St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church :. Homilies

Ordinary Time 3 - January 22, 2012 - Dcn. Jacobson

I am certain that everyone of you parents and even extended family members like me can remember waiting for that first spoken word to come from the lips of your child. I  imagine that many of you can remember what it was. I remember clearly the excitement in my family when my neices spoke their first words and the thrill that came when they began to put those words together into sentences.   Today the church is having that same experience. We have just spent three weeks celebrating the birth of Christ Jesus, and now in John’s Gospel we hear the very first words spoken by Jesus: “What are you looking for?” This is the central question in the Gospel of John, and in all the encounters Jesus has with a variety of people in this Gospel, the question of recognition is always there. It is there at a Wedding Feast in Cana, at a Well in Samaria, at a tomb in Jerico, at the Courtyard of the High Priest, before Pilate’s throne, on Calvary, and finally on the morning of the first day of the week --- in other words, at the beginning of the new beginning is the question, what you looking for? Why look in an empty tomb?   I have found it very prayerful to look at this Gospel from two perspectives: one is from the perspective of the spoken words: “What are you looking for?” “Where do you live.” and “Come and see.” It seems to me that John captures the whole of the human existence in that brief conversation, and when we stop listening in a shallow way to this Gospel and dig deeply into it personally, the question is the ultimate question of our lives?  What are we looking for? I wonder that sometimes when I stand here with you face to face. What are you looking for here?  A good show? A good talk? Entertainment? It leaves me stunned sometimes to see people come and go, here one week and them missing for two. They must not be finding what they are looking for. Or perhaps they are here looking for something we simply don’t offer. Just a glance into the life of most of us might give some clues. One look at how most people around here spend there time gives some clues to what they are looking for, and everyone of us might think more seriously about that. It looks to me like most people are looking for a good time, entertainment, fun, pleasure, and some way to keep what they have and get more. This church is less than half full but that Stadium across town is never less than half full, nor does the Thunder play to half a house. There are some who will pay any price at all for concert tickets or season tickets to games and reluctantly offer loose change to God. At the same time there are those who  seem to be looking for what money can buy, and so they work night and day while the loved in their lives are left looking for someone to love them. We struggle with every human gift we can gather to embrace and lead our young people into a life-style that is worthy of their calling, but baseball and soccer always come first before Mass or Class. Jesus asks: “What are you looking for?”   They say to him, “Where do you live?” and he says “Come and see.” They are not asking for his address, and he never takes those who are interested to a house. They want to know where he dwells, where his roots are, where he gets or finds what he seem to have. He wants to lead anyone who is looking to his dwelling place; to the place where the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can be found. What the Gospel will eventually reveal is that this happens in an upper room where believers are found together waiting and watching in hope of Christ’s coming: and that’s where it happens. Nowhere else.   Then think for a minute about the other perspective of this Gospel story, the unspoken part that happens more in action than in word. The three whose lives and whose actions speak to us are: John the Baptist, Andrew, and Peter. Andrew is the central figure. What does astounds me even now after years of hearing and studying this Gospel. He gives up  John the Baptist and switches his loyalty to Jesus. What a gift Andrew has! He can see that his old way, his old relationship with John as a disciple is not taking him anywhere, and so he changes his loyalty and for that matter, he must have given up some of his relationships. John had a big following. He was known. He was popular. It was probably a very “in thing” to be his disciple. Andrew sees a better way, and he goes after Peter. Quitely and gracefully that other figure, John says to him in effect: “Go.” John gives up and gives way. His fame and his followers, his importance and his whole identity suddenly fade away so that Christ can become more and more. John knows who he is. John is intouch with his vocation and his identity. He knows that life is not all about him, and John knows where he is going probably because ne never forgot where he came from. It is a lesson for us that has no words in this Gospel, but when it is attached to the words that are spoken, there is no doubt and no escaping what is revealed.   Deep in this Gospel which is not really about John, Andrew, and Peter: the “What” becomes a “Who” and then the “Who becomes a “Where.” What are you looking for becomes “Who are you looking for?” Then “Who are you looking for becomes “Where are you?” That is the heart of this Gospel today. My people, take that with you this week, and with an open heart, an open soul, an open mind, an open life. Examine everything you do, where you do it, and why. It is God who asks each of us every single day: “What are you looking for?” Pray this week for the wisdom and the courage of Andrew. Ask for the strength of conversion, the abililty to leave behind what is not worthy of us and what does not lead us to that place where the Spirit dwells. Live this week with the expectation, the joy, and the hope that having been purchased at great price, we may as Paul says “glorify God in our bodies.” And grow this week. Grow in the Lord as Samuel did not permitting any word of God’s be without effect in your lives.

