Homily for 1st Sunday of Advent

Homily for the
1st Sunday of Advent

Dec. 1, 2019

Is 2: 1-5
Rom 13: 11-14
Matt 24: 27-44
Christian Brothers, Iona College, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Assumption, Bronx, N.Y.

(The Saturday evening worship community at Iona College includes more local laity than Christian Brothers.  It isn't, however, the college community of students.)

“In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills” (Is 2: 1)

Jerusalem (image taken from Meridian magazine)

Given the ancients’ geographical understanding of the construction of the created world, they believed that the higher one climbed, the closer one got to heaven.  So mountaintops were particularly sacred places, like where Moses and Elijah encountered the Lord God.

Isaiah describes Jerusalem as the central high place where God really does make his home on earth, and “in days to come” it shall surpass all other heights and be the pilgrimage destination par excellence.  Isaiah envisions a future when God’s presence in Jerusalem will be evident to “all nations.”  It will draw all humanity there to enjoy God’s blessings.  In the prophet’s time that’s not yet reality.  The fulfillment of God’s plan is still to come.

God yet to come is the promise of our Advent season.  Today’s Scriptures stress a coming in the End Time—for Christians, Christ’s 2d coming, to complete his work of redemption and to pronounce judgment upon all people.  “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matt 24:37).  “He will come again to judge the living and the dead” is an article of our faith.

The thought of Christ’s coming fills his disciples with hope:  “Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed” (Rom 13:11).  But both Jesus and St. Paul warn their audiences against godless living, St. Paul particularly against sins of the flesh that turn one’s focus away from Christ.  “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (13:14).

We mustn’t misunderstand Paul, of course, as some early heretics did, and the American religious movement known as the Shakers, who denied the holiness of marriage as part of God’s plan—“desires of the flesh” properly, even sacramentally, directed toward the natural end of our male and female sexuality.  Paul, rather, condemns “the works of darkness” (13:12), which he lists here as “orgies and drunkenness, promiscuity and lust, rivalry and jealousy” (13:13).  In other letters he offers other lists.  You note that it’s not an exclusively sexual list.  “The flesh” means all our disordered inclinations, those desires that we summarize as the 7 capital sins:  pride, lust, envy, anger, covetousness, gluttony, and sloth.  Those habits incline us to focus our attention on ourselves, on our own selfishness, rather than on God and neighbor.

http://www.reasoningwithjehovahswitnesses.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jesus-Second-Coming.jpg

When Christ comes in his glory “on the clouds of heaven” (Matt 26:64) for everyone at the end of time, “he shall judge between the nations and impose terms on many peoples,” in Isaiah’s words (2:4).  Everyone will face judgment—nations, leaders, individuals—according to the rightness of their regimes, their attention to the common good of all persons, their care for peace among nations, their rendering of justice in the courts and all public places; and among the citizenry, not only their grateful acknowledgement of God for his gifts but also their care for social justice—matters like food, shelter, health care, education, and employment for all, preservation of the environment; the human dignity of everyone.

That judgment will fall upon each of us individually at the moment of death.  “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (24:44).  Each day we must be ready.  You know that many people have plenty of advance warning that their lives are closing, and some use that knowledge to prepare well for the account they expect to render to the Judge, while others persist in denial, as if they can cheat death by not thinking about it, as if their illness or injury won’t inevitably be fatal.  Many people have no advance warning:  death shows up suddenly by accident, natural disaster, violence, a stroke. 

Neither age nor sex nor race matters.  We’ll all face the Judge on those same matters of peace, justice, human dignity, how we loved or didn’t love God and neighbor.  We’ll also have to answer for our living and speaking truth—which reminds us to avoid gossip.  Responsibility for the truth also requires us to listen to Christ, to the Scriptures, to the Church when they teach us what’s right and wrong, what accords with natural law, what’s consistent with human dignity and what isn’t.  A story in the Catholic press in the last few days concerns a prominent woman in Michigan—a state judge, in fact—who has been in a publicly known civil “marriage” to another woman for several years and is shocked—shocked!—that her pastor won’t allow her to receive Communion, as if her manner of life is just fine.  Likewise, a few weeks ago a bunch of people were shocked (!) that a priest in South Carolina applied diocesan policy and denied Communion to a prominent proponent of abortion named Joe Biden.  Those who actively promote gravely immoral actions like abortion, sexual irresponsibility (including premarital sex and the entire LBGTQ agenda, if I may speak bluntly), euthanasia, hatred of other races, religions, or immigrants—all will have to answer for their lies about human dignity and the scandal they’ve given.

The Advent season is an opportunity for us to examine ourselves and our faithfulness to Jesus.  He offers us a home in the new Jerusalem where peace and prosperity will reign.  But that’s possible only when—quoting Isaiah again—we accept “instruction in his ways and walk in his paths” (Is 2:3).  We must “throw off the works of darkness” (Rom 13:12) in whatever form we find them in our thoughts, words, and actions, and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (13:14).  Then we shall be like a diligent homeowner who “stayed awake and didn’t let his house be broken into” (Matt 24:43).  We shall be among the Christian faithful who “resolve to run forth to meet Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom” (Collect).