Setting Aside Time

In our gospel for today the vineyard tenants see the illusion of a world where they think that they are in control and in power, and they like what they see.  The landowner is gone, the tenants are running the operation, and presumably taking advantage of the situation to their own benefit.  They mistook the short-term leverage they possessed with the rightful expectation of the one who is ultimately in control of the situation.  The parable makes it clear that the tenants were in for a harsh reset of their misplaced expectations.

Fortunately for us all resets don’t have to be harsh, particularly if we don’t make things worse by dispatching the messengers bringing the call for a resetting in our lives.

One of the most wonderful gifts in our church year is the various liturgical seasons we embark upon throughout the year.  We have just begun the season of Advent.  A season of expectation and waiting to be sure, but also a season that invites us to a resetting of our own lives.  Advent invites us to prepare ourselves for the expanded realities of the Incarnation living and real in our lives. 

For many folks the noise and distraction of the more secular-focused holiday season can preempt this call to focus on preparing ourselves for the wonders that are to come.  Work projects must be finished before the end of the year, party obligations (both wanted and unwanted) can begin to fill calendars, the sun setting at 3:00pm (sarcasm, but still…) can all have a way of speeding us through this time of preparation and resetting in our lives. 

I would encourage us all to consider how we might intentionally find regular and consistent time to act on our own invitation to reset.  Various prayer practices will resonate and impact folks differently.  From the Daily Office, Lectio Divina, and many other forms, prayer can serve as an opportunity to more fully connect with and be opened to the specific resetting that God intends for us individually.  Setting aside time to mindfully listen for God’s call in our life can be helpful in drowning out the various noises of the season around us.  Perhaps there is an opportunity to more fully love your neighbors in the form of some service and fuller connection with someone that might expand your earthly experience with God.  The important thing for us all is to not allow the more and more commercially focused inertia of the season to sweep us away from our own needed opportunity to reset.

We are just embarking on our Advent journeys, heeding the calls to prepare for our Lord with the needed resetting of our lives.  May we not miss out on the gift of this opportunity that our liturgical year gives us.  May we be intentional in our efforts to prepare for our Lord.  May we seek out the places in our lives that God is calling us to reset.  When Advent comes to its fruition, may we be found to be good tenants prepared for the joy of Lord’s arrival.

The Rev. Bryan Beard, Vicar, Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross, Owasso, OK.