Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, A

At the heart of Christmas is the Christ child who is born among us. Imagine you are the child, sleep in the manger, awakening to the vision of God’s kingdom.

I have Mass on Sunday, December 7 at St. Isidore @ 7:30/9:30 am. The 7:30 am Mass will be live-streamed. https://stisidore.church/worship-online/

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Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew. 

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea, and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said, A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locust and wild honey. 

At that time, Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan as they acknowledged their sins. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, He said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. 

I am baptizing you with water for repentance. But the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn. But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. 

The Gospel of the Lord. 

A mere shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, the prophet asserts, and from his roots a bud shall blossom. It should startle us that our salvation comes from something so small, tender and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. The ancient Hebrew prophets carved out that place in the human imagination for hope that could only come from God. 

Advent is a season of hope. Note that we speak of hope, not optimism. There's a great difference between the two. Optimism is our generous assessment of a situation. It might improve. Hope is a theological virtue. It is an act on our part, a conscious opening of ourselves to God. And it's only possible on our part because God is open to us, or, as we say, because we are graced. 

Meister Eckert, the late 13th and early 14th century Christian mystic, wrote, God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction. The soul doesn't grow into God by adding more, but by taking away that which stands in the way. Surely this is what John had in mind in separating wheat from chaff. John is not separating grain, but separating the good grain from the empty chaff, which is good for nothing except the fire. 

Thomas Merton distinguishes between the true self and the false self. Merton says that God is calling us from the circumference to the center, from appearance to reality, from the sensible to the intelligent, and from time to eternity. 

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repentance is a daily renewal of our baptismal promises, In baptism, we were buried with Christ, so that with Christ we might live in newness of life. We often misunderstand living the newness of life as a sequence of, I can. I am sorry for my sins. I can do better. I can please you, God. In repenting, we ask the God who has turned towards us, buried us in baptism and raised us to new life, to continue his work of putting us to death. We should think of repentance as an I-can't experience. I can't do it myself, God. You buried me in baptism. Bury me again today. Raise me to new life. 

The Messianic vision of Isaiah is of a world in which creation is reconciled and harmony appears between children and snakes among all kinds of natural enemies. All God's creation eases up on hostility and destruction and finds another way of relating. 

The early church was struggling with their own version of who belongs and who doesn't. Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile followers of Jesus brought different traditions, different expectations, different wounds. And into this tension, Paul doesn't give them a conflict management strategy. He gives them a person. Welcome one another then, as Christ welcomed you. Not tolerate, not merely coexist, not pretend, but welcome. The kind of welcome that doesn't wait for someone to be less complicated or more agreeable or more like us. The kind of welcome that understands Christ embraced us long before we had anything figured out. To see people as sacred means seeing them through the gaze of the one who has already welcomed them. 

Last Saturday, my neighbors welcomed their third child. They have two daughters, Grace and Glory, and now those girls have a baby brother named Gabriel. Since this child was born on the cusp of Advent, I decided I would buy them a manger set. They're very involved in their church, but they're not Catholic. I wasn't sure if they would appreciate it. But they loved it, and they wanted to know why I thought it was a Catholic thing. 

Well, St. Francis of Assisi created history's first manger scene at Grechio. Our mangers are filled with animals, even though the animals don't appear in the Gospels. The ox and the donkey come from Isaiah 1.3. Isaiah 60 speaks of a multitude of camels carrying gold and frankincense, so Isaiah's camels bring Matthew's magi to Bethlehem. Luke mentions shepherds, and we just presume they bring their sheep to the manger. 

When you set up the manger scene in your house, pay attention to what you are already doing to prepare for Christmas. The animals help us to reimagine a world transformed by God's grace. After all, God comes to redeem all of creation. 

Listen to the prophet's invitation. What might it mean for us to embody life in the peaceable kingdom? A life in which predators and their prey, the wolf and the lamb, the cow and the bear, the calf and the lion, learn to live in harmony and without fear, where a little child leads them. At the heart of Christmas is the Christ child who is born among us. Imagine you are the child, asleep in the manger, awakening to the vision of God's kingdom. 

If the wolf can be the guest of the lamb, and the bear and cow be friends, then no injury or hate can be a guest within the kingdom of my heart. Eden's peace and harmony will only return when first, in my heart, there hides no harm or ruin. for the peaceable kingdom is in my hands.