Homily for Sunday, 10 December 2023– Second Sunday of Advent, Year B

Readings of the day: Isaiah 40:1-5,, 9-11; Psalm 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

We find ourselves at the beginning, sisters and brothers: “The beginning,” Mark’s Gospel proclaims by its very first words, “of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Mark wastes no time in revealing to us who Jesus is, “the Son of God,” and that his coming to live as one of us, in our human flesh—his advent—is “good news.” Spoiler alert! Mark does not even give us a nice, long account of Jesus’ infancy and childhood, to help us ease into the story, this “good news” he proclaims. Mark begins with the powerful preaching of John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” By this point Jesus is already an adult. Jesus, the one John announces as “more powerful” than he is, has probably already attracted followers. He has caused some “good [and necessary] trouble” in the minds and consciences of many already, the minds and consciences of the comfortable and powerful of this world.

So much for starting at the beginning of the story! And today we are not even at the beginning of Advent. We are a full week into the shortest possible Advent this year—three weeks and a day between the first Sunday of Advent, a week ago, and Christmas Day. And I do not know about any of us, but as of now I have yet to do much at all to prepare for Christmas. Gift shopping? Not started. Visiting family and friends I may not have seen for a while? Okay, I have done some visiting. Taking time to be with, or at least to pray for, people in need—the sick, the poor, those who find this time of year to be a struggle for many reasons? Okay, but I could do better. Tidying my physical spaces—my room, my office—let alone doing a little Christmas decorating?! Yikes! I think, if Jesus were to step into my room now, let alone the spiritual room that is my heart, my conscience, he might sound a little like my mother did when I was a kid: “Did a tornado hit here, or what”?!

(By the way, I will offer this little advertisement for those of us who want to do some spiritual—heart, mind, conscience—tidying soon: St. Joseph’s College’s Advent penance service is this Friday at 7:00 pm).

So, in a way it is okay if we are a little behind on our Advent-Christmas preparations, if our spiritual let alone physical spaces look chaotic to say the least. Advent offers us a new beginning. God meets us where we are in our present; in fact God sends messengers ahead of himself and his Christ—John the Baptist, the saints, holy people we know and meet in our own lives—to draw us closer to him and to eternal life. That is the “good news”!

Yet Advent is a bit of a strange time of year. We are at a beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, of the story of our world’s first encounter with God in the human person of Jesus. But we are, at the same time, well into this story, after many encounters in history and in our own lives already with God’s “good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Last Sunday, the first Sunday, the very beginning of Advent, our readings at Mass gave the sense more of an end, or a story very much in progress, than a beginning. We began this time of Advent by hearing from near the end of the Gospel of Mark: Jesus, just before his passion and death, urging his disciples to “keep awake,” ready for the events of Jesus’ passion and death that would happen right after that point, but more importantly for an unknown “Last Day” when Jesus will return in glory. St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians also oriented us toward that final “day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” exhorting the Corinthian Christian faithful to remain “blameless” until that day by the Lord’s strength and grace. The Psalm reinforced our plea for divine strength. And, a week ago, we heard Isaiah making final plans for the return of the people of Israel from a long exile in Babylon. That exile, it seems, had made the people of Israel stubborn; only a small “remnant” would return to their land to rebuild the nation and its temple in Jerusalem that had been the centre of the Jewish faith. So Isaiah pleads for divine intervention to break through Israel’s sin and hardness of heart: “O [LORD] that you would tear open the heavens and come down”!

Today, this second Sunday of Advent, our readings start back at beginnings: Mark speaks of “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The second letter of Peter gives us a sense of being closer to a beginning than an end. The people for whom 2 Peter is written have become impatient. The first Christians of that community had suffered persecution. Many had already died. 2 Peter reminds them that, in God’s time, this is only the beginning: “The Lord is not slow about his promise… but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

Peter’s message is very similar to that of John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. For John the Baptist, there is urgency to repentance to prepare for the coming of Jesus, the “one after” John. Yet, 2 Peter says, there is also urgency to know God’s mercy and peace, God’s meeting us in the sometimes-chaotic events of this world and our lives, even as we strive to repent, to tidy our spiritual spaces, our minds and consciences.

Our God has never been one to wait until we have everything in order—our hearts, our minds, our consciences—before coming to be with us in our present time. The second letter of Peter offers us a very typical (for a biblical text) vision of the end of time. It will be chaos: “The heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire.” But 2 Peter invites us not to worry about this chaos. Instead, lead “lives of holiness and godliness,” practice conversion and repentance here and now; “strive to be found by [the Lord] at peace.”

