The Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, once wrote a very dark comedy called “Waiting For Godot” that premiered in 1953. The two main characters in the play, Vladimir & Estragon, are waiting for the arrival of someone called “Godot,” whom they each claim to know, but whom they have never actually seen. So they would not likely recognize him if and when he did arrive. Nor are they sure that they are waiting for him in the right place, or at the right time. But still, they continue to wait... for this Godot... and throughout the play they attempt to distract themselves in various ways in order to “hold the terrible silence at bay” – their terrible anxiety that Godot may never come.... the encounter may never happen... and all their waiting will thus have been in vain. It is a very dark comedy indeed!

It was voted "the most significant English language play of the 20th century" in a British Royal National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists. And so we have to ask 'why' -- what it was about this particular play that so gripped the imaginations of so many people

There have been many different interpretations of the play, as you can imagine. We get some helpful insight into what this awful sort of waiting might have meant to Becket himself from a story that he tells to his biographer. Beckett grew up in the Church of Ireland, part of the Anglican Communion. And one of the church experiences in which his faith was deeply shaken had to do with a certain Canon Dobbs. He recounts one sermon in which Canon Dobbs proclaimed that the only thing he could tell the suffering, dying and bereaved in their search for meaning and consolation was that, ''The Crucifixion was only the beginning.... [they] must [also] contribute to the kitty.” But perhaps even more telling as inspiration for Beckett's famous play was his memory of Canon Dobbs' pastoral advice to parishioners who were unhappy with their lives. This priest would apparently tell them: “When it's morning, wish for evening.... When it's evening, wish for morning.''

It's not that hard to see that if some poor soul actually took such advice to heart... they would spend their lives waiting in a very destructive way... waiting in a way which would never allow them to accept the reality of what was happening in their lives. They would be perpetually anxious... waiting for some future.... until that future became the present... and then they would begin the same absurd waiting process all over again.... for another ideal future to arrive.

“When it's morning, wish for evening. When it's evening, wish for morning.” In other words, the best way to deal with the painful aspects of human life is to just wish that they would go away; to just wish that they were not so. But where is the Gospel in that message? It is not there. On the contrary, that advice is a recipe for madness, for not being able to settle down and be at home in your own skin, in a particular time and place and situation. Always yearning for some imaginary rest that never actually comes.

To me, this terrible memory of Beckett's suggests that his amazing play, which so captured the imagination of the 20^th century, might have had its origins in what we might could call spiritual abuse. If Beckett was telling his biographer the truth, then the acts of this so-called “man of God” were actually very ungodly. To say the very least, this was a priest who was not truly ministering to those entrusted to his care. And what is the outcome of such spiritual abuse? Well perhaps, as Beckett saw it, the outcome is precisely the kind of emotionally stunted and spiritually “stuck” lives that he portrayed in Vladimir and Estragon, Waiting For Godot.

I have a special place in my heart for Samuel Beckett, because, much like me, he left the Church when he felt that it was becoming hazardous to his health, went into psychotherapy, and ended up trying to resolve much of his angst through his work. Fortunately, in my case, I found my way back into the Body of Christ, with a new perspective that allowed me to settle down and find my true home. From what I've read of Beckett's life, we don't really know if he ever did find a spiritual home where he felt he could flourish, at least in this life.

In health, our lives are continually moving forward through cycles of dynamic change and growth. For thousands of years these spiritual cycles have been explored in great detail within the wisdom traditions of Judaism and Christianity. And over and over again, the very same paradox keeps emerging... that in order to keep moving forward and not get spiritually 'stuck' in our lives, we have to learn the art of “waiting for God.” Waiting for God is how we move forward spiritually in life, how we flourish. It's paradoxical; it goes against the grain of our usual common sense, as truth often does, but it's not absurd.

Today marks the beginning of the spiritual cycle of Advent, the cycle of waiting for God to manifest. And our Scripture readings from Isaiah (64:1-9), Mark (13:24-37), and 1Corinthians (1:1-9), each in its own unique way, takes up this crucial theme of waiting for God. And so today is a good day to remember Beckett and his famous play, because it continues to be very relevant... The 21^st century characters of Vladimir & Estragon might need to be listening to their iPods, and trying to text Godot on their iPhones while they wait..... but not much else would need to change. Our century is really no less anxious, no less desperate, than the one that preceded it.

For me, what makes this play so very remarkable is that Beckett, perhaps through grappling with his own pain, developed a certain insight into this critical theme of “waiting for God.”

