2nd Sunday in Advent
December 6, 2015
10 AM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
John the Baptist is irritating. And he wouldn’t have it any
other way. That may be why I find him so annoying. He actually
seems to revel in it, being annoying that is. And yet in every single
Advent, regardless of what cycle of readings we are in, we are reintroduced again to John. He is an essential figure in Advent.
And so here in St. Luke’s version we have John introduced in
grand, high-regal style. Borrowing characters from both religious
history and secular history, Luke also introduces other figures we
will see later in the gospel “In the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and
Herod was Tetrarch of Galilee…during the high priesthood of
Annas and Caiaphas…the Word of God came to John, the son of
Zechariah in the desert.”
By the way, all the original listeners or readers of Luke gospel
know the end of the story. We all know the end of the story too.
Even the infancy narratives are never far from the shadow of the
cross. We all know the part Herod will play in John’s own death.
We all know when Pilate’s next entrance will come—in the
Praetorium. We know how Annas and Caiaphas will rend their
garments and accuse Jesus of blasphemy. And we know that Caesar
is no longer Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord.
John is, for St. Luke, the first herald of the New Covenant, just
as in St. Mark’s version of the gospel, John is the last of the great
Old Testament prophets. John is the pivotal bridge between the
two epochs of Jewish and Christian history.
But John doesn’t really have a message of his own. He is a
“pointer.” Sure he preaches repentance, metanoia, re-thinking the
balance in our lives, focusing on what might be of ultimate value.
But he knows and says out loud, “the one who will speak wears
sandals I am not worthy to untie. Listen to him!”
And what will he say? What is Jesus’ message? Let me use the
words of an old friend, Henri Nouwen (he was always better with
words than most). “Jesus’ whole message is to say you are God’s
beloved child…. When you can hear in your heart, not in your head,
that you are truly God’s beloved daughter, that you are truly God’s
beloved son, everything turns around. The mystery of this
spiritual truth is that you were loved before you were born, and
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you will be loved after you die…. Your dwelling in God’s heart is a
dwelling from eternity to eternity (“Discovering Our Gift Through
Service to Others”).
You don’t suppose this is what “Opening the Door of Mercy”
this year might mean, do you? I do! Asked earlier this week what
he was really expecting from the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis said:
“I expect the church this year to establish a revolution of
tenderness.” And Francis reminds us consistently to remember
that God’s greatest name, God’s greatest attribute is God’s Mercy.
Not, as some of us were taught growing up, God’s Omnipotence or
God’s Omniscience! But the Miseriordia Dei, the Mercy of God.
And what does mercy actually look like these days? Watch
the Pope. Mercy looks like a big red clown’s nose on his face.
Mercy looks like a tiny Fiat in a long line of Mercedes and
Escalades. Mercy says rather fearlessly, “Who am I to judge?”
Mercy says to a Lutheran/Catholic couple seeking to receive
Eucharist together, “I’m no theologian, but, One Faith, One Baptism,
One table. You have a conscience.”
Mercy spends time with sometimes strange people: the
physically deformed, prisoners, the elderly, gay people in
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partnered relationships, children, broken people, people of all
faiths and people of no faith. Mercy is, perhaps above all, free!
Mercy is filled to the brim with human freedom. Brothers and
sisters, that’s what Francis models—and occasionally even in
words.
Let’s listen again to Jeremiah’s secretary, the so-called minor
prophet, Baruch: “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and
misery; put on the splendor of glory from God forever…for God is
leading Israel in joy by the light of his glory, with his mercy and
justice for company.”
God’s mercy that we celebrate for all of next year is not so
much about thinking more correctly theologically, nor is it even
about feeling “warm fuzzies” in my spiritual life. God mercy shines
forth in what we do with and for each other. In “mercy-ing.”
We will all finally be judged by the end of Matthew’s gospel,
the infamous Matthew 25. “I was hungry and you gave me food. I
was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. In prison and you
visited, naked and you clothed me, etc. That’s mercy-ing!
In NCR’s “Young Voices” feature, a young man, Mike Laskey
offers further examples. He first quotes our very own BC Professor
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of Christian ethics Fr. Jim Keenen, S.J. defining mercy as “the
willingness to enter into the chaos of another’s life.”
Then Laskey says, “Mercy is the Holy Child Jesus church in
Queens. When a mother in clear chaos leaves her new-born son in
a manger in front of their church, several parishioners stepped
forward to adopt him.
Mercy is the Intergenerational Learning Center in Seattle, a
pre-school inside a nursing facility where both kids and seniors
interact in marvelous ways all day.
Mercy is a mother who sleeps on the floor of her three year
old son’s bedroom at 2 AM because he thinks there are monsters in
there.
Mercy in Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in Philadelphia where you can
spend an extra dollar to have a post-it note put up on the wall.
Homeless members of the community are then welcome to come in
and trade the note for a slice of pizza.
Mercy is the prodigal son, the woman caught in adultery,
Matthew the unscrupulous tax collector, Peter the denier. They are
not condoned but redeemed.
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Here’s the point: as irritating as John the Baptist may be, as
much as he may get under our skin, as much as he may be appalling
with his grasshopper diet and unkempt hair, and camel’s hair
attire, he does have an important message for us—all of us even
thousands of years later. Mercy is God’s greatest name. Celebrate
it in how we live. This is a Year of Mercy! Welcome to Advent
2015. Peace!
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