3rd Sunday Advent C

See Commentary on (Luke 3:10-18) in Luke 3:1-20

Homily 1 - 2012

John's advice sounds good practical stuff.  Following in the footsteps of some of the great prophets like Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah, he picks up what has come to be called God's preferential option for the poor.  It might be projection on my part, but I find that his advice, practical and good as it is, leaves me uninspired. 

It is a bit like much of what seems to be happening in our world at the moment – Governments legislating more and more laws telling people how to behave, whether in banking, and the media, occupational health and safety, personal vilification, etc. – perhaps good advice, and even sadly necessary, but lacking inspiration.  With government legislation, observance is ensured by the threat of sanctions – fines, imprisonment, etc.. 

Interestingly, that is what John the Baptist seems to be up to, too.  His basic scenario is threat.  That seems to be his sense, too, of how the one following him, the one more powerful than he, will act: He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will gather the wheat into his barn but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.  

In fact, Jesus did not turn out like that – and that seemed to have rattled John.  You might be familiar with the incident where John in prison sent disciples to Jesus to ask him: Are you the one who is to come, or do we wait for another?  In his answer, Jesus quoted one of the great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, to describe his approach: Tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak … the Good News is preached to the poor.  And blessed is he who is not scandalized in me. 

Unlike John, Jesus gave few, if any, detailed directives on how we should behave.  When he did move into the area of morality, as he did in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, his language became more hyperbole – challenging people to figure out for themselves whether he was serious, what he was really saying, and, more importantly, why. 

Some of his parables can at first sound threatening.  What is usually the case in those parables is that Jesus is simply describing in graphic apocalyptic imagery the chaos that happens in this world when people choose to act irresponsibly, selfishly and violently.  The God that Jesus reveals through his life and his teaching is not a violent, vindictive God.  What Jesus is interested in is the Good News of God's Kingdom – a world where people interact responsibly, compassionately, ready to receive and to offer forgiveness. 

Jesus is not interested in behaviour imposed from above, but in behaviour that flows from conscience and is directed effectively to the common good of all.  His is not commandment-imposed morality but virtue-governed morality.  It is a sad commentary on the shape of our world that virtue can no longer be presumed and conscience no longer holds sway. 

Jesus' way was to proclaim, as his starting point, Gods' unconditional love and forgiveness offered to everyone.  In the light of this, he called people to genuine change, to conversion.  And he expected people, once empowered by that vision of a humanity loved by God, to guide all their relationships by the principles of universal respect, compassion and love for all - particularly for the powerless and vulnerable. 

He aimed to set people on fire with his vision of a redeemed world; he trusted their intelligence, inviting them in stimulating parables to tease out the possible look of that redeemed world.  He saw people not as a regiment of servants or slaves but as free, motivated and responsible adults, whom he went so far as to call his friends. 

It is as such free, motivated and responsible adults that we come here today to this Eucharist to join with him in his commitment to a world renewed.

Homily 2 - 2018

If I thought before in regard to our poor Church that the wheels were in danger of falling off, I am not quite sure how I would put it now. It is almost as though everything is falling apart.

The Christian community at Philippi in Paul’s day were doing it tough. With his heart on his sleeve, Paul had written to them, saying, as we heard this morning in the Second Reading, “I want you to be happy, always happy, in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness”. A more literal translation reads, “Rejoice in the Lord always”. To me joy is a deeper, richer experience than happiness – something, perhaps, over which we have a little more control and which to some extent we can even deliberately choose. Still, however we hear it, Paul’s wish can sound little more than empty wishful thinking – but bears pondering all the same.

He speaks about our joy being “in the Lord”. I think he is suggesting that such joy arises from an experience of relationship and deep personal closeness with the Lord – something the effects of which even other people can notice. The present translation calls it “tolerance”, but it may be more a sense of inner strength and peace arising from that relationship with the Lord – whose presence, Paul insists, is not something distant and unreal, but personal and what he calls “nearby”. Ultimately, I suppose, that joy is what I dearly seek in my life. I suspect everyone does, even though too many people try getting by through psychological denial or avoidance. But getting by is hardly good enough. It never satisfies, and does not bring real peace. There can be value in stopping; noticing, if possible; and asking ourselves, What do I really want? and what can I do to secure it?

