As you know, in the part of the world we shop (I mean live) in, today has come to be known as Black Friday (Interesting isn’t it that today is identified as Black Friday and the second day of Triduum is called Good Friday, but I digress). Unlike September 24, 1869 when the term Black Friday was originally coined in reference to the stock market crash brought on by gold speculators who tried to corner the market, today is referred to as black not as an ominous moniker but rather as a verbal act of wishful thinking that this one day will be substantial enough to haul retailers “out of the red” (fires of financial hell) and “into the black” (halls of heaven) for the season.
I will leave to other homilists today (I give you Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping backed by the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir)* the prophetic task of exposing us to our American consumeristic spirituality that finds orgasmic pleasure in stuffing stockings or garages or bank accounts or nuclear arsenals at the expense of hungry strangers or hurting neighbors and at the cost of our culture’s emaciated soul (Did you see how I did that?).
Instead, what I’d like to do is to focus on and steal a page from the Get-A-Deal Disciples who brave descending temperatures, forego late night Thanksgiving leftovers by a cozy fire and a bad football game, endure folding their bodies into folding chairs or sleeping on foam-padded sidewalks under make-shift plastic shelters and bright buzzing lights in order to be ready when the pearly gates opened this morning at the Sony store or at Movado, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Lacoste, Best Buy, Sears, Target, Kohl’s or Wal-Mart. That’s the spirit!
Of Advent I mean. We might think of Black Friday as the Feast of Almost Advent since each year it precedes by two days the beginning of Advent. Black Friday can be a sort of “two minute” warning bell that reminds us of the season for rousing which is almost upon us. Black Friday enthusiasts have something to teach do-nothing dawdlers and passive slackers (and not just about where to land those black pumps at 30% off or that new flat screen TV) but about Advent, especially about waiting which is at the heart of Advent spirituality.
What I like about the waiting exhibited by the Black Friday doorbuster coupon seekers is how active it is, so intentional and embodied. Honestly folks, these waiters put most Christians to shame, at least appearing to long for that new toaster or Blu Ray player or lap top with the passion of a new convert. It raises the question for Christians: “what are we waiting for” and is our yearning even a tenth as passionate, as involved, as self-implicating as those who wait for the Kenmore washer/dryer combo and the complimentary latte? And if we feel prone to respond instinctively with a catechism answer that makes clear we are waiting for a who more than a what, are we waiting for that One with anywhere near the same vigor as a Taylor Swift fan or a Jonas Brother’s groupie waits for his or her star to appear?
Acutely sensitive to “works righteousness,” some who identify themselves as Christians are leery of any language that implies humans can do anything to bring on or build the kingdom of God. The danger here is that theory replaces practice, right belief is deemed more important than right action, theologizing becomes an excuse for inaction. What we can reappropriate from our Black Friday cadre, is waiting that is not merely patient but also injected with intense longing, passionate yearning, and hope-filled anticipation. Add to that what we can learn from our Jewish brothers and sisters which is to act out or act on our anticipation by moving toward that which we are anticipating, by acting out our hope, by alluring the messiah with deeds and actions compatible with being an image of God and that will draw God near.
Advent is a season for waiting, yes. But it is also a time for rousing and alluring and working while we wait. And how we work or what we work for is guided and shaped by the One for whom we wait and what we are waiting for. If we wait for the Prince of Peace or the peaceable kindom, then we work peaceably. If we wait for the time when all tears will be wiped away, then we look for people who suffer and places where tears flow and we catch the world’s tears (as one of my friends says) and we wipe the tears of someone, anyone. If we wait for a time when all shall be one, we commit ourselves to inclusion, to welcoming the stranger and the exiled, the forgotten or the not-like-us, we become ambassadors of reconciliation. If we yearn for the day when no one hungers for food or friendship or family we practice advent by cutting our sandwich in two, by befriending someone, and by treating each and every human and all non-humans as the brothers and sisters that they are.
Wait on!
* http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/21/entertainment/la-et-reverend-billy-20101021 [3 pages]