Christ The Servant
Catholic Church
Cold Springs, Ontario
Homily Selections
First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2009
Jeremiah 33:14-16; Ps 25; 1 Thes. 3:12-4:2; Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36
The theme of the readings for this week could be labeled Stop… Look... Listen. Stop, look and listen is a saying that we all learned in our preschool days when we crossed the street with our parents; perhaps some of us even silently chanted these words in our heads as we tasted the first days of freedom when we independently crossed the railways tracks (the olden days) or moved through intersections. When we stop, look and listen, we become aware. We are intentional.
We are reminded today that Jesus Christ’s ways and his Jewish roots differ greatly from our Catholic religion. When I remember back and I can remember back to the questions and answers of grade 1 catechism prior to Vatican II, religion was about formulas. Get the formulas right and you had a place in heaven… guaranteed or so we thought. Question: Why did God make me? Answer: To know him, to love him and to serve him in this world.
The readings from the lectionary today communicate a very different message. The writers of the various readings invite us to be aware. Jeremiah writes of a shoot that will spring up referring to the Messiah, the psalmist pleads for enlightenment so he can take the right path, Luke’s Jesus cautions us to remain alert so as not to miss the Son of Man and finally Paul writes a letter to the community of Thessalonica reminding them to turn awareness into action, in other words understanding into love. So the writers today dance together around differing perspectives on the theme of awareness. One thing that they all agree upon is that Christianity is relational and it is taught or caught through community not memorized through formulas.
Today we stand in a space that straddles the feast of Christ the King and the upcoming birth of a child. Many of us look at the birth of Jesus as the birth of God… that’s what we were taught wasn’t it? And just to complicate things a little, last week we celebrated the feast of Christ the King and we know that Jesus was not the kind of king that resonates with our understanding of king. How do we make sense of this? A baby who is really a baby and a king who is not a king…
As I reflect on this the first Sunday of Advent, I hear the music of Prepare, ye the way of the Lord being harmonized over and over again inside my head. To prepare the way is to be aware that there is someone or something coming. I think of Jesus and I think of the creed and of how easy it is to image Jesus as this divine being who knew that he was God. Jesus prepared the way for God not in a ritualistic way but through stories and parables and through his openness to the spontaneous, non-violent encounters with people all over the countryside. He seemed to be saying that God is not like anything that you can imagine. In the past as I have reflected on Jesus and what I have been taught, I have wondered whether religion and spirituality are indeed divorced. Jesus whom we hear described in the creed is not about ritualistic rules and regulations; in fact he breaks the rules and it is the breaking of rules that leads to his crucifixion. How to make sense of all of this?
What if each person who comes into the world has the capacity to truly become like Jesus? I am not suggesting that we are God but that we are created in God’s image and so can tune into this powerful connection. And what if in tuning into this powerful connection we become more like Jesus. Is this what Lawrence is suggesting when he reminds us of kindness week each month? Perhaps he is sneaking up on us slowly, reforming us week by week…
Jesus was not born thinking that he was God; he came to know God and claimed his divinity, his connection, his Sonship. The coming of Advent offers us a chance to prepare to act is ways that create a new kingdom of mercy, tenderness and justice in the world. I could talk about process theology now and really mess with your minds but instead I’d like to share a philosophy of life with which many of you may be familiar which I think overall works well with Jesus’ spirituality.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN
(a guide for Global Leadership)
All we really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be is learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things that we learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/]
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