Baptism of the Lord, 2019

Luke 3:15-16; 21-22

The accounts of the baptism of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar. There is no account in John. Matthew has a little dialogue between John and Jesus; John says, “I should be baptized by you” and Jesus replies, “let it be so for now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Now I have trouble with understanding Jesus’ answer to John, so I looked up several other translations of this passage. IN one, Jesus says, “do it, because God is finally putting things right beginning with this baptism.” another says “It’s the right thing to do. You need to baptize me to complete God’s saving plan.” I’m not sure those alternate translations help much. Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove, and God’s voice is heard saying “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

Down through the ages, this short account has raised many questions and fed a few heresies as well. If Jesus was sinless, why did he have to get baptized? After all, John’s baptism was a baptism signifying repentance. What did Jesus have to repent about? Or is Jesus just going through the motions, pretending to repent? That doesn’t seem right, does it? And we have the Spirit descending like a dove. Although the gospel of John doesn’t have an account of the baptism, John says “I saw the Spirit descend upon him like a dove, and the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “The one whom you see the spirit descend upon and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” Does this mean that Jesus received the Holy Spirit at this moment? And was Jesus always the “beloved Son” and the Father is now recognizing this, or is there a connection between the baptism, the Spirit, and the recognition? There have been heretics down through the ages that have pointed to this passage and concluded that Jesus was just a human being who had been singled out by God. In any event, it’s important to understand this passage and see how it might apply to you and I.

The baptism of Jesus, though, is intimately related to our own salvation, so it’s worth a little time to break down what is going on here. First, we think of repentance as meaning that we are sorry for our sins. But that isn’t why John was baptizing nor why we are baptized. John’s baptism symbolized being born again; you would be immersed in the water and burst out, none of this pouring water over the head. Being born again meant that you were starting over, that you were seeing things with new eyes, that you wanted to personally recommit yourself to the ideals of your ancestors, who in that very spot had been led by Joshua from the desert to the promised land. John, after all, is preparing a new Israel to be led by a new Moses, to be ruled by a new David.

Jesus is baptized because he has entered into a union with this new people; as John says in his gospel, “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”, or as another translation puts it, “pitched his tent with us”. Saint Paul echos this when he says, “He was in the form of God but did not see equality with God something to be grasped at; rather, he took the form of a slave...” Jesus, the Son of the Father from all eternity, in intimate union with the Holy Spirit from before time began, has become one of us, like us in all things but sin. Jesus had to be toilet trained, learn to walk and talk and all the other things every human being must go through. His identification with us was complete. His humanity is our humanity. And when the Father sends the Spirit in the form of a dove, it is our humanity which receives the Spirit; it is our humanity which becomes capable of the Spirit living in us, praying in us, finishing the work that Jesus began as a human being – the creation and building up of God’s kingdom on earth.

John’s baptism was only a symbol; later Jesus will tell his apostles to baptize all nations; Ananias will baptize Paul and Philip will baptize an Ethiopian eunuch and Peter will order the household of Cornelius the centurion to be baptized. Baptism is no longer a symbol, it is a reality. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Our Church teaches that with baptism we become new creatures and we are sinless at that point not because we are forgiven but because we are brand new in the eyes of God. And at that moment the Holy Spirit begins to live in us in a special way, giving us the theological virtues of faith – which makes it possible for us to believe what God has revealed about himself through scripture and the Church; hope, which gives us the power to desire heaven and to place our trust in Christ’s promises, and to rely on the Holy Spirit instead of our own powers; and charity – which gives us the power to love God with all our beings and love our neighbor as ourselves. Notice that these virtues are potentials. Like anything, if we don’t exercise them, they won’t be worth much; but if we do, we become saints.

And all this is possible because Jesus, the only begotten son of the Father, became human, and received the Holy Spirit as a human being in John’s baptism. The very first sacramental baptism was the baptism of Jesus, at which time God made it possible for anyone who shared Jesus’ humanity to share his divinity as well. And before Jesus performed a single miracle or preached a single sermon or healed a single sick person, the moment he was baptized was the moment the Father proclaimed him the beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. And think about this: At the moment of our baptism God proclaims this about us. As John said in his first letter “we love God because he first loved us.”

When a person is born and placed in the arms of his or her mother, it’s normal for th4 mother to feel love at that moment. And when you and I are baptized, God loves us before we’ve done anything.

