THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT – A

Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 1311-14
Matthew 24:37-44

Dear Jesus,

Do I hear you asking me, Did you get it this time? And I wonder. Another Liturgical Year has concluded as a new one dawns. A cycle has been completed as I am challenged to begin another. Did I get it this time? Only you can judge me. Only you can read my heart and know that I long to see, to understand, and to be transformed. But I wonder if that has not happened already, not by my doing, but by your gift. If I recognize that you live in my heart, if I recognize that God loves me, if I can accept the wonder of the relationships you empower me to live, then I can say, I think I am getting it. I can assure you that I want to understand and to live the mystery.

I shouldn’t speak in the first person singular. This isn’t all about me. I am not on this journey alone. I am part of a people with whom you ask me to live in relationship, in intimacy, in love. We are called to gather to feast on the word proclaimed and to recognize your presence there. We are invited to assemble around your table to renew Eucharist and to share in the meal and to recognize you in the Breaking of the Bread and the Sharing of the Cup. We are sent to be your presence, the Eucharist in the world until all have heard, until all are nourished.

The first reading of the new cycle is troubling. Isaiah’s vision of the Lord’s mountain and all people streaming toward it to be instructed in God’s ways is a magnificent vision. Why hasn’t it happened? Isaiah says all people will be called; all people will be free to respond. No one is forced. No one is beaten into submission. They recognize the truth of the message because they see it lived. Many nations remain many nations. The difference is, no swords are brandished. Weapons of war are destroyed. Peace reigns. Isaiah says it will happen – but when? Highly technical and efficient swords and spears, far from being pruning hooks and ploughshares, abound. The toll of the dead is staggering. Wars are still fought in God’s name. Rather than calling all nations to share in the feast, the desire remains to beat nations into submission and impose one nation’s values and ways on the others. Isn’t that a corruption of Isaiah’s vision? And some say they are doing these things in your name. How can that be?

We need to begin the cycle again, to continue this journey with you and to listen. This is a call to holiness, isn’t it? This is an invitation to love and live in intimate relationship so that swords and spears make no sense. But I wonder if we can bear the burden of the message. The conversion that you call for is more than the renunciation of the sins from the Decalogue that Paul challenges the Romans to forego. Virtue is basic, of course. You call us to more than renunciation. Aren’t you calling us to action, to live your love in community? Hierarchy and power have no role in that community you envision. All are brothers and sisters sharing in equal dignity and worth. It’s not about power or lording it over another. Your way is about service, about the emptying of self in love for the other’s good. There is vulnerability here. And I wonder if you are not saying that no one can imitate you without living in vulnerability.

You speak and hearts will have to change. How does a society that has as its prime values wealth, power and success hear your call to poverty for the sake of the masses and the living of the fundamental option for the poor? Something is going wrong even among those who preach in your name. Power is evidenced in the community. There is an elitism that only a few of the proper gender can enter. Access to your table is limited. All are not welcome there. Help us to hear this time. And to believe.

Isn’t it true that the conversion to which you call us is radical? We need to believe in the power of your love and in the relationship with God that is ours through you. We have been given a world of abundance. That abundance that some enjoy is not a sign of God’s favoritism as some would have it. God has given the abundance with the expectation that it will be distributed and shared. If there are those who are especially loved by God they are the poor. I have come to understand that if I want to find your crucified self I have to look into the eyes of the poor. When I hear the stories of innocent ones starving, dying from AIDS or malaria, I’m hearing your story today. It is not enough for me to have a romantic response to the story. It is not enough even for me to weep at the telling. I must minister to you there. Am I correct in concluding that you want all people to have access to potable water? Is it true that you find it abhorrent that medicines are withheld because of the lack of profit in their distribution? Do you rage when you see the bloated bellies and gaunt eyes of starving children while a small portion of the worlds population gorge themselves with the excess?

I wonder if this isn’t the kind of conversion, the commitment to work for the just distribution of this world’s abundance, that you call us to as we listen to the word in this new cycle of readings. There may be two women grinding at the mill. Please help one to hear and be taken by the message. If there are two men out in the field empower one to hear and so give himself to the realization of your dream. Let it happen to me.

Why don’t we wince when we hear Paul urge us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh? Dare we ever ask what he could possibly mean? Dare I wonder if he is speaking to me? And if he is, will you help me to respond the way you want me to?

I do believe your day is at hand, nearer than when I first believed.

Sincerely,

Didymus