A homily for the first Sunday in the season of Advent on  Matthew 24.37-44 & Isaiah 2.1-5 that draws on Thomas Jay Oord's notion of the uncoercive love of God that gently invites a response.

 

There are mornings when I awake with the faint sense that something in the world is shifting. A subtle tug at the edges of my awareness. A gentle stirring. A quiet ache. A feeling in the bones that the world was unfinished, and so was I. That something — or Someone — was drawing us toward a horizon I could not yet see.

But far more mornings passed without that awareness. I hurried. I worried. I planned. I was awake, but not truly awake. I sleepwalked through the hours, half-present, half-numb, assuming today would echo yesterday, and tomorrow would echo today. Then Advent arrived, as it always does — not with fanfare, but with a gentle whisper pulling at the soul: “Pay attention. Something is coming.”

And I would be willing to bet that you’ve known that whisper too. I think we all have. Life settles into its grooves — school runs, workdays, errands, dishes,  messages, obligations that return like tides. And then someone asks, “Where did this year go?” or  “How did life get so complicated?” or maybe even, “Why am I living as though nothing new is possible?”

Until one day we look up and ask, “Where did the time go?”  And beneath that question lies another: Where was I in all of it? Did I see anything of God as the days slipped by?

It’s so easy to drift along with the flow. Jesus speaks of Noah’s time, but he does not do so, to condemn  but to describe people whose lives had become so ordinary, so habitual,  that they failed to notice God’s slow approach. They ate and drank, married and gave in marriage. They lived well enough — just not deeply enough. Not attentively enough. It is that unawareness that Advent confronts.

So the season opens with a summons: Wake up. Stay awake. Be alert. Not because God is threatening, but because God is nearer than we dare believe — and we might miss the gentle arrival.

There was a quiet stretch of road near the home I once knew in Calgary — a narrow, unassuming lane I walked each morning on my way to the off‑leash park. In those early hours, the world seemed to pause, suspended in a hush that draped itself softly  around the houses and trees, as though even the air were holding its breath.

At that hour, the world often felt as though it were holding its breath. A few porch lights glimmered. Somewhere in the distance a car would  struggle itself awake. But mostly it was the rhythm of my footsteps, the jingle of the Cad’s collar, the cold air brushing my skin. Yet even in that stillness, I was rarely present. My mind drifted to the demands of the day, the unfinished tasks, the emails waiting like tapping fingers on a desk. I was outside, but not really there.

One morning, colder than I wanted it to be, I hurried along that same road. Head tucked down. Hands buried deep. Quietly coaxing Cad to move faster. I wasn’t praying. I wasn’t listening. I was simply passing through the moment as though it were an obligation.

Then, in that secret, inexplicable way dogs pick to announce their epiphanies, Cadog, stopped — suddenly and stubbornly.  I lifted my head, irritation ready at the tip of my breath…  and that’s when I saw it. A thin seam of gold across the horizon. Not bright. Not dramatic. Just a soft line of light, like a breath exhaled by heaven. I hadn’t noticed it a moment before —  or perhaps it had been there all along and I had simply refused to look.

As I stood still, the darkness didn’t disappear. It thinned. It softened. It shifted. Shapes emerged — the outline of a tree, a mailbox, the first hesitant colour returning to the world. Dawn was not an event; it was a slow unveiling. And in that quietness, I felt it: Dawn had been coming long before I ever noticed. The light had not been waiting on me to wake up. It had only been waiting to be seen.

I thought, “How many mornings have I walked right past this?  How many unveilings of grace have I hurried through? How often has God been dawning in my life while I was half-asleep?” Cadog tugged the leash again, and we continued. But something in me had changed. I was present — not just in body, but in spirit. And for a moment, the world shimmered with invitation.

That shimmering moment is the heart of our Gospel, from the evangelist Matthew today. Not fear. Not dread. But attentiveness. “Keep awake,” Jesus says,  because God comes as dawn comes — quietly, gently, almost imperceptibly. Not with spectacle, but with invitation. Not with force, but with presence. From this subtle appearing, we begin to understand the nature of the One who comes.

This is the uncontrolling love of God. Love that refuses coercion. Love that does not impose itself. Love that lures, persuades, beckons.  Love that arrives as softly as morning light. And because God’s love does not dominate, the future is not fixed.  It is open — alive — filled with possibility. A story still being written in the shared space between divine longing and human response.

This is what the prophet Isaiah glimpses. A world streaming toward God’s mountain. A world where instruction flows like a river. A world where swords are hammered into plowshares. Not a decree. A dream. A vision. A divine longing woven into the fabric of creation. A horizon of peace that God is always drawing us toward. Our role is simple, but not easy: Stay awake to the dawn. Participate in its unfolding. Become co-creators in a world God imagines.

So what does this mean for us at the threshold of Advent? It means that God’s dream will not simply arrive to us. It must bloom through us. If God’s love is uncontrolling, then we are not passive spectators  awaiting an inevitable peace. We are companions in the dawn — stepping into the light that’s already breaking, even when the world still looks like night.

This season teaches us how to see the subtle glimmers of God. It trains the eyes of the heart. It invites us to live awake, present, ready. Ready for the gentle ways God slips into the ordinary. Like the dawn on that morning walk,  God is often present long before we notice. Our work is to lift our gaze and behold the light that has already begun.

So let me ask you: Where, right now, are you drifting through life half-asleep? Where has your attention grown dull,  your hope thin, your spirit dim? Where might grace be dawning just beyond the edges of your sight?

Perhaps in a relationship you’ve quietly abandoned. Perhaps in a fear you’ve carried too long. Perhaps in a hope you no longer trust.Perhaps in a part of yourself you have decided cannot change.

Advent leans close and whispers: “Wake up. The light is already coming.”So this week, your practice is simple: Look up. Notice. Pay attention.

Somewhere — quietly, gently, almost imperceptibly — God is dawning in your life. Not demanding to be seen. Only waiting. Wake up. Lift your eyes. Walk in the light of the Lord. The dawn is nearer than you think.

Amen.