Jesus promised to return at the end of time. I think we can be almost certain that the end of time, when Jesus will re-enter this world, will be chaotic. We do not know what the world will look like when Jesus returns on the Last Day. But we can remain at peace if we think back to the beginning, the first time Jesus entered our world. God took our human flesh in a world that was chaotic then. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary into a poor, chaotic, smelly stable with barn animals, at a time when the Romans ruled Jesus’ homeland by force.

God does not wait for us to have everything in order before entering into our present in a way that changes our existence profoundly and irreversibly. Well before Jesus’ time, the prophet Isaiah was calling to a people still in exile in Babylon, preparing to return to, well, chaos and ruin—a ruined temple—in Jerusalem. And Isaiah says, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.”

Isaiah’s cry to Jerusalem is something like, “Yes, what you see, what is left of your homeland is chaos, ruin. But God is not waiting. God brings comfort, peace, justice, salvation now.” As the Psalmist says, here and now, “justice and peace” are about to “kiss each other.” This is a new beginning for the people of Israel!

God does not wait for us to have everything in order. God enters and changes our existence when God wills it. That is what we celebrate this Advent season, sisters and brothers! God has already entered this world, amid its chaos—our not having everything quite in order—many times. Ultimately, God entered our world in the human person of Jesus Christ, into a poor, chaotic, smelly scene, a nation ruled by foreign force.

Finally, Jesus promises us that he will enter our world again on the Last Day. All we can do to be ready for the Last Day, Jesus’ return in glory, is the same thing we can do be ready for this day, for the next day, the day after that, and so on: Remember how God has intervened in our world in the past. Remember that God did not wait until we had everything in order to bring peace, justice, order, comfort, mercy. May we be at peace, knowing and reflecting on this. Our time of Advent takes us back to those beginnings even as we anticipate with hope the Last Day, Jesus’ return in glory.

Today, in the midst of Advent, we remember the beginning of God’s comfort to Israel, still in exile, through the prophet Isaiah. We remember the preaching of John the Baptist, a message of repentance and hope. We pray with the Psalmist for a time when “justice and peace will kiss each other.” We remember 2 Peter’s exhortation to remain at peace. These have been our new beginnings in history, God entering our story when we most need God, with peace, justice, order, comfort, mercy. This is the “good news” our Scriptures proclaim today, “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Homily for Saturday, 24 December 2022– The Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Night

Readings of the day: Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:10-14

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

I marvel at this first line of our reading tonight from the prophet Isaiah every time I hear it. Isaiah proclaimed this message of “great light” in a very dark time for his people, the people of ancient Israel. The nation of Israel had been overrun by the Assyrians many years before Isaiah’s time. The corruption of Israel’s own leaders did not help. Long before Isaiah, Israel had split into two kingdoms, Israel in the north and Judah in the south, around Jerusalem. Assyria had conquered the north, and Sennacherib’s army, “like a wolf on the fold” in the poetic words of Lord Byron, had been stopped (barely) at the gates of Jerusalem, just before Isaiah’s time.

But things did not get any better for Israel and Judah from there. Israel was surrounded by much more powerful nations than it: Assyria, Babylon, Egypt. And each of those nations wanted Israel’s territory, its fertile land and its position on major trade routes. The kings of Israel and Judah tried to appease their mightier neighbours by agreeing to worship the other (pagan) nations’ gods and making military alliances with these nations against another. Israel had forgotten that a trusting relationship with its God, our God (we call this a covenant relationship), was the only way to ensure Israel’s survival as a nation. So, after Assyria, it was Babylon’s turn to conquer Israel and Judah. After Isaiah’s time, the people of Israel and Judah would endure about seventy years of exile in Babylon.

Amid all this darkness of impending national destruction and exile, Isaiah proclaims that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Now there are a few possibilities for why Isaiah would proclaim a message like that. Maybe Isaiah was ignorant of the obvious reality, that Israel was doomed. Maybe, much like the people of Israel, Isaiah wanted to remain optimistic that Israel’s national disaster of conquest and exile was farther off than it really was. And maybe, against all odds, Israel’s God would miraculously and immediately save it from being overrun by its more powerful neighbours.

But Isaiah, like any true prophet, was no pollyannaish prophet. Nor was he ignorant of the disaster that awaited Israel and Judah in Babylon. After all, Israel, all but Jerusalem, was already occupied by the Assyrians by Isaiah’s time. And Israel’s God would not miraculously and immediately save Israel from being conquered by and exiled in Babylon. God saves, but not in that way. Isaiah, like the other prophets in our Bible, had no difficulty scolding Israel and its leaders for their corruption and idol worship that would surely bring Israel to doom, to exile. God saves, but there must be consequences for breaking the covenant relationship with God as the leaders of Israel and Judah and their people were doing in the time of the prophets.