The Epiphany of the Lord - January 8, 2012 - Fr. Chamberlain

In a few minutes we are going to stand and recite the Creed of Nicea. The words of that Creed were chosen through long discussions, study, argument, political maneuvering, and every other means we humans have for coming to some common expression of things we hold dear. “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, consubstantial with Father......” all in a feeble attempt to express in words the divine mystery and the truth of the Incarnation. It is tragically true, I believe, that human nature when confronted with something beyond itself attempts to thologize, philosophize, or analyze. The first thing we seem to do when we come upon something new that we do not understand is drop in a test tube and begin to try and break it down into parts that we can then analyze, understand, and somehow control or reproduce if it would be in our interest and profit to do so. This feast of the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, (You have to say the whole thing: “Mary Mother of God” in order to get to the point of this feast) draws us to important truths of our faith without trying to explain them. But for a minute or two, let’s think about it. Calling Mary the “Mother of God” expresses our belief that Jesus was not just adopted by God and raised up to some kind of divine status. This feast insists that Mary’s son had a fully divine nature from the beginning, and that even with two natures, Jesus Christ is One, a singular being, with Mary as his mother. Now if that is not complicated, I don’t know what is: and if it’s complicated for us to imagine or figure out, imagine what it meant and what is was like for the Blessed Mother! It’s hard enough to figure out when you’re just a disciple. Image what it was like to be involved in the whole thing to begin with! Think of it: neighboring shepherds show up to see the new-born child reporting what had been revealed to them about this child. Imagine a choir of angels singing God’s praises! I suspect it was a rather large choir that could have been heard if someone reported it! What in the world was she to think? Well, Luke tells what happened and how she handled it. “She kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Instead of insisting that she understand it, find words to express it, and then accept and approve it all, Luke says that she entered the mystery comtemplatively; and it might make better sense for us to do the same.   From that contemplative place, we might be in a better position to reflect and wonder about this cosmic event that made heavenly hosts praise God over something that occured through a couple of poor pilgrims and a stable of a small town. Wondering about that might make us more sensitive to all kinds of little ways that grace abounds and how strangely God works in the most ordinary of things. It might open us to a deeper discovery of how God is revealed in the homeless, the poor, the helpless, and in something as common and ordinary as the birth of a child; which is probably for those who have experienced it, the closest they have ever come to God. I have come to believe in my long and years of the priesthood that the wisdom of this feast and it’s date on the calendar is not so much an affirmation of our faith in the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ as it is an invitation to wonder, to imagine, and most of all to rememember what it is we have just celebrated a week ago today lest in taking down all the decorations to store away for another eleven months, we forget that something has happened to us, something has been born or awakened in us, something is a little different about us. Understanding it, expressing it clearly, or explaining it is not the issue at all; but kowing it in our hearts, and refleting upon it from time to time may very well change the way we look at oneanother, and perhaps sooner rather than later, “Peace on Earth” may be more than a few words in an angelic hymn or a verse printed on another Christmas Card. Brothers and Sister, Peace Be With You!    

