A Homily - The Second Sunday of Christmas (Year C)

First Reading – Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20

Second Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18

Gospel Acclamation – 1 Tim 3:16

The Gospel According to John - 1:1-18

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 There is something true in this reflection, and much that is false. God has given us the Spirit of Wisdom, Sophia who eternally issues from the creator like, as the divine breath that vivifies creation.

 The Spirit of Wisdom is God’s own spirit, animating all who live, all who have ever lived, and all who ever will be. God’s spirit is not a gift that belongs to a specific people, in a specific place at a specific time. The Spirit of Wisdom is not property that can be transmitted like an inheritance from one generation to the next. God’s spirit does not belong in Jacob’s tent, on Mount Sion, in Jerusalem or to the house of Israel.

 There are no people on the face of the Earth, or anywhere in the universe, whose reception of the divine spirit is privileged.

 God loves all of God’s children equally.

 The creator establishes the conditions for all things to be. In God’s wisdom the cycles of life and death were established. We honor God when we emulate God’s love for creation, through an active ministry of healing the hurt, feeding the hungry and welcoming the exile.

 Consider the failure of the psalmist who does not recognize that God truly is the God of all people; not merely the God of Jerusalem, of Sion, of Judah, of Israel. God does not favor one people or one person above another.

 God does not fill the belly of one child while allowing another to starve…human beings do that.

 God does not favor one army over another in time of war...God does not favor war. Neither will God intervene in our affairs.

 The turning of the seasons from spring to summer, fall to winter do not reflect the judgement of God, the laws which govern them were established by God, the fluctuations we experience are random, they are wild and they are free. A good winter is not evidence of God’s grace, neither is a bad summer evidence of God’s judgement.

 Consider the teaching of the apostle:

 Is god glorious?

 What is glory?

 God’s greatest place is in relationship to us, God’s children, God glories in parent’s love, and delights in us when we come to knowledge of the divine, desiring that each and every one of us come to the fullness of it; there is hope in it.

 Be mindful.

 The hope you have for yourself and those you love are meant to be extended to everyone, even those you do not love, for that is the way.

 If you think that God promised riches and glories as the inheritance of the saints, remember this, the first will be last and the last will be first; know that spiritual riches are not counted in gold and silver and precious things, but in love and friendship with God.

 Know this:

 Good governance requires good people in the governing chair; get to know them before you lift them up; understand who they are before you appoint your leaders, put them through a process of discernment…choose well, knowing that our faith is not about who Jesus was and how the world saw him, our trust in God is based on our understanding of the creator as loving and caring being.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today; John’s is unlike the others, its authors were the farthest removed from the life of Jesus; writing the narrative between 120 and 150 years after his death. It is also the furthest removed from the actual ministry of Jesus, concerning itself with the cosmic identity of Christ as the Word of God, more than the lives of actual people.

 The gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew are commonly referred to as the synoptic gospels. The events they narrate are closely linked to each other and follow the same basic pattern, with some minor (though important differences). Luke and Matthew rely largely on Mark for their structure; Mark having been written first.

 Luke came second and begins a little earlier than Mark. Whereas Mark begins with the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river by John. Luke begins with the story of his birth.

 Matthew, coming third in the sequence, goes even farther back, telling us of Jesus’ descent from Abraham; while John, coming last, takes the reader all the way back to the beginning of time.

 John narrates some of the same events as the other gospels do, but with a markedly different character, all designed to tell us who Jesus is—God’s own self.

 The historian in me objects to this treatment of the life of Jesus, but it is what it is, and this fiction having taken hold of the Christian Consciousness represents a historical reality all of its own.

 John’s prolog tells us very little about the persons of Jesus or John the Baptist; it is a soliloquy on what John’s community had come to believe about God and creation itself.

 Even though it was a common view in the ancient world that our material condition was essentially corrupt; as evidenced by our experience of pain, sickness, and death. The Christian community of John was articulating faith in its essential goodness, as something brought into being by God, existing within God, and sustained by God. It affirms the unity and oneness of all creation; having been brought into being through the Divine Word or Logos; meaning the rational will of God. By this John’s community was communicating their faith that life itself has purpose, it is not random, it not the product of chaotic forces; creation emerges from the goodness and light of God’s eternal spirit, and not one thing or being exists apart from that.

