The Third Sunday of Advent this year brings John the Baptist
exhorting the crowd to “bear fruits worthy of repentance”. (Luke 3:7-18) and the crowds asking
him in return, “What then should we do?”
John talks about the changed hearts of repentant people and
their actions – those “fruits worthy of repentance” – being of one piece. Virtue ethicists going back to Aristotle have
said we can acquire various human virtues by making a habit of
doing virtuous actions. Today we talking about “acting as if” or tell people to
“fake it until you make it”; it’s the same principle. So if I want to be the
sort of repentantly generous person John describes when he says, “Whoever has
two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do
likewise”, I begin by giving away a coat or some food even if I don’t feel as
if my heart is in this. When I get in the habit of doing such things, I will
find that I have acquired the virtue of generosity along the way. On the other
hand, John describes these actions as the fruits or results of a change in
heart, and such actions should follow naturally from a deeply changed heart. The
inner state of a changed heart and the outer state of changed actions are bound
together.
John exhorted the crowd to have a profound change of heart
and to act in a way that reflected the interior change. Environmental activists exhort us to action,
but sometimes fail to encourage us to do the inner work that helps us to
sustain the outer work of advocating for a healthy environment.
On his Inside Passages blog , Kurt Hoelting recently posted on Embracing our inner tipping points on climate.
When I went through the GreenFaith Fellowship Program, Kurt was on the faculty for our retreat focused on spirit; he led us in
meditation and Qi Gong, and talked to us about how important this inner work is
to our external work. In the blog post, he writes that meditation practice is
often assumed to be a sort of “self-improvement project, a mere tool to reduce
our stress and return some sense of balance, while making no demands on us.” He
asks then if there isn’t “a deeper purpose that has to do with clear seeing,
with the hard work of burning off the fog of our ego-driven perceptions”.
The news about our climate in recent weeks has not been easy
to process or contemplate. As 2012 nears its end, we are on track for it to be
the warmest year in U.S. history. Climate change is becoming more real
to us in our weather records, our drought on the Great Plains, and the huge
reality check of superstorm Sandy. With our political leadership still
enthralled by the fossil fuel industry and the power it exerts, and with so
much at stake, the work ahead of us is difficult. Even thinking about the
magnitude and implications of the problem – a necessity if we are to advocate for significant
changes – is emotionally and spiritually challenging.
Kurt Hoelting asks us to look at our own “inner tipping
points”. What will move us from concern to action? He asks, “What more needs to
happen before we decide to take it personally? And what does taking it
personally look like for each of us?”
This evening we mourn the deaths of innocent schoolchildren
and some of the school staff in Newtown, Connecticut. The senseless death of so many children is
difficult for us to look at and process. Even though we didn’t know these
children, we care about what happened to them and are heartbroken by it. President
Obama said this afternoon that “we're going to have to come together and take
meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the
politics.” Many people are echoing this thought, saying that the time has come
to quit being timid about changing things so that this sort of violence will be
less common.
If we look down the road, many children will suffer and
die senseless deaths from lack of food, disease, or trauma from violent storms
and floods if we don’t work hard to make this a better world with a sustainable
climate. The reality of our warming world is difficult to contemplate
and won’t be easy to change, but our inner work of prayer can support and sustain
us as do the hard work of advocating for changes that will result in less
global warming.
In the Epistle reading for the Third Sunday of Advent
(Philippians 4:4-7) Paul exhorts the Philippians to pray rather than worry.
When we cut through the anxiety and choose prayer, says Paul, “the peace of
God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds
in Christ Jesus.” When we do the inner spiritual work, effective work in the
world becomes possible.
What then should we do? Ground ourselves in prayer and commit ourselves to effective actions.