So, what is this in Isaiah’s prophecy about people walking “in darkness” seeing “a great light”? Two weekends ago, I co-led an Advent retreat at the Providence Renewal Centre in Edmonton—a wonderful place to be on retreat, if any of us ever have this opportunity—with leaders of other Christian traditions, members of the Edmonton and District Council of Churches. One of the retreat speakers was Stephen London, the Anglican Bishop of Edmonton. Rev. London invited us to a practice he calls “slow spirituality.” It is “slow” in that it is a patient response to conflict or trouble in our world or our personal experience.

How often do we stop and realize that the usual human response to conflict or trouble is a fight-or-flight response, by hard-wired primitive instinct? Rev. London calls this the instinct, when faced with conflict, either toward aggressiveness (to confront and fight) or avoidance (to flee the conflict). It is amazing, when we think about it, how often we default either to aggressiveness or avoidance of conflict, to fighting or fleeing.

For me, I am perfectly fine, especially if I have my coffee first thing in the morning… That is, until I hear the news or read the newspaper! Here is my little (non-sacramental) confession: I hate all the senseless violence in our world, the nationalism, the instances of selfishness that scream: “My country first, my party first, my soapbox first, me first”! When I hear, from when I wake up in the morning, about Ukrainians trying to survive the winter, trying to survive the latest Russian bombing raids on their cities, their infrastructure, their civilian population; when I hear of demoralized Russian soldiers, not really wanting to be in Ukraine to fight their government’s unjust war, I become very angry. When I hear the latest plans to weaponize social media, attempts to promote the next convenient conspiracy theory under the guise of a little blue bird and “absolute free speech,” this, too, triggers my anger. And then I think, “What could I ever do about this silo mentality of our nations, our societies, and our media? It is seemingly each person for her or himself.” I suppose I try to live and preach the good, social justice and the common good as I see these. But, really, too frequently I (and I do not think I speak only for myself; not by far) retreat into a kind of despair, a kind of avoidance of conflict, of trouble, if I am honest with myself.

But this aggressiveness or avoidance response is not the way of a prophet. It was not Isaiah’s way. And it is not God’s way. So, what is the prophetic way forward? What is God’s way of responding to the troubles and conflicts (while also living the joys) of our world and our experiences? What is the way of patience, of “slow spirituality” of which Rev. Stephen London speaks? I think Isaiah gives us a clue to answer these questions in those first words of our first reading tonight: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

“The people” Isaiah addressed included himself. Isaiah and the other Old Testament prophets not only preached great oracles and visions—doom or consolation—to Israel. They lived what they preached, died for what they preached, witnessed Israel’s destruction, exile, and rebuilding, went into exile in solidarity with Israel’s people for what they preached. Isaiah and Israel’s other prophets “walked in darkness” with their people. This was the only way that light (hope, joy) would come from the darkness, so that the people could see and live it together.

This is the way of the prophets. This is the way of patience, of “slow spirituality” as Rev. Stephen London puts it. This is the way of what Pope Francis often calls “pastoral accompaniment” of God’s people. This is the way, from when Vatican II published its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (“The Joys and the Hopes”)—back in 1965—that our Church identifies as solidarity with all the “followers of Christ” in our “joys and… hopes…griefs and… anxieties,” especially those of people “who are poor or in any way afflicted.”

This is God’s way. This has been the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, from the moment he entered our world through Mary’s womb, fully human in all things but sin, fully in solidarity with us in our human “joys and… hopes…griefs and… anxieties.” This was Jesus’ way from that very first Christmas, in a stable in Bethlehem long ago.

And who were the first masters of “slow spirituality,” of patience, of overcoming our basest instincts to fight or flee trouble, at the moment of Jesus’ birth? The first masters of this—the prophets’ way, God’s way—were Mary and Joseph. And then Luke’s Gospel says to us this night that there were humble shepherds, “keeping watch over their flocks by night,” who are visited by “an Angel of the Lord.” And, sure, when “the glory of the Lord” first shone around them, Luke says, the shepherds “were terrified.” Those were terrifying times. Israel, not much differently than in the time of the Old Testament prophets, was under brutal foreign occupation. Caesar Augustus ruled from Rome; Quirinius ruled from Syria. The rulers of the world into which our Lord Jesus was born were all Roman.

