such as the Feast of the Assumption and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And yet beyond those are those other days that every year are associated with the various saints.
All this is meant to show that the reason Catholics handle Advent so well is because virtually every day is part of the liturgical year. When seen in that perspective, Advent has meaning because Catholics (at least those who pay real attention to their faith) are aware of an entire liturgical year, and so Advent is seen not as simply leading to Christmas, but the beginning of a liturgical cycle that reaches its end at Corpus Christi, a progression that marks the birth of Christ, His death and resurrection, His ascension into heaven and with Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi highlights two pillars of the Church’s faith – the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the doctrine of the Eucharist. Catholics do Advent well because they get so much practice throughout the year.
December 7, 2011 at 1:11 pm
We celebrate Advent at my Episcopal Church, with the Advent wreath and Advent carols.
December 7, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Advent: Reminding us His first coming. And anticipating His second coming, but also giving opportunity today, right now, in this or that moment today, to prepare to greet Him in our every day life. He’s coming to us even now.
Patient anticipation of our Lord’s coming.
Advent can teach us patience and gratitude. Every anticipation (about anything) we have should be / can be a reminder of our great Anticipation. We can ‘prepare’ in all moments of our life.
December 8, 2011 at 3:02 pm
I think the deeper reason why Advent and Lent cause uneasiness with Protestants is that these seasons are still (and perhaps subconsciously) perceived as strongly connected with the Roman Catholic system of penance, which was so vehemently attacked by the Reformers. The Protestant break with the Roman system was never complete, however. The Reformers were highly inconsequent in many practical things and they kept the basic outlines of the Church’s liturgical calendar. And thus Protestantism remained syncretistic.
From the viewpoint that the deepest motive of the Reformation was a return to Scripture and to the biblical faith and its lifestyle, one would have expected that all the traditional observances of Roman Catholicism, and the entire calendar of the Church would have been rejected: Sunday, the so-called “Christian” feasts, Advent and Lent, &c. Had the Reformation been truly biblical, then the biblical feasts and appointments would have been adopted. The Apostles didn’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, they celebrated Sukkot (Tabernacles) and Pesach (Passover). Jesus Christ was probably born at the feast of Tabernacles, and the biblical “Advent” is the time preceeding this feast, the Days of Awe, which start with Rosh HaShanah (New Year) and culminate in Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).
The Protestant Reformers never embraced the full biblical culture. From a practical and liturgical perspective the Protestant Church thus remained dependent on the Roman tradition, which was at the same time combated by them. Protestantism was content with a “purified” Roman tradition, it never returned to the Israelite tradition of early Christianity.
This confusing state of affairs still creates tensions for Protestants. Each time when the consistency of the historical solution of the Reformers is tested — which particulary happens at seasons like Advent and Lent — it becomes clear that the Roman calendrical system, although entirely unbiblical, is far more sophisticated. It also becomes clear that Protestants unwillingly acknowledge the authority of the Roman Church in observing the main outlines of its liturgical calendar. This causes psychological tensions for the Protestant conscience. It reveals that they are not truly independent from Rome. And thus the natural reaction is to have not “too much” of this liturgical stuff.
The true solution for this problem can only be the full adoption of the biblical heritage, by celebrating the biblical feasts and seasons. For most Protestants this solution will be too radical, however. For those interested, I have written a post on how the biblical calendar is connected to the Birth of Messiah, at: http://messianic613.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/minor-celebrations-connected-with-the-birth-of-messiah/
December 15, 2011 at 4:44 pm
As a UM Pastor who was raised in the Catholic church I find this author’s point of view to be opposite of my own perspective and experience. I have always celebrated Advent in my UM churches as a member and as a pastor. I LOVE THE FACT THAT I AM A PART OF A WORSHIP TEAM! This is the Methodist Way and why i chose to become one as an adult, one of the reasons I believe God called me to ministry and a great joy to me. The church I serve has a candlelight Cantata on Dec. 24 ending as Christmas Day begins. My home church has an 11p.m. Communion service on Dec. 24.
Every UM church I know in Indiana celebrates Advent.