Advent 1

Readings: Is 2:1-5; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44

VIDEO

St. Paul gives what seems like reasonable advice:
if you believe a day of judgment is coming,
even if you don’t know exactly when,
it is probably a good idea 
to quit the orgies and drunkenness,
the promiscuity and lust,
the rivalry and jealousy.
In light of coming judgment, it is simply prudent 
to stop acting like a self-indulgent spoiled brat
and start acting like a responsible adult.
As the bumper sticker says,
“Jesus is coming. Look busy.”

But Jesus paints a picture 
that is slightly less reasonable;
Jesus paints a picture in which 
the day of judgment comes unexpectedly 
upon those who are acting
like responsible and respectable adults:
eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
planting fields and grinding flour.
Everyone is responsibly and respectably 
engaged in the concerns of daily life,
and yet one is taken and the other left.
Which suggests that being his follower
is about something more 
than being a respectable and responsible adult.

Don’t get me wrong,
for the most part I am in favor
of people acting like responsible adults,
at least when they are actually adults,
chronologically speaking.
I want the adults in my life to act the part:
I want my students, young though they are,
to begin to take on adult responsibilities;
I want elected officials and other public figures
to speak and act like adults;
I want the grown-ups at Thanksgiving
not to air their childishly petty gripes,
whether personal or political.
And I think the notion of “respectability”
is not some invention of “the man”
to keep people in their place…
well, at least not entirely.
In general, I think that things
like marriage and employment,
moderate consumption
and mutually beneficial collaboration,
are better for society 
than orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust,
rivalry and jealousy.

But let’s not confuse respectability
with following Jesus,
because following Jesus  
is something wild and dangerous,
something strange and unsettling.
We follow Jesus out of the conviction 
that God has lived among us in the flesh, 
has come to share in our fallen human condition
in what Bishop Eric Varden calls
the “incursion of glory into trauma.”
We should strip ourselves of orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust, rivalry and jealousy
not in order to don a cloak of respectability,
but in order to clothe ourselves in Christ,
the crucified and risen savior:
a garment far more outlandish and implausible
than anything human ingenuity can devise.
Respectability tells you 
to plan prudently for the future;
Jesus tells you that the future is unplannable,
and that the day of the Lord will come
like a thief in the night.
Respectability tells you 
to get a good night’s sleep;
Jesus tells you to stay up late
awaiting his arrival.
Respectability tells you
to eat and drink in moderation;
Jesus invites you to feast 
on the bread of immortality
and become drunk
with the wine of the Spirit.

From the perspective of Jesus,
the respectable are no more likely 
than the disreputable
to be ready for the eruption 
of the reign of God into their lives.
Indeed, during Jesus’ earthly ministry
it was often the disreputable,
the sinners and tax collectors,
the prostitutes and lepers,
who were most responsive to him,
most anxious to welcome him.
Perhaps, unlike the respectable,
they were free from the illusion
that being a responsible adult
would secure them a place in God’s kingdom.
Perhaps it was easier for them,
who could make no claim to righteousness, 
to become like the children
to whom Jesus says the kingdom belongs.
Perhaps they were readier to be surprised,
readier for the wildness and danger that comes
with following Jesus,
readier to lose their lives for his sake
so that they might find them again.

Respectable responsibility, 
on the other hand,
has a stake in the world as it is.
Even if we want the world to be a better place,
we tend to think of ways in which we might work
to gradually improve things over time,
ways in which we might rationally arrange things
so that human foibles might be mitigated,
ways in which others might be brought into
the circle of our respectable responsibility.
And, again, there is really nothing wrong with this,
unless we think that it somehow gives us
mastery over our fate,
control over our destiny,
a plan for building God’s kingdom.
Because Jesus comes to tell us
that however much you plan,
however meticulously you game out scenarios,
“you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
The kingdom of God does not arise 
from respectable responsibility,
but comes crashing into our lives,
and all we can do in the end
is to remain expectantly awake
so as not to miss its arrival.

