A Homily – The Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)

First Reading - Zephaniah 3:14-18 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Isaiah 12 ©

Second Reading - Philippians 4:4-7 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 61:1 (Lk4:18)

The Gospel According to Luke - 3:10-18 ©

 

(NJB)

Listen!

God, the creator of the universe, God is not a warrior. God does not intervene in human affairs, either to pass judgement or to grant reprieve. God has no enemies; God is love.

Consider the wisdom of the prophet and be patient, salvation flows from the divine-wellspring, it fills all of creation, from this life into the next.

God set the galaxies spinning in the heavens, and it is the desire of God that all people be well, loving and good.

God desires that we be tolerant and care for one another, that we serve the divine in humility, with justice, and love for our neighbors…no matter who they are.

 This is the way, and in it is the peace of God.

 Be mindful.

 God knows us, each and every one of us; God knows what we struggle with, God knows the content of our dreams and understands our experience, even as we experience it ourselves.

 Praise God, and give comfort to God’s servant. When the will of God is done, the message is clear and the mission is pure; they are one in the same, the message and the mission is love.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today:

 The authors of Luke are saying something about Jesus through a narrative concerning his cousin, Saint John the Baptist.

 Reflect for a moment on the wisdom of John; the spirit of truth was in him, as it is in all of us. God made us with innate capacities for reason, wisdom and love, and it is these qualities we are referring to when we say that we are made in the image of God.

 Know this.

 Everyone and everything in the universe, every moment of time flows from and is sustained by the providence of the divine.

 We did not then (in the time of John), and we do not now need to wait for the anointed one, for a Christ to preach to us and tell us the truth; we have the capacity for it now.

 The truth is spoken all around us, if you open the ear of your heart you may hear it spoken in  ordinary moments, in normal conversation, the truth is speaking to you at the core of your being; it is there, in the seed of God’s Word germinating within you, just as it was spoken by John to those that followed him, and by Jesus who came after.

 “What must we do?” The people asked.

 John and Jesus responded according to the best tradition of the prophets:

 Act mercifully.

Act justly.

Be humble.

Do no harm.

Ahimsa

 Adhere to the Shema by loving God with all your strength, all your heart and all your mind; love your neighbor as you love yourself…this is the golden rule, and in it is the whole of the law and the wisdom of the prophets.

 If you take up the way, you will execute the duties of your office and fulfill the trust that has been placed in you faithfully, and without corruption.

 There is nothing extraordinary in these precepts. This is the ordinary way of life that we are called to it. Nevertheless, this message stunned the people who heard it when Jesus preached from the Mount of Olives, and John by the River Jordan; it stunned them to hear the truth spoken so simply and with such conviction.

 Why is this our response to the truth when we hear it?

 Because the solution to the world’s sickness (the desire to sin and the love of evil) is so simple that when we try to imagine these solutions coming to fruition in our own lives, we get lost in the overwhelming reality of what is.

 We are awash in sin and the consequences of sin, our own sins and everyone else’s, both the living and the dead. It is as if we were trying to hold back an ocean of greed, hate and fear with a gossamer veil, as thin as a wish.

 In the here and now, we know what the solution is, and yet we do not faith in one another, we do not trust that each of us will do our part to stop our sinful desire from overflowing. The realities of sin and evil are so prevalent that when we try to imagine a resolution to them with the only solutions that are available to us (love and mercy in the service of justice), the scope of the problems takes on a cosmic significance.

 Know this:

 No matter how great the reality of sin and evil are, they are rooted in time and space, they are finite, and as such they are infinitely less than the infinite love of God.

 This is the mystery of the Gospel…preach it!

 John was wise when he set aside a claim to divinity; when he set aside the expectation that he was himself an anointed being come to solve the world’s problems.  He knew that they would not be solved in his lifetime, not in the final sense, because sin and evil are a part of the human condition.

 He also knew that another would come to pick up his mantle and carry on that work, he was confident in this knowledge because he understood the nature and role of the prophet, and that the truth is spoken in every generation, in every community, in all times; the truth is spoken without cease.

 John was wise to point his followers to the future, because we are led into the place of justice and mercy only by our desire for it; we are led by the power of hope, through expectation to realization.

 It is not necessary for us to believe as the Gospel writers did, that John was pointing to the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, because, if it had not been Jesus, it would have been someone else, as it will be someone else in our own future, because God’s redemptive work never ends.

 Be mindful.

 When we are on God’s threshing floor, understand that we arrived there as we are, a complete person; we came in as the whole stalk of wheat, and that is how we encounter God, in our entirety; each of us as the whole of who we are. The wheat and the chaff are not separate people, sinners and saints. We are each of us the wheat and the chaff together, saint and sinner combined in one body.

 It is the encounter with the divine that frees us from the compulsions and addictions that bind us to our sins. Gods winnowing fan blows against us like the wind, it is the breath of the Holy Spirit blowing over us and flowing into us, freeing us from fear and hate, from the desires that cause us to lie, cheat, steal, to harm our neighbors, even those we love…and in so doing harm to ourselves.

 It is the Spirit, ruhah, that carries us to the fire where doubt is burned away, not in a fire of prosecution, judgement and destruction, but in the fires of transformation, purification, and hope.

 When we pass through it, we become a new creation.

  

First Reading - Zephaniah 3:14-18 ©

The Lord, the King of Israel, is in Your Midst

Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud!

Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!

The Lord has repealed your sentence; he has driven your enemies away.

The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst; you have no more evil to fear.

When that day comes, word will come to Jerusalem: Zion, have no fear, do not let your hands fall limp.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.

He will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love; he will dance with shouts of joy for you as on a day of festival.

 

Responsorial Psalm - Isaiah 12 ©

The Rejoicing of a Redeemed People

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Truly, God is my salvation,

  I trust, I shall not fear.

For the Lord is my strength, my song,

  he became my saviour.

With joy you will draw water

  from the wells of salvation.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Give thanks to the Lord, give praise to his name!

  Make his mighty deeds known to the peoples!

  Declare the greatness of his name.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Sing a psalm to the Lord

  for he has done glorious deeds;

  make them known to all the earth!

People of Zion, sing and shout for joy,

  for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

 

Second Reading - Philippians 4:4-7 ©

The Lord is Very Near

I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness. Let your tolerance be evident to everyone: the Lord is very near.

There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 61:1 (Luke 4:18)

Alleluia, alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke 3:10-18 ©

'Someone is Coming Who Will Baptize You With the Holy Spirit and Fire'

When all the people asked John, ‘What must we do?’ he answered, ‘If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.’ There were tax collectors too who came for baptism, and these said to him, ‘Master, what must we do?’ He said to them, ‘Exact no more than your rate.’ Some soldiers asked him in their turn, ‘What about us? What must we do?’ He said to them, ‘No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!’

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ As well as this, there were many other things he said to exhort the people and to announce the Good News to them.

 

A Homily – The Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)