Epiphany 2018

Matthew 2:1 - 12

When we look at our manger scene, we see a newborn baby, shepherds, a few farm animals, Mary and Joseph, and of course, three wise men. If we read the actual scriptures, we see that the shepherds and the whole stable scene took place around the time of Jesus’ birth. But it was almost certainly another time when the Magi visited. According to Matthew’s gospel, Mary and Jesus are now in a house somewhere in Bethlehem. Herod later orders that all male children under two years old be murdered, so based on the calculations of the scribes and advisers to Herod, it’s possible that Jesus may have been as old as two years when this all took place. When we put the shepherds and the magi together we miss part of what each evangelist is saying: Luke who gives us the shepherds is saying that the Savior first becomes manifest to the outcasts, the lowly, the unclean – represented by the shepherds. Matthew introduces us to the magi, who are learned, upper class, and most importantly, gentiles. The Magi who come to see the Messiah have learned about his coming through their observations of the sky and possibly through some exposure to the Jewish scriptures. They show that God is extending his salvation to all men, and incidentally, God reveals himself to human beings in other ways than through scripture. So on this feast of the Epiphany we rejoice in the fact that we gentiles have been invited into the Kingdom along with the Jewish people.

Matthew tells us that the Magi brought Jesus gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They may have brought other things as well, or maybe the infant Jesus decided to play with the boxes that those gifts came in. But we know the gifts are symbolic. Matthew is speaking to Jews from his own Jewish tradition. Gold recalls David, the king. David was not the first king of Israel; that was Saul. David was not the most powerful king of Israel; that would be his son Solomon. In fact, much of David’s life was running; he ran from Saul and his army, and he ran from his son Absalom, who tried to take over the kingdom by force. David was obviously a sinner, having committed adultery and murder. But to the Jews David was first and foremost a hero. Under his rule the entire Jewish people had been united and finally achieved peace, and David had begun the effort to build the temple

Frankincense recalls the priesthood. Priests kept busy sacrificing animals in the temple. One historian said that over passover about 250,000 lambs were slaughtered. But priests also burned incense. The rising smoke symbolized the prayers of the people.

Myrrh was probably the oddest gift to give a baby. It was used to embalm the dead. So Matthew’s message in these gifts is to remind us that Jesus is king, high priest, and will die for us. But we can look at these gifts in other ways. The Magi, after all are bringing gifts to the Christ child. This is a good time for us to ask what gifts we are bringing?

Certainly there is always a need for our gifts of gold – our possessions, as it were. Our church needs our support of course, but there are plenty of poor people who need what we have so much of. Jesus told us that what we do for the least of our brothers we do for him. God has blessed most of us with abundance; we live in nice homes, drive late model cars, go on vacations – some of us are willing to pay more for a specialty coffee at Starbucks than it would take to buy a decent meal at McDonalds for someone who is hungry. Is there an opportunity in your life to be more generous? It’s a good time of year to ask that question. In fact, that would make a great new year’s resolution.

Frankincense is associated with worship. We come to the weekend liturgy faithfully. But giving God an hour of our time once a week is sort of the bare minimum. How are we advancing in our spiritual path? Do we have a time for daily prayer? Do we say the rosary? We claim to believe the Bible is the word of God; Do we open it once in a while? Do we commit to finding out more about our faith through spiritual reading or listening to some of those great CD’s that are in the back of the Church? How about a little time before the blessed sacrament; maybe we could commit to attending a weekday mass or two in addition to the Sunday liturgy. In fact, setting more time aside for God would be a good new year’s resolution.

Myrrh was used for embalming, but it was more than a symbol of death. It showed that our human bodies are sacred and were honored by this attempt to preserve them. The reason our bodies are sacred is because they are meant to be used to build up God’s kingdom on earth. How are we building God’s kingdom? Some of you are catechists, some of you work in the soup kitchen or with food for the soul. Some of us visit shut ins or those in nursing homes or hospitals. Jesus made it clear that when we carry out corporal and spiritual works of mercy it is as though we are serving him directly. How are you building up God’s kingdom? Is there room in your life to take on something that will bring God’s mercy to someone else? That would make a good new year’s resolution.

The Christ Child is God’s supreme gift to mankind. The Magi brought gifts to Him. What gifts can we bring him in this new year?

