Readings: Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36
In our Gospel reading today,
Jesus warns his followers not to let their hearts
“become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily life,”
so that the day of judgment not
“catch you by surprise like a trap.”
Now this is an interesting trio:
carousing, drunkenness, and daily anxiety.
While the temptation posed
by carousing and drunkenness
might seem obvious,
it is at first glance hard to imagine
being tempted by the anxieties of daily life.
While someone might say to us,
“hey, let’s go out carousing tonight and get drunk”
(it is, after all, the season of office Christmas parties),
you rarely hear someone say,
“hey, let’s hangout this evening and fret over our lives.”
Jesus seems to suggest, however, that it is
not only late-night partying and drunken revelry
that can make us inattentive
to the dawning of God’s kingdom in our world,
but also our anxious concern over all the things
that seem to demand our immediate attention,
the things we think of as making up
the fabric of our lives.
Anxiety can be intoxicating.
Though we might acknowledge
carousing and drunkenness as vices,
we can be tempted to think
of the anxieties of daily life as a sign of virtue.
I don’t mean the anxiety that some people
suffer as a psychological affliction,
over which they have no control
and from which they pray to be freed.
I mean the kind of anxiety
that we cultivate as a sign
that we are serious people
who have serious obligations
and who take our obligations seriously,
that we are important people,
who have been entrusted with important tasks
that will simply not get done if we do not do them,
that we are complex people whose complex lives
require constant attention
if they are not to come crashing down.
To be consumed with anxiety about our lives
can be a way of signaling to others and to ourselves
just how virtuous we are.
Our daily anxieties can become as intoxicating
as carousing and drunkenness,
like a drug that dulls our awareness that,
at the end of our days,
there is only one thing that matters:
the reign of God that is made present to us
in Jesus Christ.
It is noteworthy that the Greek word
translated here as “anxieties” (merimnais)
also occurs in Luke’s Gospel
when Jesus visits the home
of Mary and Martha of Bethany.
Martha, bustling about tending
to the practical needs of their guests,
asks Jesus to scold her sister Mary,
who sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to his words.
Jesus says to her, “Martha, Martha,
you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her” (10:41-42).
Martha is clearly not someone prone
to carousing and drunkenness;
she is a serious and important person
with a complicated and busy life.
But her anxiety over many things
makes her blind to the one thing necessary:
to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his words.
Just as Jesus gently chides Martha,
so too he warns us today
about being anxious and worried
over the myriad tasks and obligations
that we have taken on or that have befallen us
and missing the one thing necessary,
the one thing truly worthy of our concern:
to look constantly for the appearing of Christ our judge.
Just as Mary of Bethany made the presence of Jesus
the sole object of her concern,
so too we should “be vigilant at all times”
and pray that we will have the strength
“to stand before the Son of Man”
in the day of final judgment.
There is nothing like keeping
the end of the world before your eyes
to focus the mind on what is really essential,
on the one thing necessary.
But the Advent season is not just about
anticipating Jesus’s return at the end of history.
It is about looking for the appearance
of Jesus in our daily lives,
those lives that are the object of our anxiety.
We, like Martha, can let anxiety over many things
dull our awareness to the one thing necessary
that is right here among us,
in the midst of our daily tasks:
in the words of Scripture in our ears,
in the sacrament of the Eucharist in our mouths,
in the poor and the needy in our world.
Our culture’s way of celebrating the Winter holidays
not only increases carousing and drunkenness,
but it also increases the anxieties of daily life:
we shop for a long list of perfect gifts
as we worry about a dwindling bank account;
we prepare for a visit to family members
by anxiously comparing our achievements to theirs
and fondly revisiting old hurts and grudges;
we scramble to finish papers for school
or projects for work
so that we can spend an anxious holiday
fretting about upcoming tasks that await us.
In the midst of all of this
it is difficult to practice the Advent waiting
to which God calls us in these days.
But it is precisely in keeping Advent as a season
of attentive waiting for the appearance of Jesus in our lives,
that we can awaken from the drowsiness of daily anxieties.
To make time to reflect on God’s word in Scripture,
to be more intentional about our participation in the Eucharist,
to seek the face of Jesus in the poor and the outcast—
these might seem like just more tasks
added to our already anxious lives,
but they are the one thing necessary:
they are what will wake us
from anxiety’s intoxication,
they are what will give us life,
they are what, as St. Paul says,
will make us “increase and abound
in love for one another and for all.”
