HOMILY
The Second Sunday in Advent (B)
4 December 05
Many Christians breeze past the first line of today’s gospel, what is in reality a line that is crucial for living as a disciple. “This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” Mark announces.
For the ancients, the word “gospel”—meaning “good news”—was a common term, a noun that had a technical meaning. It could connote, for example, “the good news of a victory” as this might be proclaimed by a messenger running ahead of a nation’s army to inform the populace about a great military victory. The word could also connote “the good news of a great festival (or holiday),” for example, the celebration of an emperor’s birthday or anniversary of rule. When proclaimed, these “great tidings” brought joy to the hearts of people—to women, men, and children—who otherwise lived in fear and were anxious about what the future might bring or were simply worn out and tired by the challenges and hardships of daily life.
For us, the word “gospel” would technically mean the type of good news we receive when, for example:
· a spouse comes home at day’s end and announces a promotion or substantial pay raise that makes something a couple has been dreaming about more of a probability than a possibility;
· a child announces to her parents that she has been named to the honor roll, the Dean’s list, or Who’s Who;
· a graduate proudly announces to his friends that he has landed his first “real” job;
· a daughter announces her engagement and flashes “the diamond” before her father’s eyes;
· a wife announces to her husband that she is pregnant with the couple’s first child;
· the President announces the victory and the cessation of hostilities and the nation’s women and men in uniform will be coming home soon; or,
· an oncologist announces to a patient that the tumor is benign.
Just as the word “gospel” did for the ancients, so too each of these announcements—these “glad tidings”—fill our hearts with hope about what the future will bring.
Contrast all of those images to what word “gospel” oftentimes conjures up in the mind of many Christians today, namely, images of a stale document or a rarely-read book that has been relegated to a coffee table or shelf in the living room. These unfortunate images negate the true meaning of the word “gospel” as well as the news of “glad tidings” that filled the hearts of the ancients and that can fill our hearts with hope, because the proclamation of this good news promises to dispel the darkness of fear and anxiety about what the future might portend.
Take, for example, the prophet Isaiah.
God called Isaiah to announce good news to the Israelite people. But, because Isaiah’s good news challenged the Israelites to return to God and to practice their faith, they didn’t hear the good news or listen to the prophet. Blinded by worldly ambition and success, the Israelites chose instead to turn their backs on this good news—and the hope of salvation promised—and to follow a path that ultimately led to the destruction of their beloved nation and to exile from the Promised Land.
Then, as their years in Babylonian captivity stretched into four very long decades, many Israelites had grown accustomed to the fact that they had forsaken their homeland and all of the comfort and security it had offered. Furthermore, living as aliens in a foreign land and seeing no salvation from their fate as well as the consequences of turning their backs on Isaiah’s good news, many Israelites began to despair about their future. “Why has God abandoned us?” they cried out.
Despite their nation’s downfall and their exile to a foreign land, the Israelites remained adamant about two important matters. First, they were stubbornly unwilling to come to terms with the fact that they had decided to trust in themselves rather than to fear God. Second, the Israelites were stubbornly unwilling to admit guilt for taking delight in idols fashioned by human hands rather than living in fidelity to God’s commands. In short, the Israelites knew where they were and how they had gotten there. But, the Israelites were collectively unwilling to change how they thought about themselves and their lives. So, instead of determining to make things right with God, the Israelites wanted God to make things right for them.
The question, “Why has God abandoned us?”, actually bespeaks just how backwards the Israelites had things in their minds, spiritually speaking.
For many of us, all of that transpired in the past, part of ancient history, and to be found in somewhere in a rarely-consulted book called “The Holy Bible.” In retrospect, it’s easy to conclude that the Israelites blew it because of their stubborn unwillingness to admit the truth. So, we ask: What could all of that possibly have to do with us today as we spend these four weeks preparing for the advent of God?
Well, just as life in the Promised Land afforded the Israelites such a degree of comfort and security that the Israelites took for granted and eventually turned their backs on the source of that comfort and security, so secularism, materialism, and consumerism afford us today such a degree of comfort and security that we might have already turned our backs on the source of our true comfort and security. Like the Israelites, we might also be stubbornly unwilling to admit this truth and may be headed for an exile of such proportions we also might be tempted to lose hope.
How could this be?
Spiritually speaking, the problem has to do with where we find our comfort and security. For many of us, comfort and security are found in material things, like our possessions, and in being able to acquire and surround ourselves with all of the latest and the greatest innovations. Just ponder all of those “glad tidings” I enumerated earlier that would make us so happy. The problem with each announcement—each bit of “good news”—is that it had to do with something pertaining to this world rather than to God’s eternity. Nowhere was God mentioned. Is that not how our culture now announces “Christmas”—excluding God—by proclaiming a great “holiday” that makes people happy?
