2nd Sunday Advent C - Homily 2

Homily 2- 2009

Did you notice how Luke creates the context for the public ministry of Jesus? He names the powerful figures of the political world in which Jesus moved: the Roman Emperor Tiberias, and the local tyrant/kings Herod and Philip and others. Their violence, oppression and lack of respect for human life and values were legendary, despite their propaganda to the contrary. Not all that different from our own time!

He also named the power brokers in the religious sphere: the Jewish high-priests Annas and Caiaphas

He then introduced a prophetic, somewhat eccentric, figure – John, dressed up like the famous prophet Elijah, working out in the wild, on the edges of the social structure, and, like Elijah before him, calling for a radical rethink, a radical change – political and religious, from a situation he simply identified as sinful.

Though today’s Gospel doesn’t yet mention the fact, Jesus went down from Nazareth to align himself with John’s movement, and to work with him for some time.

Eventually, Jesus separated from John. It seems that, while they shared the sense of the need for radical social and religious change, John’s approach was primarily moralistic, and coloured by a preference for an interventionist, violent God.

Jesus’ call for change went deeper than morality, and was coloured by a sense of God as gracious, merciful, certainly on for justice, and not a God on anyone’s side, (particularly not the powerful or even the virtuous), but a God who was passionately concerned for the human dignity of every person – whom he saw as precious to God, whom God loved, forgave and ultimately trusted. That was the vision to which Jesus called whoever would listen. He called it Good News, the Gospel.

The Second Reading today challenges me. Paul was writing to the faith community in Philippi. Paul shared a wonderful sense of the vision of Jesus – of a world in need of radical change – but a change based on Jesus’ sense of God as wonderfully loving, gracious, patient, and caring for every human person – Gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man.

Like Jesus, he saw his vision as Good News, and he was passionate about spreading it … as he congratulated and rejoiced in the disciples at Philippi: You have helped to spread the Good News. But, with Paul locked up in prison, miles away from them, how were they to apply the Good News of God and of the human person to their current political, social and religious situation? as he put it: to recognise what is best?

I suppose we could keep asking ourselves the same question in our current political, social and religious world. The issue of climate change is very much in debate at the moment. How do we recognise what is best?

It is important to listen to Paul’s response: My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more.. Why? He goes on: my prayer is that your love… never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception .. so that you can always recognise what is best. For Paul, the necessary condition to improve your knowledge and to deepen your perception in order to recognise what is best is to love.

My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more so that ..

As I reflect on what is happening in parliament and in the media, etc., as I reflect on my own approach often in the past, (and, when I’m not on my guard, in the present), love often doesn’t enter into the equation; or, what says the same thing, mutual respect or appreciation for others.

Too easily, we seem to delight in debate, to win the argument [but not consensus], to seek reasons to justify conclusions we have already reached (for God knows what real reasons), or to ridicule those we disagree with. To me, there can be too little evidence of listening to each other, and of searching together to get as close as possible to the truth of things. Our need to prove ourselves right and the other wrong often serves only to strengthen our sense of self-righteousness.

In Jesus’ mind, and in Paul’s mind, that attitude is what needs to change. We need to bring to bear on the situations we confront our sense of the gracious, inclusive God, and our love and respect for others who might differ from us.

If we are to recognise what is best, to improve our knowledge, to deepen our perception, we need to seek together in love.