Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Brother Bernard Delcourt, OHC
BCP – Advent 3 C - Sunday 17 December 2006
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Philippians 4:4-7(8-9)
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Eternal One.
(adaptation from Ps 19: 14)
*****
Rejoice, rejoice; for the Kingdom of God is at hand! The justice and peace of God, the truth and love of God are within our reach. They are within us. With God’s grace, we can make the choices that bring them about.
That is the light of Advent in the darkness of this oncoming winter. No matter how short the days get and how dark the newscasts become, a shining light pierces through it all; beckoning us to make our way towards an authentic, a righteous, a peaceful and a loving world.
John the Baptizer’s voice rings through the darkness. Repent, change your heart and mind, change your ways and bear “fruits worthy of repentance”. Now this latter statement is quite the agenda. John the Baptist calls us to walk the talk.
Yes, we’ve been saved. We are children of God; now let’s show it!
Let’s not fall asleep on the fact that we were baptized in water and the Holy Spirit. Although we were made “Christ’s own” in baptism, we haven’t been issued a visa to the Kingdom of God with nothing more to be or to do.
Bearing the name of Christian is not enough. To paraphrase John: “God is able from these floorboards to raise Christians!”
Just because we made our most important appointment at baptism, it does not mean that we are invited to sit down in the waiting room of life and relax with a magazine before courteously being led into heaven.
Our baptism was a visible sign of God’s grace in enabling us to start a life of ongoing conversion, of ongoing repentance whenever we backtrack. When we repent, we turn ourselves towards the light. And the light cast our shadow behind us.
Conversion leads us into co-creating the world that God wants us all to live into. That is: “The World According to God’s Love”. As we do that, the time that separates us from the Second Advent whittles away. As more of us incarnate God’s love more often, I believe the Second Advent comes closer.
Not because of our self-will or intrinsic power, but because of the will of God being worked through God’s children, at this very moment, in history, and in the future.
So I invite you and I to recognize the shower of graces that drench our lives like fertile furrows. Deep down, we know God’s love. Deep down, we feel impelled to answer this love in our lives. We can turn from “The World According to our Shadow’s Greed”.
We are loved and we can love God and each other. Yes, it’s here. It’s within us. We can find it when we turn to the light and make our way in its direction. And that’s an invitation that even John the Baptist had a hard time discerning.
He saw repentance as a way to escape a wrathful God’s vengeance at the end of times. John eventually had to have messengers ask Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Luke, chapter 7)
God’s love for all of creation, in Jesus, is revealed to be radical beyond words.
So let’s keep turning our hearts and minds towards the light and bear fruit worthy of repentance, worthy of our conversion.
The writer of the Gospel, the Gentile physician known as Luke suggests some medicine for this turnaround as he reports John’s preaching:
- Share what you have,
- Be fair and honest with everyone,
- Don’t abuse power.
Just in case you think you are doing all of this already; and in case you think this is addressed to whomever happens to be more wealthy and more powerful than you deem yourself to be; think again.
If we should think that way, let’s remind ourselves of the rich young man who asked Jesus “teacher what else must I do to inherit the Kingdom of God?” We often think we have done enough already.
On a global scale, all of us here are wealthy and powerful. Our everyday decisions and choices (conscious or less so), our decisions as citizens of the wealthy and powerful nations of the world all bear on the Global community.
Of the 6 Billion humans currently alive, 3 Billion live on less that $2 a day. That comes down to less than $800 a year. Of those, 1 Billion people live on less than $1 a day.
In the meantime, we uphold a global society where the wealthiest and the poorest are growing further apart from each other in the life they experience.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone's need,” said Mahatma Ghandi, “but not everyone's greed.” How do we participate of this greed and injustice?
Would love mandate that we find out what we can do to change such a situation? God loves the three poorest billion humans; just as much as the others. How can we emulate that love? How can we be the instruments of God’s love in the world?
I know; we’ll need to chew on that one… And let’s remember to pray about it. Eventually, we’ll know what things we can and must do. Let us bear the fruits worthy of conversion.
The distractions and hurriedness of our lives can separate us from our true vocation and the wisdom that cradles deep within us. While shopping Christmas away and indulging in all our favorite foods, it’s easy to loose the focus of the incredible good news: God is coming to tarry amongst us.
In amazing love for the creation, God will judge all of us. He will hold the mirror of our judgment to ourselves and we will have to face whatever truth we see.
That - in itself - could be sufficiently hellish to many. When the already-present Kingdom will be made universally and unavoidably tangible, all of the world will heal its past wounds.
As the prophet Zephaniah told us this morning: “God is in our midst… The Most High will rejoice over us with gladness, he will renew us in his love. The Eternal will exult over us with loud singing as on a day of festival.”
I can’t wait to hear God sing, to hear Jesus laugh! It sounds like Christmas, wouldn’t you know it.
*****
Come Lord Jesus, come. Amen.
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