But a baby, born into a manger—a food trough for animals—would rule over all these big names whose rule stopped at might and terror. Jesus was not to rule this world with might and terror, earthly power to match earthly power. No, Jesus’ rule begins as “a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” Jesus’ rule would involve dying at the hands of the big-name bringers of brutality and occupation and their enablers among Jesus’ own people, on a cross. Jesus’ rule, his light, hope, joy, and salvation, would involve walking in our human flesh, in our darkness, in solidarity with us.

This is the prophets’ way. This is God’s way. This is the way of Christmas, sisters and brothers. This is a way that has brought us everlasting “good news of great joy for all the people.” This is the only news—imagine reading this first thing in the morning—that can overcome and disempower the worst of our darkness, trouble, and conflict, if we dare not fight or flee but encounter the God of our salvation in this moment, in the trouble and conflict, but also then in the joy of this night.

For God has brought us “great joy”: To us “is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Christ, the Lord.”

Homily for Sunday, 27 February 2022– Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Readings of the day: Sirach 27:4-7; Psalm 92:2-3, 14-15, 15-16; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

Teaching two Bible courses as I am this semester here at St. Joseph’s College, I am realizing something more constantly and profoundly, but that I have known for as long as I can remember. I realize how much I appreciate the Bible not only as sacred, divinely-inspired text, but as works of literature. I appreciate the different literary genres and devices in the text: Works of poetry, prose or narrative; apocalyptic literature with its often fearsome and graphic symbolism; the use of irony, metaphor, and even hyperbole.

Yes, hyperbole: The writers of the Bible were not beyond using creative, literary exaggeration to make a point. Could we say that Jesus was not beyond hyperbole, either? We hear an example of it in today’s Gospel, from Luke. Jesus asks why his disciples who have a log in their eye do not notice the log in their eye, but readily notice “the speck in [their] neighbour’s eye.” Of course, Jesus means this, quite on purpose, to evoke the most ridiculous of images in his hearers’ minds: Somebody staggering about with a massive beam in their eye. First of all, by what kind of horrendous accident would somebody have taken a log beam through the eye? (I do not even want to think about this). Second, that person needs to be admitted to emergency immediately! Third, even the person hapless enough to have been stuck with a mere speck in the eye could experience a lot of pain.

Clearly, Jesus is exaggerating the size contrast between the speck and the log to make a point. And most if not all of us understand the point he is making: Sin can inhibit not so much our literal eyesight but the insight of our consciences into our own sinfulness and weakness, so that we become much less capable of discerning our own faults than we are at pointing out the faults of other people, even when they are less significant than our own.

I notice this as a university instructor and academic: I am much better at correcting even the fine details of somebody else’s writing than I am at correcting my own. I think to myself that, all those times in school when teachers would insist that we have somebody proofread our work for us, even if we thought we were good writers: My teachers were not kidding! When I write, I appreciate somebody who is adept at spotting all the specks (and the occasional log) in my written work. At the same time, I do not think most or any of us really appreciate the “speck-spotters” we encounter outside of maybe the academic setting; people who criticize others for every little fault, who are almost certainly not without fault themselves. But do we realize readily when we become the pedantic “speck-spotters”?

With the log and speck in the eye scenario, Jesus uses analogy and hyperbole to make a point that is very relatable to our everyday lives; to our experience as Jesus’ disciples. And Jesus introduces the log-and-speck saying with another parable, which also includes an element of hyperbole. He asks, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into the pit? Like the log-and-speck analogy, the proverb of the blind person guiding another blind person plants a ridiculous image in our minds. “Can a blind person guide a blind person”? Jesus’ question is purposely designed to draw from us a decisive answer: “No, of course not”!

That is, we lean decisively toward answering “no” to whether a blind person can guide a blind person, until we change our perspective on this little hyperbolic proverb; until we think about it from the perspective of a blind person. Mary McGlone, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Louis who writes for the National Catholic Reporter in the U.S., asks whether another blind person might, in some situations, in fact be the best possible guide or teacher for a blind person. Somebody who is blind, says Sr. Mary McGlone, may in fact “be the best teacher of the blind”; the one who best understands “the challenges blind people have to overcome… A sighted teacher might talk about a white cane; the non-sighted teacher realizes that the learner [if the learner has never been able to see] has no concept of whiteness” or colour.

