The Sunday Next Before Advent is coloquially called, “Stir Up Sunday,” from the first words of this day’s collect.  “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people.”  In reading the lessons, we note the theme of “in-gathering” for the Kingdom of God is a harvest of those who have previously been dispersed throughout the whole world.  Yet in the Kingdom, we are not only the object of the verb “to gather in”, but we are the subject as well.  We have been gathered in, and we are called to gather in others as well.  This, therefore, is the reason that we are to be stirred…