Homily for Sunday, 30 November 2014

1st Sunday in Advent

Readings of the day: Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2-7; Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:33-37

Anticipate and focus. How are these actions so important, especially to our celebration of Advent?

Two old family memories I have of sports remind me of the value of anticipation and of focus. My first memory is of playing softball as a boy. My father coached our softball team for a few years. He has given me many wise points of advice over the years as a father and as a coach… But one of his most memorable points on the softball diamond was this: Anticipate where the ball is going to be, and go there; get under where the ball is going to catch it. Meanwhile, focus; pay attention to where the ball is now. This advice works well, I have found, with most sports.

My second memory is of my brother Eric playing soccer in his early teens. Eric is ten years younger than me, and much more naturally athletic than I am.  When I would watch Eric play soccer, I would marvel at the seeming effortlessness with which he thought several steps ahead of the play: Where is the ball going? Where are my teammates? How can I get open to give or receive a pass? Where is the clearest path to the goal?  Yet even in his anticipation of the play, Eric would not lose his focus on where the action was at the present time. Eric consistently applied Dad’s words on the soccer pitch: Anticipate where the play is going; focus on where it is now.

Anticipate and focus. These skills of an athlete are also helpful skills to develop in our spiritual lives. These are skills for us to hone especially in this time of Advent that we begin today. Instead of a ball or puck on a playing surface, might we ask ourselves the same questions as a skilled athlete, but of God and of God’s Kingdom? We might ask ourselves: What are the signs of the coming to fullness of God’s Kingdom? Where is God leading me in my life? What am I looking forward to in the upcoming celebration of Christmas and, perhaps a longer time away, at the end of time; in the “life of the world to come” as we pray in our Creed? But at the same time we might ask: Where is God present in my life now? What is God asking of me now?

Is God asking me; asking us to continue our acts and words of kindness; of faithfulness; of generosity; of charity; of peace; of justice? Or is God asking me; asking us especially during this Advent season to examine our conscience; to ask forgiveness for when we have been wrong; to repair relationships; to pray more; to limit activities and habits that distract from God; to worship more attentively; to repent? If we are honest with ourselves, we will probably answer that God is asking us to do all of the above. God invites us to anticipate; to go to where God and God’s Kingdom will be; will reach its fullness, and also to focus on where God is in our lives here and now.

Anticipate and focus, our Gospel reading in particular invites us. Jesus says “to his disciples” in Mark’s Gospel, “Be watchful! Be alert... Watch, therefore… I say to all, ‘Watch!’” Jesus speaks to us with urgency: God is transforming our world; bringing God’s Kingdom to fullness, and yet God’s Kingdom is with us here now.

God’s Kingdom is like the home of “a man traveling abroad,” Jesus says. This man, the master of the house, places us, “his servants in charge, each with his own work.” Anticipate the Master’s return, Jesus says, while we focus on the work given to each of us now: Bring Jesus; his Gospel of “Thy Kingdom come,” God’s Kingdom already here, to our families; to our workplaces; to the streets; to the rich and comfortable; to the poor, the lost, and the broken.

“Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we will pray in the words Jesus taught us in just a few moments.

Anticipate and focus. The message of our first reading from Isaiah is similar to that of our Gospel reading today and to that of our Lord’s Prayer. Isaiah speaks to a people in danger of forgetting God; forgetting the key message: Anticipate and focus. In Isaiah’s time, the people of Israel were beginning to return home after seventy years in exile in Babylon. The problem was that most of the people of Israel decided to stay in Babylon among a people who had treated them fairly well but did not believe in the same God as they did. Only a few returned to rebuild Israel. Understandably, most of the people exiled from Israel asked, “Why return to Israel? Why return to a place where I was not born, although maybe my ancestors were from there? Why return to a nation in need of rebuilding; a nation whose cultural and religious center, the Temple of Jerusalem, had long been destroyed?”

The prophet Isaiah draws the people of Israel back not only to their homeland, but to God. Anticipate and focus, Isaiah says. Where is God leading us? Go out to encounter God where God is going, Isaiah says to the people, while he prays to God: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you… No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him.” At the same time, Isaiah asks, “Where is God among us now? What is God asking of us now”? “Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways… O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay and you the potter. We are all the work of your hands,” Isaiah prays in magnificent poetry.

Anticipate where God and God’s Kingdom will be; focus on where God is now. This is also the central message of Paul’s prayerful and thankful greeting of the Corinthians in our second reading. Paul’s emphasis is on God with us here and now. He reminds the Christians of Corinth that they have all the tools; all the riches of God’s grace to discern where God is in their lives at the present and where God and God’s Kingdom is leading them. So do we. “You are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” St. Paul says to the Corinthians. God “will keep you firm to the end… By [God] you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Anticipate and focus, St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of his time and reminds us. Anticipate and focus, the prophet Isaiah says to the people of Israel and to us. Anticipate and focus, Jesus says to his disciples. Like a good athlete who goes ahead to where the play is going without forgetting where the play is occurring now, our readings today invite us to await and to encounter God where God is going; where God’s Kingdom is reaching its fullness. At the same time, we are invited to encounter God where God is, here and now.

This is our twofold invitation; our calling for Advent, beginning anew today; the invitation of our readings; the invitation to us in the prayer that Jesus taught us. “Thy Kingdom come.” Anticipate where God is going to be; anticipate the signs of God’s kingdom. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Focus on where God is in our lives and what God asks of us to bring forth God’s Kingdom here and now. Anticipate and focus.