Why Why Why? More questions come out of the reading of the Gospel than anything. When the lectionary group met online earlier this week to reflect on the Gospel text for the First Sunday of Advent^[1], most of the initial responses were questions: “What does this mean?” “What are we to do?” “How am I awake?” “When are we asleep?” Lots of questions.

When my children were young, they drove me crazy whenever they would drill down any line of reasoning with ‘why’. 

“Why do I have to go to the dentist?” “Because your teeth need to be cleaned.” “Why do they have to be cleaned by a dentist?” “Because they have machines that can clean in a way you can’t” “Why don’t we just get those machines for ourselves?” “Because they are expensive and only dentists can get them.” And on and on and on. “Why?” It can be an annoying question.

But my sense these days is that we have to go there especially if we want to communicate our faith effectively. We have to address those more fundamental questions—but not first with established doctrines or beliefs. Rather, it is best to begin addressing questions of faith with our personal experience of faith, in an honest, genuine, heart-felt way.

Advent inaugurates a season of hope. As blue as the sky is blue, blue is the colour of hope. In the Gospel, we are called to keep watch, pay attention, and be vigilant. But in this era of pandemic economic and social depression, perhaps a more fundamental question is “Why?” Why should folks bother keeping awake when hope is scarce, when everything—as they say—is broken? What is the point of paying attention and keeping watch for the coming Messiah? Why bother, in the first place?

Hope in gospel faith is not just a vague feeling that things will work out, for it is evident that things will not just work out. Hope in gospel faith is also not some romantic or ideological notion of private preference detached from reality. Rather, hope is the conviction, against a great deal of data, that God is persistent in overcoming the deathliness of the world, that God intends joy and peace.^[2]

Yet, this ‘perfect fullness’ is always to come, over the horizon. And we do not need to demand it now. Why? The virtue of hope keeps the field of life wide open. Hope in gospel faith is especially open to grace, and to a future created by God rather than us. God is always up to something. 

And we’re always on the lookout for where and what is going on with God. This is exactly what it means to be “awake,” as the Gospel urges us! We can also use other a words for Advent: aware, alive, attentive, alert are all appropriate.^[3]

It’s not all warm fuzzies. To pay attention to the grace of God and to a future created by God rather than us, costs us something. We have to work at it. Faith is a practice that needs exercise. So, what at the beginning of this new church year and at the advent of God’s future, what can we practice that will curate hope in our hearts? 

To begin with, we can learn to be grateful for what we have. We can foster an attitude of gratitude. This may be a tall order, especially in a context of doom-and-gloom. These apocalyptic themes we touch on in our bible reading during Advent can easily generate in us fear, anxiety and catastrophic thinking. But we need to hold such a response in check. A person cannot exist in a place of fear and true gratitude at the same time.^[4]

As they rebuild Jerusalem following their exile, as they return to a land and city once devastated by war and dislocation, why do the returning Israelites feel they can go up to Jerusalem with joy? Why are they glad to go to the house of the Lord? 

Because they go, first and foremost, to give thanks. “Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together, to it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord … to give thanks to the name of the Lord.”^[5]

Gratitude moves stagnant energy when we’re feeling stuck in life. Gratitude debunks and moves us out of the mistaken belief that everything is broken. The simple act of practicing gratitude disrupts negative thoughts and changes our mindset to see the world in a positive way. Not only are we more attractive to others when we live in gratitude, but the most ordinary things can become extraordinary, creating a fuller, more beautiful expression of our life.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us.” Gratitude is the foundation of that adage. It means that our mindset has to be that God is conspiring and working in everyone’s favour. Do we perceive how?

Frequently, when something that we perceive as “bad” happens to us, we let it affect us in a highly negative way. But if we interact with the world from a place of gratitude, when something happens that others may perceive as “bad,” we can be curious about why something happens the way it does. And in expressing that curiosity we’re actively seeking the part of the experience that we’re grateful for.  

Holy Communion is also called ‘The Great Thanksgiving’ based on the Greek word “Eucharist”, which means ‘thanksgiving. Embracing the holy mystery surrounding Holy Communion doesn’t mean we fully understand what’s going on here. By being curious and asking why we celebrate the Eucharist, we don’t pretend we can always figure it out completely. We can’t. We’re not God.

Being thankful means, we trust that God will complete the sentence. And God will one day place the period at the end of the sentence when the last word on our lives and the world is said and done. So, what do we do in the Eucharist? In the meantime? In the Holy Communion we practice the presence of Christ. We practice presence. We practice being awake, paying attention, to what good God is doing now, however small, in this place and at this time, in our lives.

And when we perceive it, we give thanks. We practice being grateful.

As a child I probably was one of those kids who annoyingly asked “Why” a lot. I could remember when I was a little bit older my dad had the best response to my “Why”. When the questions got a little bit more complex and abstract, he responded to me with: “Why not?”

This may very well be the best question about faith, hope, God—in anxious and fearful times. Not to shut down conversation. But exactly the opposite—to widen the field of possibility. Why not? To faith, to hope, to a good God who loves us all – Why not?

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^[1] Matthew 24:36-44

^[2] Walter Brueggemann cited in Richard Rohr, “The Theological Virtue of Hope” Mystical Hope (www.cac.org, Daily Meditations, 5 Dec 2021) .

^[3] Richard Rohr, ibid.

^[4] Doug Good Feather, Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World, transcribed by Doug Red Hail Pineda (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2021), 27, 30, 31.

^[5] Psalm 122:4 (NRSV)