Homily for 3d Sunday of Advent

Homily for the
3d Sunday of Advent

Dec. 15, 2019

Matt 11: 2-11
St. Pius X, Scarsdale, N.Y.

“Jesus said to them in reply, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see …” (Matt 11: 4)

Last week we heard John the Baptist’s preaching of the coming Messiah, coming to cleanse his people with the Holy Spirit and fire, coming to judge and punish evildoers (Matt 3:1-12).

Between then and today’s passage, John has baptized Jesus, who then went into the desert to fast, pray, and undergo temptation.  Then John was arrested by King Herod—on account of his preaching God’s truth about marriage (Matt 14:3-4).  So he hasn’t witnessed Jesus’ public ministry, only heard about it in his imprisonment.

What John hears about Jesus doesn’t agree with the expectations he had of the Messiah.  There’s no fire, no harsh condemnation of evildoers.  (Actually, later in his ministry Jesus will have some very harsh words for hypocritical scribes and Pharisees [Matt 23].)  Jesus is, however, doing the work of the Holy Spirit, as John had predicted.  And that’s the answer he sends back to John—the miraculous works he’s doing, works that demonstrate his fulfilling the prophecies of Isaiah, prophecies connected with the deliverance of Israel from captivity, from bondage.

In Jesus’ time, John and many in Israel were expecting a different kind of deliverance, a political one.  Even Jesus’ closest followers, the 12, had such expectations and sought power and influence for themselves thru their closeness to him.  That’s why Jesus says, “Blessed are those who don’t take offense at me” (11:6)—because what he offers to people is healing of body and soul and the good news of God’s love, but not a political revolution, not a restoration in Israel of the power and glory of King David.

As if to refocus the crowds, Jesus asks them about John the Baptist:  why did they go out to the desert to see and hear him?  What did they see in him?  It wasn’t that he preached a popular message, whatever the latest religious or political or social viewpoint was.  He wasn’t a reed blowing and swaying in the wind, like the marsh grasses along the Jordan River’s banks, or a politician who tells you what he thinks after he reads the latest polls about this or that topic.  Nor was John an elegant and polished figure of a man, the sort one finds in royal courts, posh dinner parties, and Hollywood awards presentations.  No.  Jesus affirms what the crowds know:  John was a prophet, a great prophet, and that’s what they went to see and hear.

But even a prophet is nothing, Jesus goes on, unless he belongs to the kingdom of heaven:  “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (11:11).

Two observations are in order.  1st, the signs of the kingdom of heaven, the signs that “the one who is to come” (11:3) has indeed come, are signs of compassion, healing, and hope:  “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them” (11:5).  The kingdom makes present what Isaiah spoke of (35:1-6,10), what the psalmist also acclaimed:  “The Lord God … secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, … protects strangers, sustains the fatherless and the widow” (146:7,9).

This is what the kingdom’s citizens do, what the disciples of Jesus do:  the works of mercy, the works of justice in society, as part of their announcing the Gospel, continuing the good news of Jesus.  Jesus’ message is not alone one of “all will be well in heaven, so just hang in there,” but also one of doing the works of God, the works that Jesus did.  So Christians operate hospitals for healing, orphanages for the abandoned and lost, schools for the poor, soup kitchens for the hungry, relief services for the victims of disasters.  Christians get involved in politics to promote just solutions to the problems of society—of war and peace, of crime and punishment, of migrants and refugees, of economic distress, of marriage and family life, of the human dignity of the unborn, the aged, the disfigured, the handicapped; and much more.  By speaking for the voiceless, the hopeless, the persecuted, we proclaim to them good news, as Jesus did.  We offer a form of deliverance from captivity—of both body and soul.

2d observation:  prophecy.  The prophet doesn’t deliver a message everyone wants to hear, a message that all’s well.  By definition he or she isn’t politically correct.  Think of Dorothy Day; of Martin Luther King Jr.; of Mother Teresa denouncing abortion before an audience that included Pres. Bill Clinton and Hilary.

The prophet speaks out against corruption in government, the mass media, or the Church—like Bishop Malone’s secretary in Buffalo, who exposed abuse cover-up because she wanted to be able to stand before Christ with a clear conscience.  The prophet advocates for refugees and other immigrants.  The prophet opposes an agenda of sexual promiscuity and gender confusion, and proposes instead chastity, fidelity, self-giving, and attention to biological facts.  The prophet opposes white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and any other form of discrimination based on race, gender, age, religious faith, or national origin.

Every citizen of the kingdom of heaven, by virtue of the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, is called to be a prophet, to believe and to live the teachings of Jesus and try to implement them in society—not to be a reed swaying in the wind of public opinion.  Blessed are those who aren’t offended by the Gospel, who take no offense at the teachings of Jesus and his kingdom.