Feast of the Holy Family, 2018

Luke 2:41 – 52

I have twelve grandsons. The other day I was struck by how one of them is beginning to look more and more like his dad. Not only does he look like his dad, he walks like him, sounds like him when he talks, and shows the same sort of concern for others that his dad does. He has the same quiet sense of humor. And I realized once again how much more than biology goes into being a father.

As I was reading today’s gospel, I was struck by the fact that Mary refers to Joseph as “your father”. Now Luke who wrote this passage, also wrote the passage where the angel Gabriel assures Mary that even though she doesn’t have a husband the Holy Spirit will bring about the conception of the Messiah. Maybe we can write this off as shorthand – after all, Joseph has been the foster father. But maybe there’s something here to think about on the feast of the Holy Family.

I’m sure you remember the story, also in Luke, when Zachary was struck dumb by the angel for not believing him. When John is born, they ask Elizabeth what to name the child. She replies, “John”. But that’s not good enough. They go to Zachary who writes on a slate “His name is John” and at that point can speak again. The point is that only the father can name the child, and we know that Joseph was told by an angel that he was to name give Jesus his name. So certainly in that sense Joseph is father.

And then I thought about the fact that all through the Old Testament God is ruler, creator, shepherd, lover of Israel, Rock, Spirit, Lord, and yes, sometimes He is referred to as father; but father of Israel. Jesus in most of his teachings doesn’t stray too far from the Judaism that he was raised in; but he does bring something new to those teachings. Jesus first and foremost sees God as father. He prays to God, calling him “Abba” or as we would say, “Daddy”. He compares God to the father of the prodigal son. He refers to his closeness to the Father – “I and the father are one” “who has seen me has seen the Father”. He indicates that the Father and he work together – “My father and I will come and dwell in you”. And he says when dying on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and after the Resurrection, he invites us, through Mary Magdalen, to enter into this intimate relationship; he says, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father and your father.” And that is the unique insight of Christianity, not just that God is father to Israel, but has an intimate fatherly connection with every person who wishes to enter into that relationship. Muslims are shocked when we say this – to them God is so “other” that it’s blasphemy to speak as though he has a human relationship. One Muslim said that the relationship between God and man was much more like the relationship between a human being and a pet animal. Christians beg to differ.

Jesus was divine but was fully human. Jesus, like you and I, was formed by his mother Mary and his foster father, Joseph. In those days as today, the mother was the main influence during the first few years of life, and then, for a son, the father took over. Jesus is depicted working in Joseph’s shop. That was probably close to the truth. But Jesus also attended synagogue with Joseph, listened to the scriptures, and certainly discussed their meaning with Joseph. Jesus surely was aware of Joseph’s habits of prayer and keeping the prescribed fasts. If Joseph was at says in the scriptures, a just man, that meant that he tithed his time and his money; he practiced charity. And when we read the scriptures and get an idea of what kind of person Jesus was, we probably see a lot of Joseph; we see a man who takes scripture and the law seriously; who thinks about what these things mean; who has concern for the blind, the lame, women, foreigners, children – people on the margins. We see a man with a sense of humor, a man who has loyal friends and who is a loyal friend. Jesus was probably so much like Joseph that it was no stretch for the people in his home town to say, “Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?”

Joseph was such a wonderful father to Jesus that Jesus thought one of the best ways to describe God was “Father”. We know that young people who grow up with abusive faithers have a hard time relating to God as father. The opposite was the case with Jesus.

One of the sad things about our modern times is that fatherhood is changing. Many children are raised without a father and certainly many grow up to become productive members of society. thanks to the heroic efforts of the mother or grandparents. But there is no denying that the impact of not having a father is serious and measurable. Poverty, substance abuse, behavioral problems, suicide attempts, likelihood of incarceration – all are statistically more likely among fatherless children. But we all know that being a father like Joseph is even hard for fathers in stable marriages; in Jesus’ time fathers and sons spent a lot of time together; in our time much less so.

As we meditate on the Holy Family, we realize the essential role that Mary has in our salvation. Through her God became man and we celebrate that throughout the year. But we should remember that Joseph had an almost equally important role in forming Jesus. And because of Joseph’s influence on Jesus, we have been taught to call God Father. So let us pray that Christian fathers will be given the grace to be more like Joseph; and let us all do what we can to support fathers in their invaluable and irreplaceable work.

