We Have the Light to See in the Darkness
1st Sunday of Advent
I never cease to be amazed, and entrapped, by the cleverness of marketing schemes. Marketing geniuses know how to capture our attention, engage our imagination, and funnel our deliberation toward the choice they want us to make. One example: if you have journeyed West, or North, or South — actually, if you’ve left Baltimore at all — you may have happened upon a gas station by the name of Sheetz. Now, Sheetz has been there for me when I needed it more times than I can count, so I don’t want to seem ungrateful; but if you order food at a Sheetz, you will find that navigating through the kiosk ordering system is about as perilous as Odysseus sailing home from Troy, with deceptive marketing tactics on every side. Sheetz uses a variant of a marketing tool known as dark patterns that plays the choice you’re likely to make against the one they’d like you to make by couching their preference in a positive color and yours in a negative one. You might not want to add mozzarella sticks to your order, but there’s a green box behind it, while the option to skip is in red. And if one happened to be drowsy, hungry, and irritable from a long time on the road, one might be surprised to find six, gooey, fried sticks of cheese in their bag. For myself, all I’ll say is that the Sheetz marketing team knows what they’re doing.
But at any given moment there are a thousand and one things vying for our attention, each cleverly designed to catch us when our defenses are down. We may be able to ward off some that come across as too obvious, but the number that make their way through are legion, and their tactics to reach us ever evolving. The near-inevitable result of this constant bombardment is a state of existential stupor, of being so overwhelmed by the distractions that come from all sides, is that we go through life like zombies being drawn unconsciously from one thing to the next. It’s as if we’re sleepwalking through the dark, unaware of the forces that are pulling us, and blind to what’s at stake in the daily choices we make, big and small. It might seem as if the things we do, what we choose, what we value, and what we prefer have no impact on our life beyond the present moment; but no part of our life is really isolated from any other, and every part conditions and affects the whole. If we are not shrewd and discerning, we will get pushed around and not only acquire stuff we don’t really want, but worse, become people we don’t really want to be.
So, for this reason, the message of today’s readings at the beginning of the season of Advent seems apt and beneficial, lest the world’s enticements take us away from where we would like to be headed.
The word which ends today’s Gospel, “Watch!”, calls for not just any kind of attention, but the sort of vigilance you must muster to stay awake, to ward off drowsiness, and be alert to what is happening around you. It is not by accident that Christ describes the time before his return in glory as a kind of night, since during night we are more easily deceived by appearances, less able to rely on our senses, more likely to trip because of what lies outside our field of perception. To “watch” is to resist falling victim to the night’s temptation and being totally consumed by what lurks in the shadows. To “watch” is to wait for the coming of Christ, the Morningstar, whose light dispels all darkness, bringing truth and displacing deceit.
But while we still walk in darkness, we know the value of even the smallest bit of light. Saint Paul consoles and encourages the Corinthians in today’s Second Reading that, while they live in the long night of this world, they have all the light they need to see clearly to navigate safely through. “[In Christ] you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and knowledge… so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The words of Saint Paul should also console and encourage us, for neither are we lacking in the knowledge and gifts that come from Christ through the Holy Spirit. We have the holy Scriptures and the life of the Church’s Tradition to give us knowledge and insight to discern truth from falsity. We have the Church’s sacraments to heal us from when we’ve fallen victim to the snares around us and to elevate us to a higher form of living that is infused with the light of God’s own life. We have the witness of countless saints whose teaching and example grows the flame of charity within us to walk a path through this world covered in truth and love. In short, we have in Christ what we would not otherwise have; and if we had it not, the night would certainly overcome us. Paul promises us that the Father “will keep you firm until the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” and this hinges on the unshakable fidelity of God who has called up to fellowship with his Son.
Marketing distracts us by the proposition of what we do not have; while the Gospel reminds us of what we already have, and that what we have is all that we need to make it through this passing world to the world that is eternal. So, being awake and alert means we must use the Gospel to sift through the worldly things that lure our attention and choose only those that are necessary for, or at least are not harmful to, our salvation. This requires more than consulting the Bible to see what Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John had to say about buying a new this or that. Rather, more profoundly, we need to let the Gospel give us a new mind, so that it shapes our imagination, reorders our priorities, and gives us clearer vision to see what matters and what does not in view of our salvation. This takes time and commitment, a life of prayer, of striving for holiness, and of pursuing virtue — and for all that there is no substitute. We do not need to become masters of Christian living before we will begin to feel an impact upon the way we think and choose, even a small bit of leaven raises the whole dough, and a single flame of light affords the ability to walk in a safe line.
As Advent unfolds, let us heed our Savior’s command to be watchful and alert; and may we find in his grace the wisdom, prudence, and constancy to give no notice to the vain things on every side that call for our attention and instead move only toward that which is true and eternal.
Homily preached December 2/3, 2023 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and St. Thomas Aquinas, Hampden.