I wonder what your relationship is with
sleep.
For some it’s blessed relief after the
business, or busyness, of the day.
For others it’s something that’s troubled –
difficult to get into and difficult to sustain, full of tossing and turning, with restless dreams.
Some fall seamlessly into 8 hours of the
deep and dreamless, while others struggle to get 3 or 4 uninterrupted hours at
a time.
How much sleep do you need and how much are
you getting?
Someone wise has said that ‘the amount of
sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.’
Some other, wise quotations on sleep are:
‘people who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one.’
Hemingway said, “I love sleep. My life has
a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake.”
An eminent doctor said “You’re not healthy
unless you’re sleep is healthy” and Anthony Burgess remarked, “Laugh and the
world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone.”
My favourite personal anecdote about sleep
took place when our eldest was a toddler.
It was a hot day and it was tea-time. He
was sitting in the high chair after a big tea when Daddy came in from work.
Some of you know Chris has recently got a
Bishop’s Permission to preach and is going to undertake some training to this
end in the new year.
In those days, Chris was new to preaching
and he had written a talk that he was preparing to give in church.
He’d sweated hard over this talk and he
decided to try it out on me, at the tea table.
Our toddler was happily finishing his sandwich,
and seemed content to carry on sitting there, and so Chris began.
He was very proud of that talk – he’d put a
lot of effort into it and had thought through the bible passage carefully and
thoroughly.
He began. I listened.
It was an idyllic family scene.
In those days we only had one toddler and he
was pretty settled, sitting happily in that high chair, although it was a hot day…
It’s quite helpful to read a talk out loud,
and Chris was getting into his stride.
Five minutes elapsed. It was a good talk.
Ten minutes and he came to his final,
serious point.
He hadn’t looked up from his paper, but now
he did, with a hopeful look on his face.
“What did you think?” he asked.
I said something encouraging. He turned to
our happy toddler, and as a joke, asked, “What did you think?”
Our well fed toddler, having been ignored
for ten whole minutes, though he was sat in a stiff high chair and was normally
quite active and wanting to run around after tea, was absolutely fast asleep.
We both dissolved into helpless laughter.
Hoping that the same effect is not achieved
at the end of this talk, let’s ask ourselves why it is we are asked to stay
awake in today’s gospel.
Of course it’s the beginning of Advent, and
we’re reminded that Christ is returning.
Mark records that Jesus taught about the
coming of the Son of Man at the end of time, and the first Christians
lived in expectation of this event being fairly soon in the future.
May years have passed and we still wait.
But just because it's been a long time, we
don’t give up the expectation, and part of Advent is about recalling this hope
yearly, and asking ourselves, how should we live in the light of it?
Three times in the gospel Mark records
Jesus as saying ‘keep alert; keep awake.’
Because ‘about that hour (that is the hour
of the return of Christ) no one knows.’
‘Beware, keep alert, for you do not know
when the time will come.’
‘Therefore keep awake, for you do not know
when the mater of the house will come.’
If you know a burglar is operating in your
area, you don’t become complacent about security; you tighten it up.
Because you know you need to be ready, you
act in certain ways.
You tighten up the windows; you lock up the
shed and double lock the front door at night.
We’ve all seen the films where someone’s
trying to penetrate a high security setting, like James Bond or Johnny English, and first you see them approaching the CCTV, wondering how that's going to go, and then there’s a shot of the
security guard…
He’s usually a big guy, not terribly
bright, and ah, what a surprise, he’s fallen asleep (or been drugged with a
sleep potion).
Whoever it is creeps past the camera and
gains entry right under their nose.
When that guy wakes up and sees the CCTV footage he’s going to be in for big trouble.
Keep alert! Keep awake!
It’s the message of Advent.
So, given Christ is returning, how should
we live?
How do we keep awake, spiritually?
If someone said to you, what’s it like to
be spiritually awake, what would you say?
How would you describe a spiritually awake
person?
Here are three suggestions for keeping
awake spiritually (you’ll have your own I’m sure).
Be prayerful.
We had an interesting discussion at PCC
about how prayerful we are as a church.
We asked the question, to what extent do
prayer needs of our community reach our ear and then reach our worship on
Sundays?
Could we pray for each road in our parish,
as they do in some churches?
How do we feel about midweek prayer groups,
honesty in prayer and praying for ourselves?
When did you last read a book about prayer?
What strategies do you have to be a
prayerful person?
Do you know God’s guidance in prayer; have
you learnt to discern his voice?
Can you sit for five minutes in silence, in
the presence of God, and know his loving gaze upon you?
When did you last offer to pray for one of
your neighbours?
Be informed.
It’s a bit like Have I Got News For You.
If we don’t know what’s going on in the
world, how can we pray for it?
As a little barometer, here are some
current or recent stories: how well up are you on them?
What are the hot topics in the UK at the
moment?
*Immigration
*Child sex abuse scandals
*Black Friday
Finally something that we need
Christians to do deeply, wisely and theologically:
Reflect.
Reflecting on the news is a step deeper
than merely consuming the news or even praying about it.
It involves being prophetic.
How does God see our nation? What is really
going on spiritually?
So with immigration: what is fact and what
is opinion?
How do the newspapers sway our opinions?
How does Jesus view the stranger?
What do the Scriptures say about the
stranger, the poor and the weak?
In which of our MPs do we see the fruits of
the Spirit? Are they people of good character; are they wise?
Child sex abuse scandals: What kind of country are we where large
numbers of children are routinely abused and civic bodies fail to notice or do
anything about it?
Where is repentance?
How do we value children in our own community?
Black Friday: why is it that people will
crush each other underfoot in supermarket queues to get £20 off a coffee maker? What are our values?
What could the Church’s contribution be to this?
1. Be prayerful. 2. Be informed. 3.
Reflect.
During this Advent time, may God give us
grace to stay awake and to grow together in these three things.
Amen.