We do not know on which day our Lord will come.
What we do know, as John Henry Newman put it, is that
“Time is short, death is certain, and eternity long” (Serm. VIII.10).
This is true for both the respectable and the disreputable.
So let us love the world as God loves the world,
who sent his Son to be its savior,
but let us hold loosely to our worldly plans and hopes,
so that we might be ready to greet the Lord
when he appears in glory,
ready to cast aside our cloaks of respectability
and clothe ourselves in him and him alone.
And on that day, 
may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

 

Christ the King

VIDEO
Readings: 2 Sam 5:1-3; Col 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
was marked with the sign of the cross,
just as we saw our catechumens, Chad and Sarah,
marked with the cross at the beginning of Mass. 
Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
has received this sign of his love
and been called to know and follow him.
Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
bears the mark of Christ our king,
to whose service our lives have been pledged.

The cross, if you think about it,
is a strange sign for a king.
When the Romans placed the words
“This is the King of the Jews”
above the head of Jesus 
as he hung on the cross,
they saw themselves engaged 
in a clever act of irony, inviting derision—
as if to say, “Get a load of this guy.
He thought he was all that,
but see what the power of Rome can do
to this so-called king.”
For crucifixion was intended 
not only to be physically excruciating
but to be socially discrediting 
and psychologically humiliating.

And the bystanders were happy to oblige:
the Jewish leaders sneered;
the Roman soldiers jeered;
and even one of the criminals 
crucified alongside him
mockingly asked Jesus to save him.
Where is your kingdom of God now,
you pitiful, weak, carpenter from Nazareth?

But the other criminal crucified with Jesus
did not join in the sneering and jeering and mocking.
He saw something different.
Where is God’s Kingdom now?
The good thief sees it
hanging beside him on the cross.
With eyes opened by the gift of faith,
the good thief sees in the man of sorrows
“the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation,”
the one who is “before all things,”
and in whom “all things hold together.”
He sees in the agony of Jesus 
the king who is “making peace 
by the blood of his cross.”
What his killers meant for mockery
the good thief sees as the revelation
of Christ’s Kingdom of love and mercy.

But the cross also reveals God’s judgment 
upon the kingdoms of this world,
unveiling the cruelty of the power of Rome,
casting light upon the darkness 
of human hearts that delight in suffering
and in the destruction of their enemies.
We see revealed and judged
the counter-kingdoms of this world,
in which false peace is maintained
through terror and torture.
In the death of Jesus, light of the world,
we see the working of the darkness
from which he comes to deliver us.

Seeing all this, the good thief asks sincerely
what the other thief asked mockingly:
Jesus, save me.
He does not ask to be spared his fate;
he does not ask to be taken from the cross; 
he asks instead, “remember me 
when you come into your kingdom.”
Death is closing in upon me,
but I believe that you are light itself
in the midst of darkness,
life in the midst of death.
Death seeks to dissolve me
but in you all things hold together.
And if you remember me, 
if you hold me in your heart,
then I will live eternally in you.
I have shared in your cross;
let me share your resurrection.

Remember me in your kingdom of life.
This should be our prayer as well—
we who have been marked with his cross,
the sign of his kingdom of love and mercy.
Perhaps we received this sign as an adult, 
perhaps we received it as a tiny child
and have no memory of that day.
But whether or not we remember is unimportant.
What is important is that he remembers us
and that he journeys with us
as we have sought to know him and follow him,
as we have journeyed through a world 
of false peace and cruelty.
He remembers us
not because we deserve it,
but because he is love and light and life.

At every Mass, we good thieves ask 
to be remembered in Christ’s kingdom,
praying in our Eucharistic Prayer:
“Remember, Lord, your Church,
spread throughout the world…
Remember…all who have died in your mercy.”
Jesus, remember them, 
remember us,
hold us together in your heart 
so that we might belong 
to your kingdom of mercy
and share in the inheritance 
of your saints in light.
O Christ our king, who mark us 
with the sign of your love,
grant us your peace
and have mercy on us all.

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

VIDEO

Readings: Mal 3:19-20a; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Lk 21:5-19

The words of the prophet Malachi
presents a striking, 
and perhaps terrifying,
picture of the world’s end:
“the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
and the day that is coming will set them on fire.”
But this blazing day that is to come
is not simply one of fiery judgment 
on proud evildoers;
for those who fear God’s name, 
that same dawn will bring
“the sun of justice with its healing rays.”
The day to come is the same dawning
for both the proud and the humble:
the same sun of Justice that rises,
the same light that lights up God’s creation,
the same warming rays that stream upon the world, 
but with two very different outcomes:
some will burn and some will shine.