Christmas, 2018

John 1:1-5, 9-14

You've just heard the beginning of the Gospel of John. It used to be the last part of the old Tridentine Mass, and it was said at every Mass. No shepherds, no wise men, no angel choirs or manger. The Gospel of John begins at the beginning of everything. So what does this have to do with Christmas?

Well, lets go back to the beginning, to the Book of Genesis. It introduces God the Creator. And God creates with his word. He says, “let there be. … and there is. And he creates by drawing lines. Lines define. GK Chesterton once said, “every beautiful painting begins with a line”. We remember how god separated light from darkness, the waters of the heaves from the waters of the earth, the land from the sea. He then assigned the fish to the sea, the birds to the air, and the animals to the land. He finally created man in his image and likeness. He formed man out the earth and breathed his own spirit into him. Then he drew another line; he made eve from the side of the man. Sometimes we interpret this to mean that the woman was created as an afterthought; but the old rabbis said that what God created out of the earth was neither male nor female, and when God created Eve the woman, what was left was the man. Man and woman came into existence as such at the same time. First there was Word, then flesh, then community. And God assigned them to the Garden of Eden. This was the place made for them; a place of abundance, of every good thing to eat and drink; a place where there was no death or suffering. Having completed all this, God rested; because what he had created was perfect and needed nothing else.

And then we have the story of the Fall. The couple were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent begins to undo God's work. He tells Eve a lie – that if they eat the fruit, they will be like gods. The words of creatures begins to undo God's perfect creation. The man hides from God; he says it is because he is naked, but the truth is that he knows he disobeyed God. He blames the woman even though he made the decision to eat the fruit, and the woman blames the serpent. And the beautiful order God created becomes disorder when mankind leaves the Garden prepared for him. Death and suffering are the result.

Now we know the story in Genesis is theology, not history. But the theme continues. Abraham, the friend of God, lies about his relationship with his wife Sarah. Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspire to lie to Isaac about who Jacob is. Jacob's father in law lies to Jacob to marry off his daughter Leah and so forth. Lies are always about words that no longer describe a reality. Lies always put disorder into creation. And today we can see that still. When we lie about gender, when we lie about the nature of marriage, when we lie about who is and who isn't a human being we get farther and farther from the creator's intentions.

And that's where John comes in. In the beginning was the Word, he says. The Word through which all things were made. And the Word became flesh. In the beginning God created humans; now the Word that is God becomes human. And the Word, now flesh, dwells among us. Again, first Word, then flesh, then community. The vision of John is that what God did in the beginning, which mankind destroyed, God is doing again. This time the Word itself comes forth to create a new community, a community formed through light shining in the darkness.

It's good to think about that image. If you have a light shining in the darkness, there is still darkness. And if you are in darkness, you can move toward the light or away from it. So we have learned that The Word came to repair God's creation, but through those that receive him, who would receive the power to become Children of God. It is through the children of God that the Word will repair creation. The Word of God, unlike the words of mankind, can never be false.

I once talked with a Unitarian minister. In the course of our conversation, he said something that I knew already – Unitarians aren't big on dogma. Dogma, by the way, simply describes statements about God and man's relationship to God which we know to be true. Many of our friends in other denominations and other religions no longer hold to dogma of any kind. But when people no longer believe in something, they eventually believe anything.

John ends his introduction to the story of Jesus' life by proclaiming that “we saw his glory, glory as of the Father's only son, full of grace and of truth.” He goes on to say that the law came through Moses, but through Jesus Christ, grace and truth. And this Word, who is God, has revealed God to us.

Grace we understand – God's favor, God's gifts, God's unmerited mercy. But truth? Truth represents reality. And as we approach the light shining in the darkness, not only do we receive grace upon grace, but we also receive that for which our whole beings desire – ultimate truth.

So I think you can see why this gospel is so appropriate to read and reflect upon on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God became flesh, became man, to form a new community. Moses' community was formed by laws. God gave the law and it provided a fence around the people. When you broke the law, you were outside the fence, you were no longer part of the people. But in the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we become children of God, we are part of God's family, we are partners in making a new world, a kingdom in which God will reign as he does in heaven.

The incarnation is about God giving us power, power which we may accept or reject, power which has something to do with whether we turn toward the light or away from it, whether we embrace the truth He has revealed, truth which creates – or whether we reject it. No angels, no shepherds, no manger for John – but John celebrates something much more powerful – the Word which creates dwells among us.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 1:39 - 45

I’m sure you've had the experience of thinking you know someone, and then discovering that you had it all wrong.

