Advent 2

Readings: Is 11:1-10; Rm 15:4-9; Mt 3:1-12

VIDEO

I heard two different things this past week.
I heard, “We’re going to go the wrong way 
if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
I also heard, and you heard a few minutes ago,
“Welcome one another, then, 
as Christ welcomed you,
for the glory of God.”
The first was said by our President at a cabinet meeting,
speaking of people from Somalia living in the U.S.
The second was said St. Paul in his letter to the Romans,
speaking of how Jewish Christians
ought to welcome Gentiles who turned to Christ.

I’m tempted simply to say that for Christians
the choice between the mindsets embodied
in these two statements—
one rooted in fear and the other in faith—
is so clear that no commentary is needed,
and then sit down and treat you all 
to an extremely short homily.
But lest I be misunderstood as offering 
political commentary rather than a homily,
and because the choice does not 
seem to be so clear to some people,
let me take a few more minutes of your time
to explain why this is about theology
and not about politics.

While we think of Advent as the time 
when we prepare to welcome Christ—
and indeed today’s Gospel quotes Isaiah:
“prepare the way of the Lord!”—
it is really these words from Paul 
that capture what the coming of Christ 
into the world is all about:
“Welcome one another, then, 
as Christ welcomed you,
for the glory of God.”

When Paul speaks of being welcomed by Christ,
he knew firsthand that being a Christian 
is not about anything we can do for Christ,
if only we prepare carefully enough;
it is about what Christ does for us,
often when we are least prepared.
For Paul had been unexpectedly welcomed by Christ,
when he was a persecutor of Christians.
Even as he was breathing out
murderous threats against Christians, 
the risen Christ appeared to him in his glory,
welcoming him into a new life.

But Paul was not simply welcomed;
he was also given a mission.
He was given the mission of welcoming others
even as he himself had been welcomed.
He was given the mission of preaching to the Gentiles—
the non-Jewish pagans who were outside 
of the covenant God had made with Abraham,
who were considered idolaters and demon worshippers,
who were, as he describes them in his letter to the Ephesians,
“without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
He was called to welcome those whom he says 
were separated from God’s chosen people 
by a “dividing wall of enmity” (Eph 2:14).
He was called, in short, to welcome those
whom he had up to that time thought of as garbage,
who could only pollute the purity of God’s people.
Now, just as Paul had been welcomed in mercy
while he was still the enemy of Christ,
he in turn was to welcome the Gentiles.

Many, who also feared the defilement
that the Gentiles might bring into God’s people, 
thought that Paul was taking the Church 
in the wrong direction.
But Paul knew with the blinding clarity of faith
that the coming of Christ into the world
was, as Isaiah prophesied long before,
meant to draw in all people,
Jew and Gentile alike,
so that the earth might be filled 
with knowledge of the Lord,
as water covers the sea.
Jew and Gentile living together was, for Paul,
the dawning light of God’s peaceable kingdom 
in which “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together.”
Those who had been enemies now dwelled together—
the wild welcomed fearlessly by the tame,
who know themselves to have been welcomed
by the God who does not judge by appearance
but judges “the poor with justice,
and decide[s] aright for the land’s afflicted.”

The contrast between a fearful mindset 
that declares the land’s afflicted to be rejected garbage
and a faith-filled mindset that seeks to welcome others
is not a matter of partisan politics.
Alas, the range of those afflicted ones
who are seen as garbage to be cast out 
rather than brothers and sisters to be welcomed
is large enough to indict both of our major parties:
the unborn, the disabled, the mentally ill, 
the incarcerated, the poor, the unemployed,
the migrant, the elderly, the dying.
The call to welcome 
even as we have been welcomed
is a call that cannot be answered simply
by voting for the correct political party,
as important as voting might be.
It is a call that confronts us every day.

A few weeks ago, at this Mass,
we were honored by the presence of 
not one but two of God’s children
who were experiencing evident mental distress.
Though the situation was uncomfortable,
and perhaps distracted us from our prayers,
I didn’t notice anyone fleeing the church
or trying forcibly to expel our visitors.
In other words, I didn’t see anyone 
treating them like garbage.
What I did see was a couple of people 
stepping up to sit with them,
to calm them,
to welcome them.
What I did see was Christians acting
as those who knew themselves
to have been welcomed by Christ.
What I did see was just a glimmer 
of the dawning of that peaceable kingdom
foreseen by Isaiah.

