“Uh, oh. It’s here,” I thought, as I pulled into a parking space to make a bank deposit. My eye had fallen on the unlit string of Christmas lights along the bank’s white picket fence. I realized I’d been in denial. Our go-to-sleep radio station had already replaced the “Pillow Talk” romantic dedication selections with Holiday ones. So the appearance of the Christms lights shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Liturgically, we enter the in-between time before the in-between time this Sunday. The Last Sunday after Pentecost brings to a close the half of the Church year devoted to doctrine which began with Trinity Sunday. With Advent Sunday next week we begin the other half of the Church year, the half devoted to historical events. And the Advent Season itself is an “in-between” time, anticipating the first coming, the Nativity of Our Lord while also contemplating the second coming with its theme of Final Judgment.

So it isn’t unexpected to find in this morning’s reading from the introduction to Revelation the ascription To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood…”I am the Alpha (the first letter in the Greek alphabet) and the Omega (the last letter in the Greek alphabet), says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

My “uh-oh” was born of my perception that this is the most problematic, arguably the most filled with opportunities for Sin and the exposure to it, time of the year. It is certainly my least favorite. Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t wonderful parts of it as well (and I’ll get to them) but this is definitely a season that calls for vigilance in more ways than one. And boundaries.

The Greek word this passage translates as sin is hamartia, an ancient archery term meaning miss the mark. We don’t have to think very hard to come up with a host of ways our behaviors at this time of year miss the mark. And, unlike the season of Lent when the society kind of tracks with religious custom, the society is at significant variance with the Advent/Christmas cycle.

The most obvious is the commercialization of the Feast that has steadily pushed its marketing from right after Thanksgiving to right after Halloween. The trick or treaters’ candy isn’t even consumed before, to borrow from another generation’s songster, Tom Lehrer, “Hark, the Herald Tribune (or Hartford Courant?) sings, advertising wondrous things!” But that’s only the most obvious.

The season becomes a time of parking lot and highway rage like no other. I continue to be amazed at how many people I encounter at the “end of their ropes,” emotionally. It’s “worth your life,” as my late godmother used to say, to shop, even if it’s only for a quart of milk.

The entire culture of gift giving is another arena. How much is “enough” to spend? How many are “enough” to buy for? And where does the “rubber” of recipient expectation/ giver sense of obligation meet the “road” of available resources. Growing consumer debt would suggest the answer is “off the mark!”

How does one decide what to give and who decides it: giver or recipient? Is the “Christmas list” to be regarded as an order sheet? If I, the donor, merely “fill” the “order” what does that do to any statement my gift might make of my sensitivity to any awareness I have of you as a person? If you the recipient expect me to take my gift back and exchange it for something you would rather have had, does that transaction not imply an accusation I “missed the mark?” Consider the opportunities for guilt and meanness here. If money is to be the gift, to what extent is it like that old saying in the business world, “Business is a game and money (pay) is the score.” Is the amount of the gift to be equated with the amount of love the giver has for the recipient?

We might take a lesson from Eskimo society and its practice of potlatch. It works like this: I give you a gift = You owe me a gift. You demonstrate your greater generosity/love by going me one better when you reciprocate. Then I am more generous in my turn. You can see where it leads. The practice bankrupted Eskimo society and was abandoned. Sound familiar?

More to the point, perhaps, is the motivational issue: to what extent is the giving prompted by a sense of generosity and how much by a sense of obligation. To the extent it’s the latter, I would suggest it’s grist for the confessional mill. I wonder what would happen if the custom of Christmas gift giving were abolished, to be replaced by gift giving only as the result of generous urges, without regard to time of year or concepts of needing to be “fair” to others we fear might be jealous of someone who was the beneficiary of our generosity.

Consider the choices made about with whom and how the holiday is to be spent. What piece of Christmas/Thanksgiving does which family, in its multiple expressions, get? Who does one invite? Who does one not? And what are the consequences? In our efforts to please as many as possible, how successful are we? And at what cost? What does it take for our choices to result in the Peace and Joy envisioned by the season?

How willing are we to protect the preparation/anticipation time the Advent Season is designed to afford us? By declining invitations to Christmas celebrations outside the twelve days of the “official” Christmas Season, which extends from Christmas Eve through Epiphany. By not decorating the tree until Christmas eve, beyond perhaps simple white bulbs and no decorations. By keeping the tone quiet and meditative.

When reflecting on experiences of being freed, respondents identified relationships as the primary bondage and fear as the primary shackle. When asked to identify the liberator, the source of courage, faith, the caring of friends, and the ministries of this Cathedral were named, and not by any means just the clergy ministries; in large measure, both those ministries and how we here minister to and liberate one another by word, action, and example, were named. That’s pretty eloquent testimony!

Fraught with temptation and evidences of missing the mark as the Holiday Season may be, we possess the tools to deal with them.

Chief among them is this place itself: Its space, its programs and, perhaps most of all, the relationships we have with one another. He who freed us from our sins by his blood… made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father and, I might add, one another.

This is the one time of the year when national attention is focused on peace. It is the time more than any other when we are in touch through Christmas cards and letters with those we may not connect with at any other time of the year, when acquaintances and friendships are renewed. While it can be a time when people get hurt, it is also a time when reconciliation takes place, when the lonely and those less fortunate, are sought out and included. It is a time perhaps more than any other when we think of children and seek to see to it they have toys as a means to play in a world that can otherwise be quite bleak for them. This morning itself we celebrate a wonderful generosity. We should focus our attention on these positive aspects of the season.

We should also remind ourselves that we possess the capacity to resist missing the mark, to hit the mark with greater frequency. We can make choices. We can set boundaries. We can take “spiritual health time outs” in parking lots, at stop lights, at home, with friends. We can go inside ourselves and center down. We can be internally quiet in the midst of external chaos. It’s a matter of changing our mental focus.

Others’ wishes don’t automatically constitute our obligations. Our failure to ration our energies will render us less able to serve others, as well as to serve ourselves. If we move toward balance, set boundaries and enforce them, make little adjustments, we’ll discover the consequences, such as they may be, will be bearable. The experience of progress will inspire the next steps forward.

As we move into the Holiday Season, let me close with a passage from I Peter used in the Office of Compline. It is particularly appropriate to the season we have entered…Be sober. Be vigilant. For your adversary the devil lurketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the Faith.