St Paul’s suggestion was this: “If there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving”. To thank God before getting what we ask for can seem strange, even dishonest. In fact, the thanks spring from our trust in the sort of God we heard about in today’s First Reading from Zephaniah, the God "in our midst”, the God "who exults with joy over us”, who even, rather embarrassingly, “dances with shouts of joy for us”. Yet, such love of such a God may not seem to fit with past experiences of praying and not receiving what we asked for.

The catch may be that we are not sure what we really need when we first pray – we only think we know. In that case, the obvious thing to do is to pray for what we think we need; and, if our prayer is not answered, to keep praying. Time spent focusing on our desires allows them to sort themselves out somewhat. It can be surprising what goes on inside us if we persevere in our requests, provided we keep at it for long enough. We can come to know ourselves much better, and as that happens, the focus of our prayer so often changes. We get to know better what we really need, and we begin to want that. We even get to know God and God’s desires much better. Paul suggests that the outcome of our prayer can be a new feeling of leaving it to God [who knows and loves us, after all, even better than we do ourselves], or, as he wrote, “that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts”. I wonder if that, ultimately, is what we all unconsciously yearn for.

St Teresa of Avila is supposed once to have told a friend that eventually the only requests she was interested in making to God were quite well summed up in what we know as “The Lord’s Prayer”.

If you are seeking that elusive joy in the midst of present pain and bewilderment, give Paul’s advice a go!

Homily 3  - 2021

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Luke introduced us to John the Baptist, telling us that “he went through the whole Jordan district proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. Today’s short extract gave us a few brief samples of what repentance might mean to him. He instructed people to share their clothing, their food, with people in need. He urged powerful tax-collectors to extort no more taxes than the legal amount. And he warned soldiers [often today’s equivalent of police] not to intimidate people, to extort nothing from them, and, interestingly, to be content with their pay.

More pertinent than his call for repentance was his conviction that another was to follow, more important, more powerful than he. He would, as he expressed it metaphorically, “baptise people with the Holy Spirit and with fire”. He would sort out the worthy from the unworthy, with the unworthy metaphorically destined to “burn in a fire that would never go out”.

The one who would do all this was Jesus. Did John get Jesus right? In some ways yes, in some ways no. How do you feel about John’s message, as described by Luke? To me, John’s message was good common sense, with which most people would have agreed — not world-shattering, but certainly important. Though apparently John drew large crowds of devoted followers, his message, I must confess, leaves me cold. It is the sort of message that I would expect a responsible older teen-ager or young adult to regard as important. It was clear, certainly. But there was no challenge, no invitation, to grow up.

Adults need more than clear rules or commandments. Life can be far too complex for clear, unanimous answers. Adults need clear values, more than they do rules. They need virtues in order to appreciate values and to apply them under pressure. They need wisdom to read any situation and to discern well what values are involved in decision-making.

John’s message left no room for further adult development. In the few examples we have, he gave clear rules — and they are helpful. But they are not enough for the chaotic situations where people sometimes find themselves. People need help to form their own conscience responsibly — and God speaks to them through their conscience.

Jesus was great. Read again his Sermon on the Mount. He challenged people to think. Did he mean to be taken literally — always? or sometimes? or rarely? Or did he rather tease people, and try to lead them further? What was he really driving at?

And what about punishment? Was Jesus’ sense of God of a God who punishes — if not immediately, then eventually? And why punish some more than others? Is not everyone destructively self-centred in one way or another? Has our attitude to punishment changed as life has taught us to love unconditionally?

Personally, I find Jesus’ approach stimulating, and even exciting. He called us to a world where everyone is always and everywhere safe — beyond safe, even. I believe he wanted a world on fire with love — and he showed us such love is possible.