Today’s Gospel parables (or, really, proverbs that use hyperbole for effect), part of Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, are all about changing our perspective. They are a good preparation for Lent, which, by the way, begins this upcoming Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. In Lent, we speak of changing our perspective; changing our minds (which is the literal meaning of the Greek word metanoia that our Gospels use for “repentance”). And today’s Gospel reading gives us an opportunity, sisters and brothers, to practice this change of perspective; this change of mind and heart; this repentance to believe in and live the Good News that is essential to Christian discipleship.

Jesus invites us to change our perspective; our minds and our hearts; to repent. Even if we have not sinned (at least since our last confession); even if we are not blind: Think the word of God; interpret it; live it from the perspective of the blind person; from the perspective of the sinner. This is the only way to be a true, authentic disciple of Jesus and not a hypocrite.

Incidentally, the word “hypocrite,” one of Jesus’ most frequent reproofs in the Gospels, evokes somebody playing a part, pretending to be somebody or something that person is not; literally-speaking, one under a mask, as an actor in theatre in Jesus’ time. A hypocrite is somebody consumed by playing a part that is not them; that is not authentic. A hypocrite plays the part of one without sin; pretends that he or she is not a sinner. A hypocrite is unable (or unwilling) to interpret; to live; to be a disciple of Jesus and a person of God from the perspective of the blind; the weak; the sinner. A hypocrite becomes unwilling to change one’s perspective, one’s heart and mind, in the way Jesus asks of us.

Hypocrisy, if we think about it in this way, is a serious sin, if only because Jesus himself, although he never sinned, is the model for us of shifting perspective. Jesus became human, one like us in all things but sin. In so doing, Jesus saw the world from our perspective, the point of view of us sinners; the blind; the weak; the perspective ultimately of looking upon us and the world from the cross. Jesus is the model for us of metanoia, even though he never committed any sin.

And we celebrate this every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. Every Mass, we begin our Eucharistic celebration by changing our perspective. We begin every Mass not by looking for the specks in the eyes of our neighbour while ignoring any potential logs in ours, but by praying, “I confess to almighty God… Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” We pray for God’s mercy even if we are guilty of no sin, even if we have just been to confession minutes before Mass.

Why? We begin our Eucharistic celebration this way because none of this is about our sin. None of this is about us at all. All of it is about God, in Jesus Christ, having chosen freely to live from our perspective, that of our human nature weakened; blinded by sin, so that we might change our perspective to be more like that of God. That perspective of God is not one that seeks the faults of others to condemn them, but one that has mercy on our faults and seeks what is good in us, so that we might be saved.

Maybe paradoxically, we change our perspective to be more from God’s point of view of loving mercy toward us by changing our perspective to empathize more with one another and our weaknesses; our blindness; our susceptibility to sin. Sometimes the best teacher of the blind is another blind person! But how do we do this? In one word: Listen.

The Book of Sirach, from which we hear today, invites us to listen before we speak. To speak without listening first; without searching, as well as we are able, for good will in the other person first, is to reveal too soon where we lack wisdom. It is to reveal our faults; our sins. It is to reveal our uncanny ability to correct the work of others much better than we are able to correct our own. It is to reveal the ridiculousness of the logs in our own eyes while we spot the specks in the eyes of our sisters and brothers. It is to reveal our hypocrisy.

Instead, the word of God urges us—starting with me, first and foremost—to listen, to empathize, to discern good will in our sister; our brother, to change our minds and hearts (to repent!) before trying to change another person. This is authentic faith. This is wisdom. This is the way of the Good News of Jesus Christ that we celebrate and try to live, here and now.

Homily for Sunday, 30 January 2022– Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; Psalm 71:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 15-17; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4:21-30

One of my brother Basilian priests has said that, when we hear readings as we do today in which we hear a short verse or two, and then the reading skips over a section before continuing on, it is sometimes a good idea to pay attention to the part that is skipped over.

So what gets skipped over in our readings today? From the Book of Jeremiah we hear God’s call of Jeremiah to serve as God’s prophet. Luke’s Gospel also features a prophetic call story, that of Jesus, beginning his public ministry in the synagogue of his hometown, Nazareth.

The Book of Jeremiah begins with God’s call to the prophet, lines from our Scriptures than which few are more beautiful: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” For me, God’s opening revelation to Jeremiah, the beginning of God’s call to Jeremiah to be his prophet, is always a beautiful reminder that, whatever I had planned for my life; however we have discerned how God is calling us to live and serve God in our lives, God had a plan, for me and for each one of us, before we were even conceived!

But what if we do not want to do or be exactly who God is calling us to be? What if the vocation to which God is calling us is, say, one that will put our life in danger? Such is the case with Jeremiah. As soon as Jeremiah hears the call of God to be a prophet to God’s people, he senses the real danger to his life, and immediately tries to refuse God’s call.