For generations without number, the words of Isaiah ring out with undying hope. “A people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.” and those words sustained a faithful hope and led to great joy.  And then almost suddenly during the reign of the most august, powerful, feared, and imperial of Rome’s emperors, a child was born whose birth renewed that hope and led to great joy.  A child;  poor, vulnerable, and homeless; a child who would in a short time so threaten that feared and powerful one that a reign of terror would sweep away all the first born sons, and soon lead to the destruction the great Temple of Jerusalem scattering those faithful to the promise into another age of darkness. In that darkness, another great voice, Paul writes simple yet wise instructions to a young, zealous disciple: “live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age as we await this blessed hope.”   Since those days, one cloud of darkness after another has swept across this earth. There have been times when the people in that darkness have themselves made it all the more dark. Wars and conquests, inquistions, revolutions, and reformations have swept across the face of this earth again killing children and the innocent, burning and desicrating temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques as one ideology after another maquarades as religion in pwerful conflicts abusing power and jealeous ambitions. So in a world that labors in great darkness, and to hearts that grow weary with disappointment and scandal, the story we tell on this day has the ability to sustain us with hope and expectation as Paul suggests to us through Titus.   This story is not to be heard with just our ears. If that is the case, it will be short and sentimental with hardly any power to sustain hope and stir up joy. This story must be heard with our hearts in the full knowledge of what this birth really means. The story we tell tonight cannot end in Bethlehem. It must lead us to Jerusalem. It cannot end with the visit of magi. It must lead us to Egypt and the story of slaughtered infants that casts all this in the shadow of Moses and a passover to freedom. Swadling clothes become a shroud. A wooden manger becomes a wooden cross. The baby becomes a man, a teacher, a healer, a prophet, a savior, a messiah. The story cannot, must not, and will not end in Bethlehem. If it does, we are hopeless indeed.   Best of all, this story is heard with our hearts because we are in the midst of it.  As long as there are young couples about to give birth to their first-born, the story is told again. As long as there are old couples like Zachary and Elizabeth living faithfully and growing old in love the story is told again. Look at the cast of characters. We’re all there: young couples, old couples, hard working outcasts who work day and night doing work no one else wants to do like those shepherds; people from other cultures and lands like the magi, powerful, abusive, violent enemies of peace; and refugees who flee to foreign lands to escape danger, poverty, and death. There are messengers of good news who sing of God’s glory, there are scholars who study the writings of the past and scientists who look out to the mysteries of the heavens. There are inn-keepers who make room for strangers, and even writers who record the stories.   What draws all of us very different people together is a hope that rests upon a promise made long ago and repeated again and again by all the prophets.  It is first expressed in Genesis with Adam and Eve, Noah, Sarah and Abraham, and again with Moses. There is a promise in these stories which we tell again today. Yet, Christmas is not the fulfillmentntof that promise. The fulfillment comes at another dawn in springtime when this infant whose birth we celebrate today rises as a man from a tomb glorious in light and in life. This feast for people who live in the hope of that Easter day is the living promise that we are never alone. No matter where we are in life, no matter in what condition we find ourselves, no matter how far we might stray away or how unfaithful we are; God, the supreme lover, will pursue us in love for all eternity.   This is what old Zachaaria and Elizabeth began to experience in the birth of a promised one who would be a voice crying in the wilderness. This is what that young couple began to experience in a Bethlehem stable with the birth of one they were to call: Jesus. A promise was kept becasue fear and doubt never overcame their hope. Without disappointment, there was nothing left but Joy. So Paul’s old  advise to Titus still makes sense today no matter how things may threaten to disappoint our hope and quiet our joy: “live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age as we await this blessed hope.” For this is how those live who are children of God. Hope and Joy mark the difference between those who are lost in the darkness of night and those who are full of grace and truth.   It is not only the birth of Christ that we celebrate, but our own birth as children of God which is the source of our Joy and the reason for our hope. We cannot remain at the crib, amazing as it is. We must leave here filled with the light of Christ that shines in a gentle love of neighbor , a prophetic defence of those on the edge of society, and a joy shared by knowing that we are loved utterly and irrevocably by a God willing to empty himself that we might be filled with his Spirit and share his glory. In that faith, I wish you today a Happy  Birthday, for this is the day of our birth as well.

