Second Sunday of Advent

Comfort, give comfort to my people. Is 40:1

Prophets are fascinating people. Like all good leaders they warn us about dangerous paths we might be taking or reprove us when we fail to live up to our values, but they can also be incredibly gentle and consoling. The 40th chapter of Isaiah is like this.

The Jewish nation is in exile. Many have forgotten who they are and to whom they belong.  Others are finding ways to compromise with their captors as a way of staying alive, but are neglecting their religious obligations. Isaiah knows all this and decides that honey works much better than vinegar when people are lost and in pain.  Like the Samaritan who stops to help the fellow left for dead by robbers, he reminds his listeners that soon they will be home, among their friends and families and will be free to worship in Jerusalem. Don't worry, he seems to be saying, God is near and, "Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care."

Advent's scriptures are often like spiritual comfort food for me. Just as a big bowl of coffee ice cream can transport me back to childhood vacations with my family in Westport, Ma, Advent fills me with warmth and hope. As life was once simple and rich, so it will be again.  As we prepare to celebrate the Lord's birth, we are reminded that Christmas is not about the gifts we give and receive, but the incredible promise of God not to leave us orphans nor abandon us when we are in exile. 

Today, comfort someone who seems lost.

St Ignatius of Antioch

One of the great qualities of saints is that, while they do heroic things, they don’t bring attention to themselves. Today, as we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, we have a wonderful example of this. Famous for telling his followers, "I am Christ's wheat and shall be ground by the teeth of the beasts so that I may become Christ's pure bread,” Ignatius begged his friends not to try to stop his martyrdom. So confident that the Lord would protect him, the saint knew the strength he received from God would be a sign to others of God’s unconditional love. At the same time, as one reads further in Ignatius' letter, there is a hesitancy, a moment of fear perhaps. He says, "If then I should beg you to intervene on my behalf, do not believe what I say. Believe instead what I am now writing to you now."

Most of us, while admiring Ignatius’ faith, would be more likely to tell our friends to ignore our craziness in seeking martyrdom and write it off as the dream of a madman. Because we are afraid of the unknown and more concerned with the life we have and know, even if it is full of pain and confusion, we hesitate thinking about and asking God for the grace of a peaceful death, much less a martyr’s death. In fact, most of us think Jesus is talking only to foolish rich people when he says, "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong? Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God." Amazingly, we often cling to the little we have rather than remember God’s mercy and throw ourselves upon him.

There are, of course, very good reasons for this. Some of you are parents of young children and can’t imagine your kids growing up without you. Others are grandparents who think having grandchildren is giving you a second chance, especially if you spent more time working and obsessing about work than you did with your children. Even more grand, some may be spending your lives working in a not for profit company that feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, and wonder who will do this marvelous work if you can’t. In all of this, of course, we fail to honor God when our excuses suggest that God cannot do God’s work without us. While understandable, it is not a gospel principle to act as if everything depended on us.

St. Paul reminds us that Abraham, like Ignatius, “was empowered by faith and gave glory to God and was fully convinced that what God had promised he was also able to do.” (Rom 4:21) When we become convinced that God’s love is complete, unconditional and unearned, we begin to realize with Abraham and Ignatius that we can do all things “in him who strengthens us,” even let go of life itself for the sake of God’s reign.

Today, ask for the humility to let God be God and to trust that God's grace will be enough even when we face death.

Come to the Banquet!

"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son." (Mt 22:2)

It is always amazing to note how often the Bible uses the setting of a meal to help us understand God’s care for us. Today is no exception. Both  Isaiah and Matthew tell of a grand banquet that God has prepared for us. In the gospel, however, God’s anger also emerges in two parts. First the King is upset that so many people who he invited to his son’s wedding banquet fail to come. It even seems likely that he sent wagons or a horse for them, and still they did not respond. The king is troubled a second time when he spots someone without a wedding garment, and it is this small detail that often fascinates and confuses us.

Why would the King, God, be so upset when someone from the highways and byways comes to the banquet without a proper wedding garment? St Augustine suggests that people were provided with a wedding garment at the door to the banquet hall and while this insight helps a bit, a further cultural factor seems to be at play.

There were two distinct kinds of feasts in the ancient world. The first known as a ceremonial feast would have been something a local political leader might host. He might invite people to the anniversary of his ascension to power, or the wedding of one of his children. Everything would be provided for his guests. They had only to enjoy themselves and be grateful. The second kind of feast was known as a ritual feast. A king or local tetrarch might host a ritual feast when his son came of age or entered the military. This kind of feast signaled a transformation in someone’s life, a time when new expectations were thrust upon the one being celebrated, a time to rejoice but also to change.

Today’s gospel seems to have elements of both kinds of feasts. The king is both honoring his son’s wedding, but also, and in a powerful symbolic way, he is ritually telling the poor that they belong, they count, they are persons worthy of honor. Anyone refusing to wear the wedding garment provided for the guests is not only dishonoring the king’s generosity, she is refusing to accept her designation as God’s child, and to change in gratitude for the gift of her own dignity and worth. While the gospel may be challenging Jews specifically who reject the Messianic identity of Jesus, it is also about all of us. We are God’s children, his beloved, his chosen one’s. In gratitude we must wear the wedding garment which symbolizes God’s love and assurance that we have great dignity, that we are the body of Christ, that we must go about in the world as disciples of the King and proclaim good news.

Do we accept God’s mantle of love that calls us to live a life of gratitude and service? If we do not then we place ourselves with the man who chooses to come to the wedding banquet, but is not willing to change. In fact, we condemn ourselves. It is not God’s generosity that is lacking, it is our unwillingness to accept ourselves as God sees us and live in gratitude.

Pray today to see yourself as God sees you, a person of great dignity and value. Pray too to see others as God seems them.

The Tax Collector, Matthew

"He heard this and said, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mt 9:12-13) 

When the leaders of the Jewish community challenged Jesus about eating with tax collectors, his answer was clear and straightforward. While acknowledging that tax collectors were sick, he reminded his listeners that sick people need help. Implied, of course, is that if we deny our own sinfulness we are like the fellow who sees the splinter in everyone else's eye but ignores the beam in his own. If the Pharisees did not want to admit their own faults, they would have no need of God's help. Our first spiritual task is always to acknowledge our own faults, ask for God's mercy and accept it with joy when it comes. 

In biblical times, tax collectors were hated. Not only were most of them Jews who worked for the Roman occupiers, they often charged more than necessary if they thought they could get away with it. More often than not, therefore, they would prey on the poor and the illiterate who were unable to calculate their own taxes. Men who took advantage of the poor were despised by Jesus, but if they showed a willingness to let go of their evil ways, Jesus, the merciful physician, would heal them.

St Matthew, whose feast we celebrate today, was a tax collector, but Jesus saw something in him, even as he sat at his tax collector's table, that made Jesus choose him as an apostle. St Bede the Venerable, a doctor of the church who wrote in the 8th century, suggests that Jesus saw something in Matthew that others missed because he looked at him with merciful eyes. The same can be true for us as long as we don't hide. Because our pride often gets in the way of admitting our wrongs, we choose not to be transparent and humble before God and so cheat ourselves of God's mercy. 

Today, imagine yourself sitting quietly at your own "tax collectors table," and pray for the grace not to be so concerned with your own security that you miss the Lord's invitation to let go and follow him.