December 18, 2017
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the Third Sunday of Advent (Year B) as a deacon on December 11, 2011 at St. Camillus Parish in Silver Spring, MD. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11; Luke 1:46-54; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; and John 1:6-8, 19-28.
We’re halfway through this season of Advent, the Church’s season of waiting for future events. It’s one of the most counter-cultural things we can do in America, to wait. We expect people to show up promptly and to meet deadlines. This is a country where if your appliances stop working, you call for repairs or you buy a new one without delay.
And yet, life has taught most of us that sometimes we have no choice but to wait.
Take a moment: what are you waiting for right now?
Not everything happens on our timetable. God’s ways are not our ways. There are different types of waiting, and some types of waiting are better than others.
Too often in my life, I haven’t engaged in a very healthy kind of waiting. I’ve been passive in my waiting. I’ve lived in the future more than in the present. As an engineer, I often worried more about how the product would perform rather than enjoying the challenges of designing it. As a musician, I often spent more energy wanting the concert to be over rather than enjoying rehearsals with my friends. And for more years than I’d care to count, I’ve identified myself more by what I hope to become – a priest – rather than by who I am right now. (My ordination is in 5 months, 7 days, and approximately 18 hours, but who’s counting?) An engineering colleague’s advice from a decade ago still rings in my head. She said, “Don’t wish your life away, kid.”
Instead of a passive kind of waiting, we’re called to engage in an active kind of waiting. It makes sense in so many realms of our lives. Our friends and neighbors who are unemployed will be the first to tell you that they need to treat “looking for a job” as if it was a full-time job itself. As our country debates wildly different solutions to our economic problems, we can’t expect our leaders to do what we want unless we tell them what we think. We don’t expect solutions to world hunger and violence unless we engage in trying to change the world.
Today, our liturgy tells us that, as Christians, there’s another element to our active waiting. We’ve lit the pink candle of our Advent wreath and we’ve heard the word “rejoice” at least seven times in this liturgy so far. It’s kind of remarkable – most of us would expect the command to rejoice to come on December 25, once we’re done with the waiting. But Paul tells the Thessalonians that they are to “rejoice always,” even though the second coming of Christ has not occured as soon as they had originally anticipated. We are to rejoice in all times and in all circumstances.
That’s a tall order in the face of unemployment, financial crisis, starvation, and war. But our readings today may offer two important hints on how to rejoice always.
The first hint comes from our buddy John the Baptist. Now, John doesn’t strike most of us as the most cheerful guy we know, but he definitely knew how to engage in active waiting, by proclaiming Christ’s coming and inviting people to reform their lives in the meantime. John understood his responsibility primarily as being a witness. He testified to the light that was coming, to the promise that God would soon fulfill. So, if we are to rejoice while we’re waiting for Christ to break into the world in new and unexpected ways, perhaps we should remind ourselves – and testify to our family and friends – of God’s promises. Our waiting should be filled with hope in God.
The second thing isn’t a subtle hint. Our readings today are absolutely drenched in the Holy Spirit. John is called by the Holy Spirit to testify to the light. Isaiah proclaims that “the Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me.” Our response to Isaiah were the words of Mary after she learned that the Holy Spirit had come upon her: “My soul rejoices,” she proclaims. Paul tells the Thessalonians that they can rejoice always because they are already living a life “in the Spirit.” And we, as Christians, also already live “in the Spirit.”
Rejoice always. Rejoice now. After all, what are we waiting for?