That is when we take the first steps of our exile from the Promised Land where fear of the Lord and obedience to God’s commands.
“Secularism” is the belief that our comfort and security is found in the saeculum, that is, the things of the world. Secularism denies that our true comfort and security as human beings is found only in the aeternum, the eternal things of God. Over time, as we’ve equated our comfort and security more and more with the things of the world, secularism has blinded us from seeing and reverencing the divine image of the Creator reflected in all of creation. Then, in turn, we’ve crafted idols of and worshipped all of those created things that made us happy.
“Materialism” is the belief that comfort and security is discovered in all of our possessions. This belief denies that our true happiness is discovered in immaterial realities, like the cardinal virtues of prudence justice, fortitude, and temperance or the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Over time, as we’ve increasingly equated our comfort and security with our possessions, materialism has blinded us from the need to conform our character with what virtue dictates. What we have not who we are is the standard we’ve used to judge ourselves.
“Consumerism” is the belief that comfort and security is a matter of acquiring and surrounding ourselves with newer, bigger, better, and ever more technologically advanced toys. The problem with consumerism is this belief deludes us into not giving one wit about what our unbridled desire for these things implies for not only for ourselves but also for others and their lives, for the environment, or for the world. In short, as we’ve equated our comfort and security with having the “latest” and the “greatest,” we’ve actually become blind to the consequences that our selfish behavior pattern was having not only upon ourselves but also upon other people and our world as well.
Secularism, materialism, and consumerism combine into a toxic elixir that has become a powerful very narcotic which has exiled us from ourselves, from others, and from God. We’ve ended up living as aliens in a foreign land, all the while deluding ourselves that we’re really comfortable and secure.
So, what do secularism, materialism, and consumerism have to do with us?
When a modern-day prophet named Pope John Paul II announced the good news to the modern world—and directed his message especially those of us in the United States—he challenged us to recognize how we’ve grown so dependent upon the toxic elixir of secularism, materialism, and consumerism that we now believe we cannot live without this powerful narcotic. We may feel comfortable and secure, we cast aside as irrelevant to our lives what should make us truly comfortable and secure, namely, fear of the Lord and being faithful to God’s commands.
As Pope John Paul II told the bishops of the United States just last year:
The Church in the United States….is called to respond to the profound religious needs and aspirations of a society increasingly in danger of forgetting its spiritual roots and yielding to a purely materialistic and soulless vision of the world….
Now is above all the hour of the lay faithful, who, by their specific vocation to shape the secular world in accordance with the Gospel, are called to carry forward the Church’s prophetic mission by evangelizing the various spheres of family, social, professional and cultural life (Ecclesia in America, 44)….
I encourage you to ensure that the spirituality of communion and mission finds expression in a sincere commitment on the part of each believer and of every one…to the proclamation of the Gospel as “the only fully valid response to the problems and hopes that life poses to every person and society” (Christifideles Laici, 34). The profession of the Catholic religion demands of every member of the faithful a consistent witness to the truth of the Gospel and the objective requirements of the moral law. (Address to U.S. Bishops, May 28, 2004)
In response to this good news, many of U.S. Catholics relegated what the Pope had to say to the margins of their lives. Some called him “too old” or “a relic of the past.” Others called this good news “arcane” and “out of touch with reality.” Still some others expressed their hope that John Paul II would retire to a monastery and be replaced with a new Pope who would have a more “timely” and “relevant” message. In short, these critics wanted good news that would allow them to continue justifying the comfort and security they derive from secularism, materialism, and consumerism. What they didn’t want to hear was good news—“glad tidings of great joy”—that would challenge them to change how they think about their lives, their world, and eternal life.
If Pope John Paul II’s good news was God’s prophetic word, where might those addicted who are to secularism, materialism, and consumerism one day find themselves in exile?
The answer is “in exile from themselves.”
People living in exile from themselves know they are alive, but find themselves wandering about in a wilderness without hope in the future because they are so desperate to be happy right now. As truly awful as this exile is, it is oftentimes promoted on television as a lifestyle worth pursing at all personal, ethical, and spiritual cost. In this land of exile, people dull the pain and emptiness they feel by using other people for selfish ends and amassing possessions to fill the ever-expanding void in their souls.
Does this not explain why there are so many divorces in our nation? Since every divorce involves two people, the simple fact is that 0.74% of the entire U.S. population gets divorced every year.
Does this not explain why there are so many abortions in our nation? Approximately 1,370,000 abortions occur annually in the U.S. 88% of abortions occur during the first 6 to 12 weeks of pregnancy. 60% of abortions are performed on women who already have one or more children. 47% of abortions are performed on women who have already had one or more abortions.
