December 8, 2013
The following is a homily for the second Sunday in Advent, Dec. 8.
So I was waiting to board a plane, standing next to a mother with her daughter. They started boarding in the usual way, and the girl blurts out: “Mommy, why are these people getting on the plane before us?” Mommy looks at the girl, trying to figure out how to answer this. “They have priority,” she says, kind of stumbling. The girl, of course, has no idea what this means. “They are more important than we are,” the mother finally says – obviously disappointed and disappointing her daughter.
It’s one of the most normal instincts we have: everyone should get treated the same. When people jump in line ahead of us; when someone gets picked before we do for no obvious reason; when we get a rejection letter when our friend gets accepted, we feel disrespected. And if people have some kind of “in” because of a connection – they know the owner, or they have a friend in the business – it really peeves us. “What about me? I’m not important?”
John the Baptizer says some pretty harsh things today, but the line that sticks out as I read the Gospel is the one that says, “Do not say to yourselves we are sons of Abraham.” John is saying that in the new order that God is bringing about there will be no favorites. No one group, no one class, no one approach automatically gets a free pass. Why are there no free passes? Because there is only one essential requirement: to open our hearts to God and live in consequence to that opening. Anyone who does that has a place in the Kingdom, which is coming. It’s the only pass that works.
It’s easy, I suppose, to get a little elitist about things. Pope Francis has certainly been taking it to his bishops and clergy, insisting that they do not have some exalted place just because they are ordained. In his last big message, he noted that there were over a billion lay people, and it’s the priest’s job to serve them, not the other way around. Notice how Paul describes Jesus this way – of service to the patriarchs so that Christ’s service to all the world can become known. I’m afraid all of us Catholics can be tempted to be elitist, thinking that we have a free pass just because we are Catholic. Our free pass is this: because we are Catholic, to be of special service to others, to the world: this is our privilege. It’s not something to feel smug about, but something to challenge us to more authentic Christian life.
Isaiah dreams continue in the second reading. This week, he dreams of a world of complete justice. God is going to raise up a new king, from the line of David – the stump of Jesse – who will not play favorites, or judge by appearances, but who will bring God’s justice to the world. What is God’s justice? When the world is the way God dreams of it – “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” – then God’s justice happens. So that is the standard for our lives: to live as God would have us live, as God has shown us in Jesus. When that happens even instinctual animosities begin to vanish – old hatreds and stereotypes – because wolves lay down with lambs, and children can touch the snake without getting bitten. Nelson Mandela’s death this week reminds us of the power of a life completely dedicated to achieving the justice of God, of getting ingrained enemies to embrace in peace.
God’s dream doesn’t happen by magic, overnight. It’s a process of slow transformation. God shows us the process in Jesus. His Son Jesus gave himself in love, in sacrificial death, to move the process forward. He sends the Spirit upon us to advance the process further. In every little act, in every attitude, in every approach, in every gesture, we have a chance to bring God’s justice to further reality, to move the Kingdom forward.
John calls his listeners – the pious religious leaders of his day – a brood of vipers, a bunch of snakes. He tells them change is coming – the axe is laid to the tree. Advent is screaming into our ears: this is a time of change for us, a time for us attend to God’s vision, to live for God’s justice. Because if we can do that a bit more, then we’ll be a little more ready when the King of Justice arrives.