It is a tragic insight. It concerns who we become when our formation as human beings does not teach us the holy art of waiting for God, but instead trains us in that life of anxious desperation that we see plaguing Vladimir and Estragon. What these characters are so hopelessly engaging in throughout the play is a distortion, a false alternative to genuine waiting for God. As a playwright, Beckett found a way to take the demons that had so shaken him in the parish of Canon Dobbs and transform them into a brilliant diagnosis of what has gone wrong in the spiritual lives of so many persons in modern society, including within the church.

But, although he was a brilliant diagnostician, Beckett had no treatment to offer for the wound – no solution, no Gospel. He tells us a great deal about “the people who walked in darkness,” ...but, for his characters, the hope of Advent never comes.... they never see the “great light” (Isaiah 9:2) …. The story just ends there, in the darkness. And by ending in this way, Beckett indicts modern society... he indicts the church of his experience... he indicts himself.... for not learning, and for not teaching, the all important art of Waiting for God. And so, in the end, everyone is left guilty, standing in the darkness, going nowhere. Comedies don't get much darker than that!

~

When we turn to the Scriptures of our wisdom tradition, it is like a window opening and a big blast of fresh air blows in. We quickly discover that Waiting for God is something a-l-t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t than Waiting for Godot.

Waiting for God is not “waiting-for-God....to-arrive”... because-God-is...already here! & always here!

Waiting for God is waiting to hear, and to understand, what God is saying... and shaping...

here within the present circumstances of our lives.

It is a waiting for God's Spirit to permeate and fill our hearts and minds so that we can develop a wiser, more coherent view, and a more hopeful feeling in our lives.... whether we are experiencing the joy of a new friendship; or the sadness of losing a parent or a spouse; or some other gain or loss.

Waiting for God is the practice of allowing our horizons and our hearts to be expanded by God's Spirit, so that we can be liberated from our constricting views and emotions and patterns of reaction.

Waiting for God is saying “yes!” to the influence of that One who is always and already present.

It is also saying “no!” to the struggle of trying, under the power of my own steam, to make everything happen the way I wish it to happen, and to make it happen now.

(I remember as a child my Irish Catholic mother once told me that a good middle name for me would have been “I-want-it-now!” I was never sure quite what she meant by that at the time. I'm sure now, though, that God has been working to teach all of us this spiritual rhythm of waiting for a very long time.)

It's not an easy thing that we are exploring here. Waiting For Godot, is quite an easy thing. It's like “falling off a log.” But waiting for God requires considerable grace, and training, and practice... (Some might say that, “that's what all of the arts require.” And I'm certain that's true. And yet, Waiting for God is the Mother of all arts – because it's the real art of being human.)

It is a very subtle action of the heart and the mind. It is so subtle that it really might be best to call it a “contemplative act.” It is an act that, in health, we perform, over and over again, from context to context, on the private stage of our inner lives. (And there's no way to 'fake' it...when God is the only One in the audience!) But, at the same time, it is an act that is foundational to our outer lives – to how we relate to others; how we relate to material things; to the entire lifestyle that we actually end up living in the world. Waiting for God is the private foundation of our entire public life. It opens us up to the reality of that Unseen World where God reigns through Love, that Realm which Jesus called home. And when we are getting the kind of spiritual care and nourishment and practice that we need. , slowly but surely, it becomes our home as well....

Advent tells us that the anguished, agitated waiting that so debilitates and damages us and our world is, in truth, already over.... because in Jesus, we experience the human face of God, the human touch of God, loving and healing us, laughing with us, living with us through all of our mortal ups and downs.... being with us in a way that is always both fully human and fully divine. We discover that we are really not alone (not just theoretically or doctrinally). And a very different kind of waiting gets cultivated in our lives. A waiting that purifies our hearts and minds; clears away all the inner clutter that causes us to stumble and fall; washes away the stains that cloud our view of ourselves and others; and strengthens us at a soul level.

That's the kind of waiting that really makes a difference. It's the waiting that Henri Nouwen is reflecting on in the pamphlets over there in the back, which we hope you will take home and enjoy throughout the new year.

As we are waiting this morning to receive Communion, we can be mindful that it is all of this and more that we are waiting for. All of this and more is being expressed and received at a very subtle level in this sacred rite that we are now actively, consciously preparing to engage in here together this morning.

Amen.

Rishi Sativihari

Advent I, Sunday, November 27, 2011.

The Church of St. John the Evangelist

London, Ontario, Canada