And this is the part of God’s call to Jeremiah that our reading skips over today. Jeremiah protests: “I do not know how to speak. I am too young.” God, do you not know that every prophet before me has been a laughingstock in Israel; that some have even been killed? Yet Jeremiah’s protests are to no avail. God has his heart set on Jeremiah as God’s prophet, and even promises to protect Jeremiah against the worst the people would do to him. “They will fight against you,” God reassures Jeremiah, “but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you… to deliver you.”

I will admit that the part our Gospel reading from Luke skips over today is not really skipped over. We heard last Sunday what today’s Gospel reading does not repeat: The mission statement of Jesus’ public ministry, in the synagogue of his hometown, Nazareth. Jesus is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Our Gospel reading picks up again today where Jesus rolls up the scroll, sits down, and says to everybody gathered in the synagogue, with all eyes in the assembly “fixed on him”: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” I find it consoling to be reminded that Jesus’ public ministry started well that day in his hometown. In that synagogue of Nazareth, Luke says, “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” Even the assembly’s identification of Jesus as “Joseph’s son” is spun positively in Luke’s Gospel, whereas in the other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and John), when the people who hear Jesus ask, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”, they mean it in an insulting way. And, I do not know how all of us feel but, when Jesus’ audience belittles him by asking, “Is this not Joseph’s son”; the son of the carpenter, I begin to feel just a little indignant, wanting to defend not only Jesus but Joseph, the humble, righteous man whom God chose to mentor Jesus like a father in this world.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ public ministry begins well, even in the eyes of the people of his hometown. This is in marked contrast to Jeremiah, or in fact most if not all the prophets: Their ministry is poorly-received by the people from the start. It is no wonder that Jeremiah, from the beginning of the biblical book in his name, wanted to get out of being a prophet to Judah as God had called him from before he was even conceived in the womb.

But the good will of the people toward Jesus would not last. We know this from what we hear in Luke’s Gospel today. And we know this from the fact that, even though Jesus escapes the murderous rage of the mob who wants to “hurl [Jesus] off the cliff” at the end of today’s Gospel reading, his destiny—the focal point of our Gospels—is to be tortured and crucified; to die for us in this exceedingly cruel way.

It is unclear from Luke’s account what the people in the assembly that day in Nazareth wanted to hear from Jesus. But maybe they wanted to hear a message that would support elements of tribalism and sectarianism in their social and religious attitudes. Maybe they were unaware, until those tribalistic and sectarian attitudes were kindled into open fury at Jesus’ message in their synagogue, of the extent to which those attitudes had affected them and become engrained in them.

We, sisters and brothers, are not exempt, either, from the kind of insular tribalism and sectarianism—a “silo mentality”—that nearly led to Jesus being killed on the very first day of his public ministry, in his own hometown. It was the movement and the mentality among Jesus’ own people that cried out, “We are God’s chosen people,” over and against the people of other nations and faiths: The Phoenician people, represented in Jesus’ commentary in today’s Gospel by the widow of Zarephath, to whom Elijah was sent in a time of famine in 1 Kings; the Syrians, represented by the Syrian king’s general, Naaman, who is afflicted with leprosy but healed by Elijah’s prophetic successor, Elisha. “We are God’s chosen people,” the people in the synagogue of Nazareth protested. “God’s promise of salvation; God’s covenant; God’s presence would never be with other people as it is for us”! Why should we be concerned for the other; for people not of our nation? It was Israel first, after all. And so their rage was kindled against Jesus.

But how often do we hear or observe the same silo mentality at work today? How often do we hear cries of “our country first”; our tribe first; our religious creed first; our social “in” group first; and ultimately me first? Why should I be concerned about the other person, especially the poor or otherwise excluded person? Why should I be concerned (some say today) about protecting public health, out of love of neighbour, in the face of the public health crisis our world continues to face, and that disproportionately affects the already-disadvantaged? Jesus’ counter-message to this entitled and selfish insularity is as challenging and as controversial today as when he preached it in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth. It is challenging and controversial to many of our sister and brother Christians of our time.

Jesus’ message is challenging and controversial still, first because it did not begin with Jesus and, second, because his message is not some superficial all-inclusiveness, but an inclusiveness that is preferential toward the people whom this world’s elites exclude in the name of nation first; the well-to-do of society first; the advantaged first; me first. Jesus’ vision of the reign of God on earth—think of this when we pray, as part of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come”—is one that is preferentially inclusive of the poor, the disadvantaged, the outsider, the poor first. Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God is one preferentially inclusive of those whom the entitled and advantaged exclude: Not one Israelite, but the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian!

