Are you a spiritual procrastinator?  

One of the things I am learning about myself is that I do well with finite deadlines.  If something has to be done by Monday, Nov. 30, 2009 at 2 p.m., that is exactly when it will be done.  If something has to get done eventually, that is exactly when it will get done – eventually.  Kind of like those term papers in college that were assigned on the first day of the semester and due the last day – they would hang over your head with this vague sense of impending doom.  And when would they get done? – the last week of the semester.  Though this ‘under pressure, under deadline’ approach might be good in getting various tasks and projects done, I am quite convinced it is not the way that Jesus would have us look at time nor the end of time.  Spiritual procrastination is not the way to walk through life or the season of Advent.   

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy” – comes the invitation of Jesus.  We are meant to live awake and aware to all that is going on around us.  What struck me in prayer this week about that invitation were the three descriptors of what might make our hearts drowsy that follow it.  There are three things that Jesus warns his disciples might make them guilty of spiritual procrastination. 

Carousing.  All of life is a party, so take nothing seriously, take nothing as ultimately important.  Life becomes a series of good times to be enjoyed and bad times to be ignored.  Carousing never allows one to enter into the mystery of suffering. 

Drunkenness.  Though sometimes thought as synonymous with carousing, I wonder if spiritually drunkenness is all about escaping from the reality of life.  I know many people struggling with their addiction to alcohol said it started as a way to become numb to their pain.  Drunkenness can be all about abdicating responsibility for making the world different.  If I am numbed to this world’s pain and needs, then I can ignore making a response.   

Finally, Jesus talks about the “anxieties of daily life”.  I have a friend who no longer watches the news at night – because it will just bring him down.  Yesterday morning the world markets reacted to Dubai, a wealthy small country just below Saudi Arabia who is asking for a freeze on their loan repayments.  What’s that going to do to our shaky economy?  The 100 neediest cases, decided by the students in the School of Social Work at UMSL, are brought to our door in the morning paper.  It is so easy to become a bit overwhelmed by it all, isn’t it?  To figure that we’ll get around to changing the world just a bit later.  So we become drowsy, we procrastinate spiritually on the work that is ours to do. 

Instead, God asks us to lean INTO life with openness and hope, trusting him even when the universe seems to be hopelessly off course.  The images of his return are not things to be feared or to cause anxiety –like that term paper hanging over our heads – but rather things to await with expectation.  “The days are coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the House of Israel and Judah.”  May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…”  “When these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is near at hand.”  

These are not things to be feared, but rather things to be longing for.   

You see, the Advent longing we are invited to be a part of is not the carousing and drunken and anxious plodding our way through life, but the waiting with unfettered hope for God to come.  If we think of Advent less like the term paper due at the end of the semester and more like expectant parents waiting to hear their baby’s first cry, like wedding guests waiting to glimpse the bride coming down the aisle, like eager Thanksgiving hosts waiting for the doorbell to ring announcing the arrival of cherished guests, then it is all different, isn’t it?  If we wait not for the end of days, but for the beginning of a new day, a day only God can bring into being - if that is indeed the ‘goal’ of Advent, then I don’t want to procrastinate a moment longer.  Bring on the work, bring on the effort.  Bring on the DAY when the Lord fulfills his promises THROUGH ME…