Does this not also explain why there is no more room in our landfills? Did you know that we Americans generate trash at the astonishing rate of four pounds per day per person, which translates to 600,000 tons per day or 210 million tons per year!
Whether in Babylon or in the United States, this is the spiritual wilderness about which John the Baptist proclaimed, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Reflecting upon the experience of the Israelites, the good news is that we make straight the way of the Lord not by being stubborn and unwilling to come to terms with the fact that we decided at some point to trust in ourselves rather than to fear God. The good news is also that we make straight the way of the Lord not by being stubborn and unwilling to admit guilt for taking delight in idols fashioned by human hands rather than living in fidelity to God’s commands. No, the Israelite’s experience teaches us that we make straight the way of the Lord by hearing this good news and allowing the hope it engenders in our hearts to change how we think about our lives and our world. And, as we respond to this hope and envision a future where we discover our happiness in God alone, these “glad tidings” allow God to fulfill His desire to save us, to bring us back from the land of our exile, and to dwell with us in the Promised Land.
God calls us today, just as He called the Israelites two and one half millennia ago, to pass from darkness into light, from spiritual death into spiritual life, and from exile into freedom. This good news is rooted not in some Utopic dream, but in the hope these glad tidings engender in our hearts. No matter where we might be living in exile, God will save us, God will redeem us, and God will liberate us. All God asks is that we respond by changing how we think about what’s truly important in our lives.
“That’s easier said than done,” many may be thinking.
Well, have you ever noticed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike those signs on the overpasses announcing the minimum clearance for passing beneath them? Have you also noticed that, for whatever reason, a tractor-trailer occasionally gets wedged beneath one of those overpasses? Did you ever wonder how PennDot gets one of those tractor trailers out from the overpass?
Some may think that PennDot destroys the trailer. Others may think that PennDot pushes the trailer backwards using some Behemoth of a vehicle out from beneath the overpass. But, the answer—as obvious as it is—is most elusive. Have you guessed what PennDot does? They simply let some air out of the tires! Then, the truck—now a couple inches lower—can easily back out from the overpass under its own power.
On this Second Sunday of Advent, the gospel challenges us to prepare the way of the Lord and to make straight his path by deflating our egos like the tires on that truck. In order to do that, however, we need to change how we think about our lives and our world by seeking our comfort and security not in things of this world but in God’s eternity. This is what repentance means and it is by responding to this good news that God fills our hearts with hope. These are the glad tidings Mark wanted us to experience when he wrote, “This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
A very brief commercial break...
As Catholics, we prepare for Christ's coming by celebrating the season of Advent. During the coming four weeks, we prepare the way for Christ to come into our own lives each and every day not just on Christmas day. For Catholic families, let me suggest five practical ways to prepare for Christ's coming:
1. Place an advent wreath in the center of your dinner table. Each evening before sitting down for dinner, have one member offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God for His presence in the life of your family and light the appropriate candle(s).
2. Use an Advent calendar. Hang an advent calendar on the refrigerator door beginning on December 1st. Each morning, before everyone scatters for the day, have one member of the family open one door and read the scripture verse or describe the biblical scene behind the door. This is a great way for family members to keep focused on the coming of Christ for the rest of the day.
3. Make a Jesse tree. The Jesse tree is the traditional way that Catholics recall Jesus' heritage, coming from the line of King David, the son of Jesse. Have members of the family make a symbol for each day of Advent that marks an important moment in Israel's history (e.g., Noah's ark, Jacob's ladder, Moses' stone tablets, David's harp). Then, each evening before everyone goes to bed, gather the family around the Jesse tree, have the family member explain the symbol, and hang it on the tree.
4. Celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th. One way to "put Christ back into Christmas" is to reclaim the faith-filled life of heroic virtue revealed in the great Christian saint, St. Nicholas of Myra. Besides sharing simple gifts with family members, like placing candy in shoes that have been left outside of the bedroom door, share some time with people who are alone, in the hospital, convalescing, etc.
5. Celebrate God's mercy. Advent is a particularly fitting time for every member of the family to welcome the light of God's forgiveness into the dark places of family life. Gather the family together and go to church to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance together. Then, go out for pizza to celebrate God's mercy and a new beginning free from sin.
By participating in these five practical activities to prepare for Christmas day, Catholic families will not only have contemplated their need for God and God's self-revelation through salvation history. In addition, they will have experienced God present and active in their family's life. Then, on Christmas day, when family members greet one another by saying, "Merry Christmas," they all will truly be prepared to celebrate the Mass wherein Christ will strengthen and nourish them with his body and blood to bring Christ to the world.
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