This vision of God’s reign on earth was the vision of God’s prophets: Isaiah, whose scroll Jesus reads and interprets in the synagogue of Nazareth; Jeremiah, whom we hear first from the word of God this morning. Isaiah’s message was preferentially inclusive: All the nations would know and be invited to witness the glory of God that had saved Israel time and again. Jeremiah’s message was preferentially inclusive: Israel’s slavishness to the temple of Jerusalem would mean nothing if its people did not open their hearts to practice justice preferentially toward the least well-off: The poor, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan.

So, indeed, may we pay attention to the parts our readings at Mass skip over. But, also, may we pay attention to those parts God is urging us not to skip over: The parts of the word of God that trouble us; that are controversial to us; that challenge us or our societies in fairly well-off countries like our own to open our hearts to the least-advantaged among us first.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” This is God’s vision of justice; God’s vision of the reign of God on earth for which we pray. It is a vision that calls us beyond ourselves; beyond our social circles; often beyond our comfort, to be “good news to the poor.” It is a vision we are invited not to skip over; a vision to ensure that God’s word of our Scriptures continues to be “fulfilled in [our] hearing.”

Homily for Thursday, 25 December 2014– Nativity of the Lord

Readings of the day (for Christmas Mass at Night): Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

Merry Christmas! “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” What is this “good news of great joy” that the angel once proclaimed to shepherds in a field, and that we still proclaim today, more than two thousand years later? Why do we still proclaim this “good news”?

Do not the answers to these questions seem obvious? The “good news of great joy” that the angel proclaimed to the shepherds, of which we hear in our Gospel reading, is the news of the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Lord. The birth of Jesus is for us the great sign of a promise God made to us long ago, in the prophet Isaiah’s words: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.”

Why do we continue to proclaim this “good news of great joy” to this day? Is it not because, deep within every one of us, we believe that Jesus’ birth was not just a one-time event over two thousand years ago, but is significant for us here and now? The Son of God’s becoming human and Jesus’ birth has changed our world; has saved our world. “A Savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord,” the angel says to the shepherds near Bethlehem.

“A Savior has been born” for us. And it is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when God keeps his promise to us, for our salvation; to lift us from darkness; from gloom; from sin; to shine the light of God’s own presence on our world. We wait for the fulfillment; the end goal of God’s promise for our salvation: The return of Jesus Christ among us at the end of time. And yet God is present among us now. God is saving us now. Deep within us, do we not believe this?

This belief is reason enough for us to proclaim, as an angel did more than two thousand years ago, “good news of great joy… for all the people.” I imagine that we all hold this belief deep within us: Jesus’ birth has changed our world; has saved our world. And God is still working in our world here and now to save us. I imagine this because I look out and see all of us here, gathered as one Church to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus. Were this event not world-changing; world-saving, would we be here? Surely we would not celebrate the birth of just any baby, for just any reason, over two thousand years in a manger.

We could find many reasons, some justifiable, not to be here. This is perhaps the busiest time of the year, not only at the stores and shopping malls. This is the time of year to receive family and friends; to give and to receive gifts; to prepare our homes by cleaning, cooking, and baking… Many of us will travel or have traveled long distances over these Christmas and New Year holidays. Many of us care for small children or elderly, sick, or homebound relatives, which can make it more difficult for us to attend Mass, even if it is Christmas.

Many of us mourn the loss of loved ones. Many more of us struggle to make ends meet. Still more of us may have been estranged from the Church for a long time; have had bad experiences with Christians; with the Church; with a priest or other leader of the Church. Others have simply drifted away from the Church. Many of us experience broken families and households. Some of us may question: What is the “good news of great joy” we are to proclaim at Christmas? What is the point?

For some of us, our world is mired in as much “darkness” and “gloom” as in Isaiah’s time or Jesus’ time. Nations continue to oppress one another as our Gospel reading says the Romans oppressed Jesus’ homeland in his time. Wars begin or continue. On the streets of our city and our nation there continues to be a divide between rich and poor; racism; violence.

And yet there is something or, better yet, somebody, who draws us, deep down, to this Eucharistic celebration; to “proclaim” once again “good news of great joy… for all… people”: “A Savior has been born” for us. And the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, has changed our world; has saved our world.