We Catholics have been brainwashed, I think. There is hardly anything in the New Testament about Mary, so down through the ages we've evolved this image which we see in statues and stained glass windows – a young woman, almost always dressed in blue and white, wearing something like a nun’s habit, eyes cast down, hands folded. Passive and pious. Of course we have other images, but they don’t stray too far from what I've described. Even our manger scenes this time of year generally have her kneeling as she worships her newborn son. And down through the ages this is all reinforced. She says to Saint Bernadette, “I am the Immaculate Conception” “Build a Church in my honor’, she tells Juan Diego. “Have them make a medal”, she tells St. Catherine Laboure. And so it goes. I believe Mary has appeared to many saints down through the ages, and maybe told them things along those lines. But if she did it was at the request of her Son, not on her own. The Mary I know would not do that.

So what do we know about Mary from the Bible? Today we hear that she went to her cousin Elizabeth in haste. I think that’s a good adjective for Mary. When the angel appeared to her, and scholars think she was about 12 to 14 years old, Gabriel says, “you are going to be the mother of the Messiah”. And Mary doesn't fall on the floor and shake with fright; she replies, “How can that be? I don’t have a husband.” Mary knows where babies come from. And when the angel tells her that the Holy Spirit will do the job, she replies, and I am paraphrasing, “Do to me what you say will happen.” Mary doesn't want to wait around to do what God wants of her. Once she knows His will, she is totally on board.

Right after the annunciation she goes to Elizabeth in haste. Why? She learned from the angel that Elizabeth, against all expectations, was expecting a child as well. Did Mary seek out her older cousin to share her own news? I think there were many reasons Mary went in haste to Elizabeth. One very human reason was that Mary probably had no one to turn to when she discovered she was pregnant. Tell mother and father? Not a great idea. Tell Joseph? No. Who might understand? Cousin Elizabeth! The angel said she was with child as well. But on another note, I think Luke gives us a hint. He tells us that Elizabeth is in the sixth month of her pregnancy and Mary stays with her for three months. Mary is there to help out. She will cook and clean and sweep; Zachary and Elizabeth are elderly; Zachary has lost his voice, and Mary goes to help them out until they get back on their feet. And she does so with haste. She sees this menial task as God’s will, and can’t get there fast enough.

And of course we have one more moment to think about. The Wedding Feast of Cana. We don’t know Mary’s relationship with the young couple. Since the story only appears in the Gospel of John, some people have speculated that John is the one being married. But whatever the case, Mary does not sit quietly in the corner. She says, and I again paraphrase, “Son, they have no wine. Fix this!” Mary notices a problem and immediately, in haste, does something about it. I don’t know what she expected Jesus to do – maybe go to the local wine merchant and buy some more wine – but she knows that if she asks, he will do whatever he can.

So what little we know about Mary from the scriptures make her anything but a passive icon. She isn’t afraid to be pregnant and go through childbirth, which in those days was a lot more dangerous and painful than it is now. She isn’t above cooking and cleaning and taking out the trash for Zachary and Elizabeth. And she isn’t one to sit by and watch a young couple’s special time be ruined.

And why is this? I think Elizabeth tells us. She says, “Blessed are you among women!” And “Blessed is she who believed the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.”

Mary is blessed because she believes the Lord. She is free of original sin, so there is nothing in her that doubts that God loves her, that God wants the best for her, that God will never desert her. She is free of original sin, so there is nothing in her that fights against what God wants her to do. Being in haste, haste to do God’s will, is a characteristic of those who are freed from original sin. I’m sure you can think of many saints who were like this. And when you think about it, you and I are freed from original sin. We still suffer from having had original sin at one point, so we have a little disadvantage compared to Mary. But we also know that God loves us and wants the best for us; and we know what God wants us to do. We’ve got the commandments, we’ve got the Church, and we’ve got our consciences. God speaks through all of these to us. So as we once again await the birth of our Lord, let us resolve to go in haste to do God’s will.

Third Sunday in Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:10 – 18

Today’s gospel would be more exciting if we could hear the passage just before what you heard. So here goes. “John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Now I think it’s interesting that right after John insults the crowd, questions their motives for being baptized, tells them that being children of Abraham means nothing before God, and tells them that if they don’t produce good fruit they will be cast into the fire, the crowd instead of stoning him, says, “What shall we do then?”