In the first chapter of Saint John’s Gospel the future apostles are spreading the word about a man they are calling “teacher”, and some of them are getting their friends and some family members to join them after hearing John the Baptist’s testimony. Two of them named, Andrew and Peter are from Bethsaida, and a friend of theirs by the name of Philip from the same town has become interested, and he goes out to find another friend of his named, Nathanael. When Philip says: “We have found the one Moses spokeof in the law, the prophets too - Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” Nathanial says: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” John 1:46   This little comment in the formation of the apostolic community reveals something about the world into which the “teacher” was about to emerge and the people with which he would begin his mission in obedience to the Father. It was a world that worshiped power, a world that functioned and communicated in a network of infuence, control, and manipulation where authority came not so much from what you did as who you were like scribes or pharasees, chief priests or elders.   So, the expectation for the one Moses spoke of was one of power and influence. How in the world could God hope to accomplish anything unless God looked for a man with some credentials, some back ground, some connections, some power? The one Moses spoke of was surely going to come from Rome or Athens or Damascus, or maybe even Egypt, but Nazareth? Impossible. Nathanial speaks for everyone. Not only was the world so taken by power and authority, people themselves judged others by how they spoke, their accents, how they dressed, by the friends they had and of course, by where they came from.   It is not difficult to understand this thinking because we still do it. The rich and the powerful, the influential and the glamerous are still too often our hero images, and it is to that level of personalities that we still look for values, style, and too often leadership, at least in the sence that we often immitate them, and if that isn’t leaderhip, I don’t know what is. When someone comes along like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we act surprised, and they gain fame and startle us as though we should not expect anyone like a plain looking old lady to affect the lives of millions across generations!   In this way of thinking and this social context, we have to realize that not much has changed in the past two thousand years when it comes to human beings and their expectations. At the same time, not much has changed when it comes to God and how God chooses to work.   God could have chosen from all of creation the most beautiful, influential, and powerful woman. God could have looked into palaces or into the homes of great traders, high priests, and merchants; but no. God looked toward Nazareth. God looked at a virgin promised to another and to an elderly woman who had given up hope of ever being a mother. There is nothing that would recommend them for the role they would play in God’s plan. To me, it seems like the Gospel would have had more credibility and been more acceptable if John and Jesus had been born into well-established families with the means to help their sons impact the world with their messages; but no.   In the new world order, the new creation, the beginning of which we are about to celebrate, expected and traditional values, old ways of doing things, and long established expectations are turned upside down, and the process of that has its theme song on Mary’ lips in Luke’s Gospel. For us this Christmas comes as a time to look again at our expectations not only of where Christ is to be found as I suggested with you last week, but more deeply and personally. Christ Jesus is not found among the powerful, influential celebrities of this age. God has not chosen them to reveal God’s plan for this creation. We cannot look to Washington, to New York City, London, Paris, or any of the great seats of power for our messianic hope. We will do better to look in the most unlikley places, perhaps rather than look around and look out, we might do well to simply look within. That is ultimately what God asked those first to do.