 The Gospel encourages us in the hope that no matter how bad things are, darkness will not overcome the light, that the world and humanity itself are worthy of God’s love, so much so that God becomes a human being, lives and suffers with us, in the spirit of compassion and solidarity with the universe that God created and all who dwell in it.

 This teaching is at the same time both remarkably esoteric, and deeply personal. While encouraging the believer to have hope, it also reminds the reader that they must still persevere in the face of rejection and violence.

 It cautions us to be mindful of the fact that many people do not want to hear the truth, preferring their own cozy view of the world, their tribal and national-gods and totems, their neat philosophies and their magical realities to the sober understanding of what it means to be a child of God.

 God’s own self was taken and killed for suggesting that there was a different way to live than the ways common to the world.

First Reading – Ecclesiasticus 24:1-2, 8-12

From Eternity, in the Beginning, God Created Wisdom

Wisdom speaks her own praises,   in the midst of her people she glories in herself.

She opens her mouth in the assembly of the Most High,   she glories in herself in the presence of the Mighty One; ‘Then the creator of all things instructed me, and he who created me fixed a place for my tent.

He said, “Pitch your tent in Jacob, make Israel your inheritance.”

From eternity, in the beginning, he created me, and for eternity I shall remain.

I ministered before him in the holy tabernacle, and thus was I established on Zion.

In the beloved city he has given me rest, and in Jerusalem I wield my authority.

I have taken root in a privileged people, in the Lord’s property, in his inheritance.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 147:12-15, 19-20

Praise the Lord!

Alleluia, Alleluia

It is good to sing praise to our God;

  it is a joy to sing his praises.

The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem:

  he will call back Israel from exile.

He heals broken hearts

  and binds up their wounds.

He counts all the stars;

  he calls each of them by name.

Our God is great and great is his strength,

  his wisdom is not to be measured.

The Lord supports the needy,

  but crushes the wicked to the ground.

Sing out to the Lord in thanksgiving,

  sing praise to our God on the harp.

He covers the sky with his clouds,

  he makes rain to refresh the earth.

He makes grass grow on the hills,

  and plants for the service of man.

He gives food to grazing animals,

  and feeds the young ravens that call on him.

He takes no delight in the strength of the horse,

  no pleasure in the strength of a man.

The Lord is pleased by those who honour him,

  by those who trust in his kindness.

Alleluia

God, the Foundation of Jerusalem

Sion, praise your God, who has sent out his word to the earth.

Praise the Lord, Jerusalem

Alleluia, Alleluia

 — Zion, praise your God.

For he has strengthened the bars of your gates,

  he has blessed your children.

He keeps your borders in peace,

  he fills you with the richest wheat.

He sends out his command over the earth,

  and swiftly runs his word.

He sends down snow that is like wool,

  frost that is like ashes.

He sends hailstones like crumbs

 — who can withstand his cold?

He will send out his word, and all will be melted;

  his spirit will breathe, and the waters will flow.

He proclaims his word to Jacob,

  his laws and judgements to Israel.

He has not done this for other nations:

  he has not shown them his judgements.

Amen

Sion, praise your God, who has sent out his word to the earth.

Alleluia

 

Second Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18

Before the World was Made, God Chose Us in Christ

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved.

That will explain why I, having once heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus, and the love that you show towards all the saints, have never failed to remember you in my prayers and to thank God for you. May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit.

 

Gospel Acclamation – 1 Tim 3:16

Alleluia, alleluia!

Glory be to you, O Christ, proclaimed to the pagans.

Glory be to you, O Christ, believed in by the world.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John - 1:1-18

The Word was Made Flesh, and Lived Among Us

In the beginning was the Word:

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.

All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower.

A man came, sent by God.

His name was John.

He came as a witness, as a witness to speak for the light, so that everyone might believe through him.

He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.

The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world.

He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him.

He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.

But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.

The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John appears as his witness. He proclaims:

‘This is the one of whom I said:

He who comes after me ranks before me because he existed before me.’

Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace, since, though the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

 

A Homily - The Second Sunday of Christmas (Year C)