Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, C

This weekend the world will gather to celebrate the restored Cathedral of Notre Dame, Our Lady of Paris, which was nearly destroyed by fire in April, 2019. . . If we can do this, if we can put aside our national interests and come together for a common good, how much more could we do together to repair the world?

I am away this weekend.

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. 
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip, Tetrarch of the region of Vitoriae and Trachonitos, and Lysanias was Tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. 
The word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, 
"A voice of one crying out in the desert, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths; every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; the winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." 
The Gospel of the Lord. 

Luke situates the Gospel in the middle of human life. Christianity is a story about particular events that happened to particular people in a particular place at a particular time. The word of God came to John in the desert. In his book, Provoking the Gospel of Luke, Richard Swanson writes, "John's entry into the story out of the wordless wilderness begins with a listing of those powers who hold the world upside down." 
John begins his career with the words of the prophet Isaiah, holding out the old hopes, and singing the old song again, still alive and still strong, even after 600 years. 
"Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; the winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth." 
"The Lord has done great things for us," the psalmist proclaims. Creation is subject to God and God's design, not the other way around. 
What if the landscape is us? What if our repentance is to let the geography of our souls be leveled and made straight? 
Father Ryan McMillin, in his Advent reflection this week, said, 
"The bottom line for Isaiah is that if our rule is not in harmony with the Lord's rule, then we will be overruled." Per the prophet, schemes of domination and one-upmanship are not lasting. The mountains and valleys don't move for them, like they do for the Lord, who created them." 
John proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is a translation of the Greek word metanoia, which literally means "going beyond the mind." The root of the word is that you have to change your mind. You have to think differently about things. You have to break old patterns. 
The truth is, the mind has a mind of its own. You have to break the old pattern of identifying with your mistakes. A neuroscientist named Dr. Rick Hansen discovered that the human brain has a natural negativity bias to internalize negative experiences more deeply than positive ones. 
According to Dr. Hansen, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. There is something about going beyond the mind that lets go of sins. 
In tying this passage to the baptism of repentance, John suggests that immersion in water represents an immersion in God's mercy. Thomas Merton, an American Trappist monk, died on December 10, 1968. So I always think of him as another voice in the Advent wilderness. Merton insists that "our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is and not as it might be. The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that his plan has neither been frustrated nor changed. Indeed, all will be done according to his will." "Our Advent," Merton goes on, "is the celebration of this hope. What is uncertain is not the coming of Christ, but our own reception of Him, our own response to Him, our own readiness and capacity to go forth and meet Him."
Meister Eckhart articulates this beautifully. "What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God and I don't give birth to the Son of God in my person and my time and my culture?" 
Catholic theologian Dan Horan writes, "Advent is not meant to draw our focus away from the world and all that disturbs us about it, from the violence of war in places like Ukraine or the Middle East to the local instances of discrimination, exclusion or harm. Instead, Advent is a time to remember that God entered this world uncoerced and willingly, and that Christ's arrival as a vulnerable child is an act of solidarity with all people, but especially with those who are in the most precarious positions in society." 
The prophet Baruch announces that God has remembered the children of Israel. God is leading them home by the same wilderness road they walked when God brought them out of Egypt. 
In the book of Exodus, the Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzraim, literally "the narrow places." Luke presents Jesus' ministry as a new exodus, a liberation or release from the narrow places of sin, oppression, enslavement, violence, conflict, and despair. A liberation from whatever is holding us back from becoming living testimonies to God's good news for all creation bar none. 
Our lives are full of narrow places—ostilities, resentments, addictions, apathy, stress, injustice, ecological ruin—and Jesus is coming to proclaim release to the captives. 
There is one more Advent witness this week. December 8 is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, although we'll celebrate the feast on Monday this year. 
This weekend, the world will gather to celebrate the restored cathedral of Notre Dame, Our Lady of Paris, which was nearly destroyed by fire in April 2019. 
The building of the medieval cathedral itself was a remarkable achievement. It took almost two centuries to complete, from 1163 to 1345. 
The restoration was made possible by major donations from France and the United States, as well as contributions from 340,000 donors from 150 countries for a total of $928 million. 
If we can do this, if we can put aside our national interests and come together for a common good, how much more could we do together to repair the world? 
God is already blessing this work. As we hear from St. Paul in today's second reading, "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."