For a long time I have thought that this incident in John’s Gospel was about John and some curious Pharisees, Priests, and Levites, but I have learned to think otherwise. John’s Gospel more than the other three is certainly no history. By the time this Gospel was put together, the other three were already in wide circulation with their bits and pieces and fragments of history, sayings, and miracle stories. John is a Gospel for today and everyday. What happens in John’s Gospel is still happening: the Word is becoming flesh, the light of the world is still among us, and there are those who testify to the light. Among them are the catechmens and candidates who have seen the light of faith and draw near to it sometimes to the shame of those of us who take it all for granted, and are so inconsistent and shallow in the witness of our lives.   One sentence in this passage today leaps off the page and into our face with a challenge that is both intimidating and troubling. “...there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”  There is one among you whom you do not recognize! This Gospel is addressed to us. This Gospel is proclaimed today as it has been for generations for the sake of asking us and insisting that we look around and realize that we have not yet recognized the one among us! When we do, things are going to be different.   Christ Jesus, the anointed one is still among us too often unrecognized, and John calls us to pay attention, to look around, to live with the understanding and the belief that Christ is among us, and perhaps to confess that we fail to recognize that sacred presence. If this is true and if this Gospel shapes our belief, then our behaviors and attitudes toward one another can bear some scrutiny, and our easy dismissal of others, our disinterest in their plight, their needs and wants, even their human dignity betrays that fact that Christ goes unrecognized, and therefore what he brings and what his presence provides is incomplete.   This is a real issue here. Understanding this Gospel, getting deeper into these verses might raise some issues when it comes to our thinkng and behavior with regard to immigration, to those who live on welfare, to those of different ethnic origins, color, or religion. There is one among you whom  you do nor recognize! If this is so, we need to be careful. We need to be watchful, attenetive, and more open to how Christ presents himself to us. That one among us we don’t like, refuse to forgive, hold in contempt, refuse to acknowledge or take seriously may be the one! If we do not recongnize him, we might need to be a little more careful about how we treat everyone lest in our failure to recognize the ONE AMONG US we let HIM starve, or be deported, or go homeless or live with no jobless benefits just because we don’t think they deserve it.   Our preparation for Christmas might be a lot more well done if we ponder these words a bit carefully, for these are Gospel words, they are God’s word spoken again today. “There is one among you whom you do not recognize.”   Let me tell you simple little story about a monastery that had falled on hard times. The monks did not talk with one another. No new young people were among them, and people had stopped coming to them for spiritual solace and direction. In the woods surrounding the moastery lived a rabbi in a small hut. On occasion the monks would see him walking in the woods as though he were in a trance, and they would say to each other: “The rabbi walks in the woods.”   The abbot of the monastery had done everything he could think of to improve the spirit in the monastery, but nothing made a difference. One day he saw the rabbi walking in the woods, so he decided to ask his advise. He alked up behind the rabbi. The rabbi turned, and when the abbot adn the rabbi faced one another, both began to weep. The sorrow of the situation affeect them both deeply. The abbot knew he did not have to explain the decline of the monastery, so he simply asked, “Can you give me some direction so the monastery will thrive again?”   The rabbi said: “One of you is the messiah.” Then he turned and continued his walk in the woods. The Abbot returned to the monastery. The monks had seen him talking with the rabbi, and they asked, “What did the rabbi say?” “”One of us is the Messiah”, the abbot said slowly. The monks began talking to one another. “One of us? Which one? It is Brother John or Andrew? Could it even be the Abbot?”   Slowly things began to change at the monastery. The monks began to look for the Missiah in each other and listen to each other’s words for the Messiah’s voice. Before long, younger monks joined, and people returned to the monastery for spirit comfort and direction.  End of the story.   Or is it?  What would it be like in this parish if we all began to wonder which one of us is the Messiah? If we began to really listen to each other listening for the voice of the Messiah? What would this city and this world be like, if we were waiting and looking and really expecting the Messiah to return, and allowed that John’s idea is right: there is one among us who is not recognized.