Perhaps the best way to prepare ourselves 
to welcome Christ this Advent
it to reflect on how we 
have been welcomed by Christ
and to ask ourselves how we 
can extend that welcome to others.
Do we, in our fear of those different from us,
those whose presence might distress us,
dismiss people as “garbage,”
or do we see in them the face of Christ?
John the Baptist says that 

the Messiah, when he comes 

will not care about our family lineage 

or our ethnic identity,
for God can raise up children of Abraham 
from the lifeless stones themselves.
He will look rather for the fruit of repentance,
the reorientation of our lives around the kingdom
into which he welcomes all people.
Jesus says that at the final judgment,
when he will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
he will say to those on his right,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. 
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world.
For I was… a stranger and your welcomed me…
[for] whatever you did 
for one of these least… 
you did for me” (Mt 24: 34, 35, 40).

So let this Advent be for us 
the end of fear and the birth of faith;
let us welcome Christ 
by welcoming others 
as we ourselves have been welcomed
so that all people together
“might glorify God for his mercy.”
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.

Advent 2

Readings: Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12

“On that day, a shoot shall sprout
from the stump of Jesse…”
On that day.
On what day?
Even leaving aside the question of who Jesse is
(he’s King David’s father, by the way),
it would certainly be helpful to know when it is
that this mysterious descendant of Jesse will appear:
this one upon whom the Spirit of God will rest,
this one who will judge the poor with justice
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted,
this one who will be girded with justice and faithfulness,
who with his words will strike those without mercy.
When is “that day” when the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb
and the lion shall eat hay like the ox
and the knowledge of God will flood the world?
The prophet Isaiah doesn’t tell us;
he simply says that “on that day”
the root of Jesse will be set up as a sign for the nations,
so as to draw all people into God’s kingdom.

Matthew, the author of our Gospel reading,
believes he knows when “that day” occurs.
He tells us that “in those days”
John the Baptist appeared
preaching that God’s kingdom was at hand.

“In those days.”
The phrase in Matthew’s Greek is almost identical
to the ancient Greek translation of the book of Isaiah
that Matthew would have known.
That day that the world has been waiting for?
That day of justice and mercy and peace
when the wolf will be the guest of the lamb?
That day when the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the Lord?
John the Baptist appeared two thousand years ago
saying that this is that day.
John arrived to tell us to prepare the way of the Lord
by producing good fruit as evidence of our change of heart,
because the one sprung from the stump of Jesse
was about to appear with his winnowing fan in his hand,
to gather the wheat and to burn the chaff,
to judge the poor with justice
and to strike the ruthless with his words.
With the appearance of Jesus we can truly say
that this is that day.

So, was John wrong?
As far as I can tell,
the poor are still often unjustly judged
and the ruthless seem often to go unrebuked.
Knowledge of the Lord does not seem
to be in particularly abundant supply
and I don’t see wolves and lambs
spending much quality time together.

Indeed, Jesus, the Lamb of God,
himself fell prey to the human wolves
who tore his flesh and hung him on a cross.
The shoot who sprang from the root of Jesse,
the one upon whom God’s Sprit rested
with the fullness of her gifts,
was himself cut down and cast into the fire of death.

So perhaps we still await that day of which Isaiah spoke.

Yet our faith tells us that John the Baptist was right.
The Lamb who was slain has been raised
and reigns gloriously,
not simply at God’s right hand in heaven,
but even now within the hearts of his disciples.
That day is truly this day
when, as Paul says in our second reading,
Christ’s followers think in harmony with one another
and with one voice glorify God;
when they welcome one another
even as they have been welcomed by Christ.

But on this day, the transformed world spoken of by Isaiah
is present to us primarily in sign and mystery.
We sense it when we welcome a child
through the waters of baptism,
or when we gather at the altar to glorify God
and to be fed by Christ the Lamb.
We feel it when people respond to tragedy with generosity
or when a leader acts, not in his or her own interest,
but in the interest of justice and mercy.
But these are only signs, only glimpses,
and it takes faith to read these signs,
to know that this day really is
that day of God’s great triumph.

So in Advent we wait.
We wait for the feast of Christmas
when we celebrate that day
when Jesus Christ was born,
the great sign to the world
of the mysterious real presence
of God’s kingdom of love among us.
But we also wait for that day,
the day when God’s kingdom
will be present to us
no longer in sign and mystery,
no longer dimly perceived,
but in the clear and certain light
that flows from the Christ the Lamb,
filling with earth with the knowledge of the Lord
as water covers the sea.