The Inconvenience of Advent

by Adrienne Trevathan

A couple months ago, I went to a hymn festival at Northwestern.  It was a chilly night, and as I stood on the steps outside the chapel waiting for a friend, I was thinking about how good it would feel to be mesmerized by beautiful music, surrounded by stained glass windows and friends.

After about 10 minutes of waiting for my friend, I anxiously checked the time.  Who wants to show up late for a concert?  I didn’t want to make an appearance.  A few seconds later, I saw a man approaching from the left in my peripheral vision.  I turned my head and saw an elderly man wearing a faded suit.  To my surprise, the man suddenly dropped to his knees and began to crawl, with great struggle.  I stood in shock for what felt like an hour as I watched this elderly man climb the first step up toward the chapel, his whole body shaking with effort.  After I got over my initial shock, I asked him if he wanted help.  He gently said, “Yes, please,” so I put one hand in his and the other on his arm and helped pull him up to the top of the stairs.  He slowly stood up, still shaking, balanced himself, and said, “Thank you.”  “Are you okay?”  I asked.  “Yes,” he replied.  He entered the chapel and I stayed outside.

I didn’t really know anything about him.  Why was he by himself?  Was he homeless?  Was he just determined to go sing hymns?  What I can’t figure out is that he could have walked on the grass next to the steps; there was only a small incline, and he wouldn’t have had to get on his knees.  Maybe he didn’t think about walking on the ground instead, or maybe he didn’t notice.

The hymn festival was beautiful.  It was the sort of occasion that I really enjoy: a group of performers entertaining me and offering me an emotional, intellectual experience that I could appreciate.  After all, I do have seminary training.  I know why those hymns were written.  I know their context; I can tell when something is off key.  “I had a right” to be there, to be enamored with it all.  And yet, although I tried to focus, I still had the image of this man in my mind.  I could see him in my mind’s eye with every minor chord I heard.  I was uncomfortable.  There was irresolution.

For weeks, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around Advent.  I know and have used the language we've adopted to talk about it, at least in United Methodist Speak: “Already, not yet,” “Bringing in the kingdom” and “active waiting,” to name a few.  These are all ways we try to understand the season.  They are also ways we explain the struggle for full inclusion.  But for me, none of these explanations have been honest enough.

I just found a letter earlier today that I wrote since I've been in seminary.  I have no idea how long ago I wrote it.  I don’t really remember what was going on, but as I read the words, I know it’s a prayer.  Without quoting it entirely, here is the struggle at the heart of the prayer: “I wait for you all day long…but my heart is overwhelmed by sorrow when I least expect it…I find disappointment, embarrassment and guilt that only I am somehow supposed to understand.  I am empty, unsatisfied by the hope that people tell me I should have.  You inconvenience me with your presence when I least expect it.”

I wish I could remember the circumstances behind that prayer, but it doesn’t really matter.  “You inconvenience me with your presence when I least expect it.”  As I read this, I finally realized what Advent is to me: annoying.  It annoys me to have to wait for the kin(g)dom.  It annoys me to know the celebration at the other end of the church year and not see any more change in the world than the previous year.

Advent is foolishness and ridiculousness.  Here we are proclaiming a kingdom while the world is crawling on its knees.  Would the the reign of God come if we were not so in love with our own ideas of what a kin(g)dom is?  Would the reign of God come if we could ever learn to let go of our notion of control long enough to let the Holy Spirit inconvenience us?  Would the reign of God come if we learned not to be shocked by the suffering of the world?

For better or for worse, we have a God who climbs up the stairs with us.