There are two women set before us today by the Scriputres. The first is called, Eve. Created by God, sinless from the very beginning. She enjoyed the best of everything: a garden where everything was for her, and maybe best of all, intimacy with a God she could see face to face, a God who walk with her, talk, and listen. Yet instead of talkng and listening to the creator, she decided to talk with the creation, a serpent. With all the abudance of creation, she decided to be concerned with what she did not have. She lost trust in the God who created her in love, and disobeyed. Then that wasn’t bad enough, she had to get someone else to do the same.   We know the consequences of that behavior. We live with them everyday and every hour. Instead of abundance we now suffer from hunger and loneliness. Instead of having all we need provided for us, we must work and plant, wait and harvest. Most difficult of all, we have the immediate presence of God. We no longer see God face to face, no longer easily know God’s will, and it is difficult to know good from evil and choose to do good. Now instead of living with all things good, there is evil, sickness, violence, fear, and death.   Inspite of all God has given us, we still fail to trust. We still often choose our plan over God’s, and so we hurt one another, poison our enviornment and this beautiful earth. We suffer from despair and loneliness, depression and an emptiness we try to fill with all kinds of things that will never do what God alone can do.   Gladly, what we celebrate today is an assurance that this is not the end of the story, and it need not be this way for us. Another woman comes into this scene also created sinless by God out of love. She never had what that first woman had, all of the fruits of the garden and she never saw God face to face or enjoyed walking and talking with God in peace and confidence. When God’s will is made known to her, she sets aside her plans and dreams, and accepts what she does not understand. Unlike Eve, she accepts God’s plan and entrusts herself to God. As a result, a Savior is born to us, Christ the Lord.   As Eve was the mother of all human kind, Mary becomes the mother of all believers.  On this Thursday, in the middle of the week, we do something that is not usually part of a Thursday. We gather in this place because the truth of faith is more important to us than anything else at this hour: the truth that what she received from God is also in store for us when we trust God’s plan, obey God’s will, and are willing to give ourselves body and soul to the fulfillment of God’s will for creation.   It is the will of God that we be without sin as God created us. It is the will of God that there be no evil, sickness, loneliness, and death. Listen to the words of Paul today: “God has chosen us in Christ to be the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless.” On our part, we must work and pray everyday to make the will and the plan of God for us  become real. God has chosen each of us from the beginning to do what no one else can do in fulfilling and completing his plan for creation. Though we may not have all the gifts that Mary had, we can still hold on to the hope that she offers us, and the promise that she fulfills. With her and by her example we can and we do have if we just ask the strength, the grace, and the faith to say, “Yes” again and again and again to everything God asks of us.

It is very likely that you have never realized that John the Baptist’s promise of one who will baptize with the Spirit is never fulfulled in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus never baptizes anyone. Instead, Jesus is Baptized by John who announces a promise of another Baptism. This unfulfilled promise tells us something important about the gospels: the story of Jesus continues into the future. Mark wants us to understand that we are part of the Gospel story. We do not read this Gospel like a history book. We proclaim this Gospel because it is about all people and all times. This Gospel tells us about the beginning of something that has not ended, and it will not end until the “owner of the house returns”.   A baptism of repentence in water and the promise of a baptism in the Spirit, a Baptism of Fire, is what John puts before us at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel in the beginning of a new year of faith. More than repentence is expected. The Baptism of John is not enough. More is to come, and what is to come is not something that Jesus will do, but something we must do. Until we awaken the fire of the Spirit that is within us, we shall not be ready and prepared. This world needs more than repentance.   What we do at that font is awaken the potential, proclaim the promise, raise the hope, and acknowlege who we are and where we are going, but there is more to come. The very presence of Jesus, his word and his work brings the fire of a new Baptism, and lest we think in his absence that it’s all over, Pentecost affirms that there is more to come after the earthly time of Jesus.   Repentance turns us away from sin, and affirms a change of life. In our repentence we acknowlege our anger and hatred, our desire for revenge, our obsession with power, our manipulation of others, our greed and unwillingness to   really help others in need by changing oppressive systems that hold people in the bondage of poverty and ignorance. But acknowledging these things is not enough. That doesn’t change anything. It simply recognizes the mess in which we have been living.   The Spirit reveals that new world, that new heaven and the new earth. The Spirit into which we have been Baptized by Jesus Christ reveals what we have been waiting for and leads and teaches us how to get there. The dawning of the regin of God is not in the future for those who are truly Baptized in the Spirit it has come. It is at hand.   This is not something done to us like the Baptism of John. This is a gift given to us; the promise of the Spirit that proposes a new way of living in this world: a way of life that revives and lifts up the weary and the worn, forgives, heals, and frees. This is a way of life we can choose, and when we do, watch out! The power of the Spirit will be unleashed upon this world.   What we proclaim in this place now and every time we assemble here is that the Master is coming and we must be ready. While we await the return of the “one who owns the house” as one of the parables puts it, we are busy about things that matter, about what we know he must find when he comes: peace, justice, forgiveness, joy, and charity. He does not make these things happen, we do. It is what we are about now since Jesus has shown us what to do and how to live.   Our faith, this Advent, our very existence in this world is to transform this whole life into the Kingdom of God, into paradise, into the very holy garden where we live without shame, in obedience, in peace, and in the most intimate presence of God whose plan from the beginning was that we should have no fear, no need or want, and no death.   Our wilderness time is at an end. The voice in the wilderness has spoken the word of repentence. Now it is time to stir up and awaken that Spirit which Jesus has sent to those who are Baptized. In this news, we find reason to rejoice and be glad, for out time has come.