The sun of justice reveals the difference
between those souls grown dry through sin
and those that have been watered by grace.
For the arid and brittle hearts of the proud, 
the sun of justice will be a threat,
but for those hearts that honor God 
as the very source of their existence—
those who have drunk in 
the living waters of God’s love—
the rays of the sun of justice 
are the source of light and life,
lighting them up and making them live,
like the morning sun falling 
on the fresh green leaves of spring.

We refer to this sort of biblical writing,
as well as Jesus’s words in today’s Gospel,
as “apocalyptic.”
And they certainly offer what we today
typically associate with the word “apocalypse”:
fires blazing, buildings collapsing,
wars and insurrections,
earthquakes, famines, and plagues.
But all these things are, we might say, 
apocalyptically incidental,
for the word “apocalypse” in Greek
means not “disaster” but “unveiling.”
An apocalypse is the unveiling 
of events to come
in which the truth of our lives 
will itself be unveiled to ourselves and others.
As St. Paul says of the return of Christ,
“He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness 
and will manifest the motives of our hearts” (1 Cor 4:5).
Or, to quote the band the Mountain Goats:

When the last days come

We shall see visions

More vivid than sunsets

Brighter than stars

We will recognize each other

And see ourselves for the first time

The way we really are (“Against Pollution”).

The words of Jesus and the prophet Malachi 
are apocalyptic not simply because they speak 
of the coming day of God’s consuming fire,
but also because they speak of the day 
when the dawning sun of justice 
will unveil our hearts and reveal
who it is that we really are,
who it is that we have made ourselves.
The apocalypse—the bringing to light
of what was hidden in darkness—
is disaster for the dry and brittle
but healing for those who 
have immersed themselves in God’s love.

But the apocalypse doesn’t wait 
for some future cataclysm.
The truth of our lives is unveiled 
in the midst of those lives.
While Jesus speaks of how 
“awesome sights and mighty signs 
will come from the sky,”
he goes on to say that “before all this happens
they will seize and persecute you.”
Those who claim the name Christian
will be led before the public authorities
to give “testimony”—
those who claim the name Christian
will be called to unveil their hearts.
And in this unveiling, as in the final judgment,
the truth will be made manifest,
and the line will be drawn.

Jesus tells us that when we are called 
to give testimony,
we should not recite 
some carefully crafted statement
that is sufficiently nuanced 
to offend no one,
to deflect the potential ire
that threatens to fall upon us,
to talk our way out of speaking the truth.
Rather, he says that he himself 
“shall give you a wisdom in speaking.”
He will put the words in our mouth
that will bear witness to him
and to the truth of our lives.
He will tear away the nuance and evasion 
of words with which we veil our hearts,
and the world will see who we really are.

The day is coming 
when we will be called to bear witness,
and none of us knows the day or the hour,
so we must live our lives and bear our witness
as if that day is this day.
And it is this day.
The day on which the sun of justice dawns
to ignite those grown dry and brittle in their pride,
and to illuminate those who fear the Lord,
making them radiant with his healing light,
is this day.
Every word we say this day, 
every work we do this day,
every encounter we have this day
ought to bear witness to the truth,
ought to give testimony to Christ.

Often the best indication that the words we speak
have been put into our mouths by God
is the degree of discomfort 
we feel in speaking them.
When we tell others 
of the love of Jesus that is in our hearts,
even in the face of scorn and ridicule,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
When we speak through actions
that show the Spirit’s fruits
of love, joy, peace, patience, 
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
gentleness, and self-control,
amid a world that prizes 
bluster and self-seeking,
anger and domination,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
When we the Church speak up 
for the human dignity
of the unborn and the dying,
or of the poor and the outcast,
or, as the US bishops did this week, 
of those threatened by government policies 
of indiscriminate mass deportation,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
This wisdom may make us squirm,
but the truth we speak will be our salvation.

The apocalypse is here.
The truth is even now being unveiled.
If we are to feel the healing rays
of the sun of justice 
and not the fire that consumes,
we must let God’s wisdom water our hearts,
so that we may speak it before the watching world.
And may God, who is our merciful judge,
have mercy on us all.