The people of Israel remembered the age of the prophets. They were individuals who delivered messages from God to the people of Israel. The book Deuteronomy gives criteria for believing a prophet. First, if you used a method of fortune telling, you weren’t a prophet. Second, if you advocated in any way accommodation with other religions, you were a false prophet. Third, what you said came from God had to be true – sometimes the prophets would talk about things that were going to happen in the near future; other times they would address the current situation as caused by the failure of the people to obey God. Fourth, a prophet had to live according to the law; sinners couldn’t be prophets. And Fifth, prophets had to demonstrate that they did not fear authority, and of course that got them into trouble now and then. The way a prophet worked was by acting out God’s message and then interpreting it. Remember the story of Ezekiel? God told Ezekiel that his wife was going to die, and he was not to mourn. When the people saw this, Ezekiel explained that God would not mourn his people who had been taken into exile, because of their sins.

If the people accepted you as a prophet, then they accepted your words as coming from God. The Jewish people had not had a prophet in their midst since the time of Malachi, about 400 years before Christ.

John had been acting out his prophetic character. He had lived in the desert as had the Israelites who had been wanderers for 40 years. He came out of the desert to the Jordan river, where the Israelites had crossed into the promised land. There he offered baptism as a sign that the baptized person was returning to that relationship with God that had characterized those ancestors; this commitment was repentance. So the people recognized John as an authentic prophet, and when he called them snakes and compared them to stones and told them they better shape up or they would be cast into the fire, They hear the voice of God, and say, “What shall we do, then?”

And that’s where we take up today’s gospel. John could have told the crowds anything. Fight the Romans, perhaps; pray more often and more seriously; give up everything and go live in the desert. But God, speaking through John, gives simple answers to the question. First, he tells the crowd, and the crowd stands for everyone, to be generous. If you have an extra cloak, give it to someone who has none; if you have extra food, give it to someone who has none. There are very few of us who could not be more generous than we are. The call to greater generosity is there all the time, because as long as we live in a world where some people have more than others, that is not the world God has in mind. God, speaking through John, points to the world where everyone will have enough. That’s how it will be in the kingdom to come.

Second, he addresses tax collectors. They were about as low as you could get in Jewish society. To be a tax collector, you would volunteer to pay the tax for your community; then you were entitled to collect that sum, plus a commission, from your friends and neighbors, with the help of a few soldiers, if necessary. It was a great system for graft, and nobody trusted tax collectors, but what could you do? John doesn’t tell the tax collectors to quit their jobs and do something more honest. He says, follow the rules, take only what you are entitled to. Remember, that’s God talking. He’s telling us to be scrupulously honest in our dealings with each other. The very nature of trade is that each person goes into a transaction with the idea of getting more out of it than they put in. If you’ve ever bought a car, you know that creating this appearance is almost an art form. The salesman knows you are a little interested, so the strategy is to convince you that you are getting a bargain. But God is saying that that’s not the way it will be in the kingdom. There dealings between people will be based on equal value, all the time.

Finally God addresses soldiers. These soldiers were lower even than tax collectors. Most were recruited from nearby countries – they weren’t Romans, but they were pagans. The Jews didn’t like them because they did the work of the Romans and because they were pagans. The feeling was mutual. And if you were a soldier it was easier to intimidate people to get them to do what you wanted than to reason with them. And you could always make a little extra money by saying “That’s a nice little shop you have; too bad if something happened to it.” And God doesn’t say, quit being a soldier. God says, be content with your pay, and don’t use your power and position for selfish ends. In the kingdom, no one will take advantage of another person.

God is telling us, through John, how to begin bearing fruit; how to begin living in the kingdom for which we pray every time we say the Our Father. And during Advent we should be looking at our own lives. Can we be more generous? Are we being totally honest in our dealings with each other? And do we ever try to get someone to do something for us through intimidation or because we are in a position of authority.

Remember, God is speaking through John, and answering the question, “What shall we do to bear good fruit?” And God gives very simple, straightforward answers. And if we follow what God has told us through John, we will be bringing on the Kingdom of Heaven.