Somebody once said that “Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” It’s a good thought about something that is today very precious and in short supply: time. It’s odd how we use it and how we waist it; how we guard it, and want more of it. The season in which we live and the culture in which we live it uses time in ways that are often not particularly admirable. We rush and hurry, we look anxiously at our watches, fuss and fume when we have to stand and wait, and it’s almost as though we hurry up so that we can wait again for something else. Waiting is really what we do here.   Among other false gods, we have begun to worship efficency. Bill Gates is quoted as having said: “In terms of the allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient.” He went on to say: “There is a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning.” Communists sacked churches all over the world and turned them into “something useful.” This idol, time, is one of the idols that the Gospel was meant to smash, and the “Sabboth” is one of the hammers used to do it. Like all the other signs in the Old Testament it was intended to point to the Lord of the Sabboth who is our real rest. That is why the tradition of making time holy or of making holy time continues in the Christian tradition of the Lord’s Day and of holy and sacred seasons, feasts, and solemnities. It is a habit of celebrating sacred play time that points to something else: the fact that vast amounts of time are spent waiting around.   Today, this weekend, we begin one of those waiting periods. We have been observing them for a long time. The apostles had one waiting for Jesus to reveal his power and his glory. When he didn’t do it the way they thought, they had another waiting period in an upper room for forty days until the Spirit came upon them. From the stand point of efficiency, this isn’t very productive. But then the whole of history demonstrates the same  thing; a lot of waiting.   Sciences tell us that the overwhelming span of time in creating the universe consists of unthinkable epochs in which humans play no role at all. Best estimates are that the universe is three times older than the solar system. The entire span of time our earth and sun have existed (4.5 billion years) had to pass and then pass again before the universe was ripe enough to have the right planet have the right star, the right poisition and orbit, the right size and composition, the right companion planets, the right moon in the right part of the galaxy, with the right combination of atmosphere, geology, and water, to have the possibility of life. Clearly God is leisurly in his long and slow construction of this cosmic Temple we call, Earth. The human race, both in Genesis and in natural history, come at the tail end of a story in which they play no part except for a newborn that the Father has taken great labor to preapre a safe nursery in a woman of great faith and favor.   The long wait of creation for our arrival is a sign and token that waiting is built into the fabric of things. Human beings are the only creature that God has willed for it’s own sake. The story of our salvation is the story of waiting. In fact, I think that is why the Old Testament is so much longer than the new: it is filled with long periods of waiting. There is Abraham who waited so long for a son. Moses who waited so long in the desert. Israel who waited so long for the promised land. An old couple in the Temple who waited so long to see the Messiah, and even Jesus who waited 40 days in the desert after 30 years of silence. But all of that waiting has not been empty waisted time - it was full of promise and full of meaning.   We are living today in another waiting time and our Advent is just a reminder inviting us to refine our focus and remember what this time is all about: this time we use so carelessly yet so jealously. We are waiting for the climax of history for that moment when all will be over, when time will cease, and judgement will come about how we have lived, used, and made holy the gift of time itself in which God has often enough revealed himself to us who take the time to look, to believe, and celebrate in a way and in place that is hardly efficient and productive.   Those who do not believe in Christ wait in fear. They stock pile stuff to “get them through” the rapture. They spread dour and terrifying images designed to scare and frighten becasue fear is all this world has to offer. “News” these days in this world is about murder and robbery, thieves and tragedy because this world has turned a deaf ear to the “Good News”.  Yet those of us schooled and shaped by the Good News have been taught to wait in hope which the four weeks of this season let us practice so that we might get it right and be ready.   So we practice now and in the weeks to come. We practice waiting. We pracitice keeping our mind, our thoughts, our hopes focused on what is to come and how we must be ready when it does. Against all odds and common sense, in a world filled with economic doom, war, cultural meltdown, social chaos, terrorists, ecologial fears, and all the rest,  we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ: not to Bethlehem of Judea, but to this place so simple and so unknown by the rest of the world that is to busy to look.   In listening to some arabic speaking friends recently, I recognized a word being pronounced in two different ways. When I asked what it meant, one said: Bethlehem. Then the other pronounced the same word with a different accent which meant, Bread. Think of that my friends, while we wait. Christ is coming to Bethlehem and to Bread. It has been a long wait, and we must not tire, nor can we waist the time we have as though we did not know what we were waiting for.

