1st Sunday Advent B - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2017

What has media coverage been telling us is important this week? I suppose it is Don Burke and, perhaps still, fine-tuning issues around same-sex marriage. Today Advent starts – again! Do the two intersect at any point, the secular world with its media and the Church season with its familiar readings and symbols?

What echoes in my head from this weekend’s Gospel is “Stay awake!” I prefer to hear it as, “Be alert! Watch out!” or, even more simply, “Be alert! Watch!”, perhaps even better, “Watch!” Children are good at watching. I am not sure adults are; not, at least, at sustained watching, at looking deeply, pondering thoughtfully.

What Don Burke has been doing has not been a rarity. Fortunately, society is becoming much more alert to it. Sadly, the problem is more than the unbridled pursuit of sheer sexual pleasure; essentially, the issue is the use of sex as power. In relationships generally, people relate to each other on the basis of either intimacy or power. Intimacy is self-gift. Power is self-seeking – and expresses itself in defence or attack in some form or other, and both can be done actively or passively, be obvious or hidden. Manipulation or seduction can be as effective, and destructive, as outright violence.

The media coverage of the behaviour of Don Burke can serve as an invitation to the rest of us to look again at our own behaviour. Do we operate from intimacy or from power, not only with sexual partners but with everyone? One of the plagues of clericalism is the misuse of power. And with us clerics, as with others, it can be quite unconscious. It is difficult to recognize our personal behaviour once it has become habitual. But if we don’t look, we don’t change. And if we don’t change, not only do others get hurt, but we stop growing – and, in its own way, that can be just as tragic.

So we need to stop and, as Jesus said, to look, to watch. It takes time. The skill needs to be learnt. We need to be like the frog – sitting on our reed in the water, eyes wide open, looking [though not outwards for dangers but inwards at ourselves]. Like Mary, when experiences happened, she did not allow herself to be absorbed by them or overwhelmed, but she stepped back, observed what was really going on, in others and in herself, and responded appropriately. And in her observing and making sense of reality, she allowed herself to be stimulated by her knowledge of her scriptural tradition.

If we decide to, we can make the lead-up to Christmas less rather than more hectic, but to succeed we may need to be used to opening our eyes, and watching ourselves, watching what is really going on inside us, watching our desires, our fears, our addictions, our unfreedoms. That is a start. Gradually, we even learn how to discern and choose, and grow in freedom in the process. How else would you take to heart Jesus’ invitation to “Stay awake!” How else does it make sense in your life?

A final point for those of you disturbed [or not disturbed] by the same-sex-marriage outcome in parliament. Can you look more closely at your own marriage relationship, increase its attractiveness for your spouse and for yourself, and allow that attractiveness to show on your faces and in your simple interactions with each other? Others may notice. And obvious attractiveness is far more persuasive to the unconverted than logic or the power of the ballot-box or lobby-group. A final final point. You may not be able to change your spouse – but you may still be able to change yourself, even if only learning better to cope with reality without being embittered by it. But it all begins by accepting Jesus’ invitation and taking it seriously: “Watch!”