We proclaim this message because we believe it. Who am I to judge what aspect of our celebration has drawn each of us here today? For those of us who, for whatever reason, have been away from the Church, I am not here to judge you either. Let me simply welcome all of us to this celebration; to our proclamation of “good news of great joy.” Christ “has been born for” all of us; has redeemed all of us; has brought all of us, without exception, a chance at salvation.

But the birth of Jesus Christ is just the beginning of God’s saving work. God is saving us now; is changing our world now; saving our world and us now. Our Christmas proclamation of “good news of great joy” brings with it a challenging invitation to all of us: To participate in God’s work of our salvation that is at work in our midst now.

How might we participate in God’s work of salvation, here and now? How might we participate in bringing God’s work of salvation toward its goal, when Jesus Christ returns at the end of time? Our second reading, from the Letter to Titus, gives us some idea of how we might participate in God’s work of our own salvation. “Live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await” Christ’s return.

Be “eager to do good,” we hear from the Letter to Titus. Build peace from the smallest of our actions to the greatest; from our hearts, to our homes, to our nation, to our world. Be kind to one another. Act and speak against divisiveness; gossip; any form of violence in speech or action. Protect and nurture life, from the yet to be born to the elderly and the sick in their last days. Encourage one another when we see one another acting faithfully, rightly, and justly. Pray for one another; we are participants in God’s work of salvation together.

Above all, “do not be afraid,” even if participation in God’s work of our salvation seems daunting. “Do not be afraid”: God’s work of our salvation, in which we participate; which we celebrate here today, is only beginning. It has begun with the proclamation of angels to shepherds near Bethlehem over two thousand years ago: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people… For today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”

Today, in this city of Rochester; in this St. Kateri Parish and around the world, we ring out anew this same proclamation. We make it our own proclamation of “good news of great joy” by our words; our actions; our being here, participating in this celebration. Why? We proclaim this “good news of great joy” because, deep within us, we believe it. We participate in it. Through us, God’s people; Christ’s people, God is overcoming the darkness and gloom with light and salvation.

Beginning with the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and continuing through us until Jesus Christ returns in glory at the end of time, God has changed our world; has saved our world; is changing us; is saving us.

Homily for Tuesday, 16 December 2014– Ferial

Tuesday of the 3rd Week in Advent

Readings of the day: Zephaniah 3:1-2, 9-13; Psalm 34:2-3, 6-7, 17-18, 19, 23; Matthew 21:28-32

Who has the most to gain through our celebration of Advent? For whom is God’s transformation of our world; God’s readying us for the return of Jesus Christ in glory, good news?

Our readings today from Zephaniah and Matthew sound like anything but good news. Zephaniah sharply criticizes the people of a “rebellious and polluted… tyrannical city” (presumably Jerusalem). This city will be destroyed and its elites exiled. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells a strange parable about one son of a vineyard owner who refuses to work in his father’s vineyard but then agrees to go; and another son who agrees to work but then does not go.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time, like the arrogant elites of Jerusalem to whom Zephaniah speaks, missed the key question that Zephaniah and then Jesus were asking: For whom will God’s presence among us be good news? Who will gain or lose most by God’s transformation of the world; readying of the world for the coming to fullness of God’s kingdom?

Let us frame these questions in terms of our contemporary society: Who has the most to gain or to lose in God’s readying of our world for the coming to fullness of God’s kingdom; for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ?

I am continually amazed at the depth of faith and joy of the poor, the homeless, the sick, and others in most need. For the last few months I have been presiding about every six weeks at Sunday Mass at House of Mercy. The people at the House of Mercy are grateful just for Sunday Mass; a chance to sing praise to God for the little they have. I have had this same experience in serving among the poor elsewhere, particularly in Colombia and in Windsor and Toronto, Canada among migrants and refugees.

Here at St. Kateri Parish, many of us give generously to people in need. Our Giving Tree and food baskets are examples of this. And so I am not saying that we must be materially poor or otherwise needy to gain most by God’s readying of our world for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we celebrate in Advent.

I am saying, though, that from my experience the poor; the homeless; the sick; those in need see most readily the joy of this Advent season; this preparation to celebrate Christmas. They and those of us who stand with them; in solidarity with those in need have the most to gain by God’s transformation of the world in preparation for Christ’s return in glory. I think this is at the heart of Zephaniah’s prophecy of the remnant who will remain to experience God’s joy of the city cleansed and rebuilt. This is at the heart of Jesus’ message: Those most in need; those of lowest social status; even the most hated, “the tax collectors and prostitutes” will see the kingdom of heaven first.

They and those who stand with them will experience God’s kingdom; Christ’s return most as good news. Are we among the people who will also welcome the fullness of God’s kingdom most as good news?