Ez 34:11-17 + Ps 23:1-6 + 1 Cor 15:20-28 + Mt 25:31-46

Prv 31:10-31 + Ps 128:1-5 + 1 Thes 5:1-6 + Mt 25:14-30

Wis 6:12-16 + Ps 63:2-8 + 1 Thes 4:13-18 + Mt 25:1-13

Wis 3:1-9 + Ps 23:1-6 + Rom 5:5-11 or Rom 6:3-9 + Jn 6:37-40

The Bible is not the only way to learn about God. It is not the only way God is revealed to us. If you couldn’t read at all, you could still learn about God from the Saints. They are living scriptures. Their lives, their love, their faith, their service all reveal God to us. By knowing them, we can all walk God’s way by the light of saint’s life.   Unfortunately, most of the Saints we can name have by reason of legend and our strange need to exaggerate become larger than life, and that’s too bad. The first qualification the church looks for in the modern process of canonization is humanness, and then the church looks at what grace can do with human nature. The Saints are simply our brothers and sisters who arrived at what God wishes for us all, a true, full, and graced humanity. I call it wholeness, and that is the stuff of which holiness is made.   John in the second reading today goes right to the heart of the matter. This whole idea of being holy is simply living like children of God; living like children who are loved. It is my observation that children who are loved no matter what they have or what they do not have are happy. In fact, those who have very little, but plenty of love are the happiest of all. They laugh a lot, giggle, smile, and tease. They are quick to dance at the sound of tune, and they have all the signs of joy about them.   The fact of the matter is: there are no sad saints. I don’t think it’s possible. I do think that some story tellers for one reason or another may not choose to tell us the fun parts of the lives of saints; and the consequence of that has not been particularly helpful when it comes to imagining ourselves as saints. We ought to just admit the fact that having a sense of humor is a necessray part of being fully alive, emotionally mature, and a psychologically healthy human being. If Jesus was fully human, then he must have had a great sense of humor. If not why would people have wanted to be around him? Why would children have been so attrated to him?   That window up there always cracks me up for two reasons: one is that I imagine that Jesus must have roared in laughter at Peter jumping out of a boat thinking for one minute that he could walk on water. The other reason is that I was looking at it with some children one day, and I asked them what they thought of that window. One of them said: “I could walk on water too if I had feet that big!”   The saints were men and women others wanted to be around. There are no grumpy saints.  Theresa of Avila said: “A sad nun is a bad nun.” She also said: “I am more afriad of one unhappy sister than a crowd of evil spirits.” St Lawrence the martyr who was burned to death on a grill called out to his executioners: “This side is done. Turn me over!” Augustine publically prayed: “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet!” Saint Philip Neri believed that Christian Joy is a gift from God, flowing from a good conscience.” When once asked by a young priest what might be a good prayer for a wedding, he said: “A prayer for peace.” Some of the saints were thought of as foolish for following Christ, and today it’s still much the same. Paul was called a fool for Christ.” The fact is, radical faith is usually seen as foolish.   The happiness of the saints comes from their closeness to God and from a way of looking at and living life that comes from faith. Humor is a prerequisite for sanctity. The saints knew to take the long view of things. They were quick to laugh at life’s absrudities and themselves, and they always placed their trust in God. They had a clear eyed look on life, which simply means that they took serious things seriously and the not-so-serious things not so seriously. They knew the difference.   “A good laugh is a sign of love,” said a famous German theologian. “It may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God has for everyone of us.”