Second Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:1 - 6

Once a long long time ago my older sister and I, who were about 9 and 12 respectively, pooled our meager funds to buy our younger sister, about two, a toy rocking horse for Christmas. We spoke a lot about how happy she would be. We anticipated squeals of glee and sheer bliss for our little sister. Finally one day when my mother was out on an errand and my sister and I were supposed to watch the baby, we couldn’t stand it any longer. We took the toy from its hiding place and sure enough, her eyes lit up, she squealed and laughed and mounted the horse and rocked away. We eventually took her off of it and put the toy away. She fussed a great deal and we calmed her down with a cookie. Our mother came home and we thought that was the end of it. But a few days later Mom wondered aloud why the baby sister was always going into my older sister’s room and whimpering in front of the closet, where we had hidden the rocking horse. That’s kind of what we do when we put up ornaments and play Christmas music during advent; we lose sight of what Advent and Christmas are all about.

I’m sure you remember Christmas as a child. Sometimes you kind of knew what Santa Claus was going to bring you. Other times you looked forward to the surprise your grandparents might get, which was in my case often the disappointment of some article of clothing, even though I always hoped for something more easily played with. But the anticipation was important. It made Christmas morning so much more delightful.

That’s part of the reason for Advent. It is not like Lent, a time of penance and fasting. Almost all the readings reflect instead anticipation. If we listen to them they speak of something wonderful that is going to happen. It will come as surely as Christmas morning comes, but it isn’t here yet We only need to wait a little longer. The prophet Baruch tells Jerusalem to throw off its garments of mourning and put on the splendor of glory of God. The apostle Paul prays that his readers be pure and blameless for the day of Jesus Christ. And Luke pins down the exact time and place that the coming of the Lord, predicted by Isaiah and other prophets, will happen.

You and I need to enter into this anticipation. We need to take time to think about the coming of the Lord, and whether we are prepared, and if not, what we can do about it. Isaiah talks about making crooked paths straight, knocking down mountains and filling valleys, smoothing out rough ways – making straight the way of the Lord. Preparing for Christmas is kind of a practice for the real thing – the coming of the Lord once and for all into our lives.

I think making crooked paths straight means that I try to destroy the delusions I have, that we all have, about our spiritual lives. We all have excuses, when we think about it, why we put off our spiritual growth. We haven’t got time, we get distracted, we really don’t need to go to confession because we haven’t really done anything terrible, and there are lots of worse people in the world. We believe Christ is present in the Eucharist, but that belief isn’t real enough to us to bring us to a few minutes of adoration before the blessed sacrament. We know the bible is the word of God, but except for the weekend masses, that’s about all the bible we care about. Tearing down mountains and filling up valleys, suggests to me that we need to find those parts of our lives where we are resisting the Spirit. If you go through a day and look back, you can always see times when you might have done things differently, more in keeping with living in the Spirit. Every day we have the opportunity to receive the fruits of the spirit, to exercise the beatitudes. When we fail to exercise kindness, when we allow anger to take over, when we allow things to deprive us of our joy, we are fighting the Spirit. Only by reflecting on our actual experience can we hope to tear down mountains and fill up valleys. One of the best ways to tear down mountains and fill valleys is to develop a habit of daily reflection; where did we respond to the Spirit? Where did we exercise the beatitudes? And smoothing out rough ways – what are we doing well? Where if someone looked at our life, would they suspect us of being a Christian? Well, lets do those things better. Lets take our strengths and make them stronger.

The purpose of advent is to prepare for the coming of the Lord. We are not really preparing for Christmas – that celebrates a day 2000 years ago. We are not preparing for the Second Coming; we don’t know when that will be or how, and it is the Church that must make the world ready for that. We are indeed the Church and we could ask how we could do this better, but that’s not the prime issue here. There is a coming of Christ for each of us, though. As certain as the sun rises in the morning, a day will come when Christ will come for me, and I will see once and for all how I am and how I should have been, and the closer these visions are to each other the happier I will be. And that is the real coming of Christ for which we are preparing.

My sister and I anticipated the joy our little sister would have on Christmas morning. Because we couldn’t wait, all we did was make her sad, and when Christmas came the rocking horse wasn’t a surprise anymore. So try to enter into that holy expectation, that time in the near future when we will each meet Jesus. What will he say? What will I say? Will he see that the good work he began in me at baptism has been completed? Or will I be sad because I have squandered the gifts he’s given me?