A Homliy - The First Sunday of Advent, A Holy Day of Obligation (Year A)

First Reading – Isaiah 2:1-5 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 121(122):1-2, 4-5, 6-9 ©

Second Reading – Romans 13:11-14 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Palms 84:8

The Gospel According to Matthew 24:37 - 44 ©

(NJB)

Listen to the prophet

The Law of God is one law for all people. The purpose of the law is to lead the people to peace.

This is the law:

Love God with all your strength and all your heart and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Remember this: Zion is a metaphor, it stands for the center of our being, Zion represents our heart, each of us individually and the whole of us collectively.

Zion is the heart of hearts, and in the deepest chamber of our heart is the holy of holies, the place where God; the creator of the universe has written the immutable law.

It is there in the heart of hearts where God has inscribed the indelible commandment; that we love one another as God loves us, and that we return God’s love through the service we give to our neighbors, our friends and family, and the stranger in our midst.

It is in the other that God is present to us.

When the law is fulfilled in us our salvation is complete and the savior’s work is done, death will have been defeated, pain and suffering will have departed from the world.

When the law has been fulfilled we will have no need for anyone to come with power and authority to adjudicate between us. When the law has been fulfilled the world will be at peace, the people of God, all people in all places at all times, God’s children will be as one.

Consider the wisdom of the psalmist: you were conceived in the womb of salvation

Open your eyes, you do not have to seek that which has already found you.

Consider again the words of the psalmist and forget all the talk of secure cities, and ramparts, and thrones. God has nothing to do with them.

God, the creator of the universe, the living God is not a tribal deity.

God, the creator of the universe, the eternal God does not belong to one people, one nation, one world or one galaxy.

God is infinite and eternal and beyond our comprehension, and God yet with us and within us; God is the being through whom and in whom we have our existence.

Stay awake!

Listen to the apostle; it is always dark somewhere in the world, and somewhere in the world it is always light. It is easy to hide in plain sight. It is hard to work for the good and keep it private. Whether in private or in public, live up to the expectations you have set for yourself in your relationship with the divine.

Know that God loves you; Act as if everything you do will be known by all, because it will in the end when God is all in all.

Forget all about dressing God in glory, God is not a nationalist, and promoting that image of God is to promote a god of fear, a false image.

Promote the God of love, a God beyond all tribalism, all national borders and boundaries.

Reject the image of God as king, dread lord, and tyrant.

Promote a God of humility, as Jesus was humble and taught us to be; live decently and free from addiction.

God is the creator of the entire universe, all lands belong to God; all seas, all planets, all stars, all galaxies; along with everything and everyone in them.

God did not end the captivity of Jacob, they Israelites did.

Be mindful, this is not hubris; it is the truth.

It is a greater hubris to think that God loves a special people, a single tribe above all others than to think that the Israelites escaped bondage under their own power.

Know this!

God is never angry or indignant with the people, God will not rescue us from the plight and misery of this world; that is for us to do for ourselves, but more importantly it is for us to do for each other.

Consider the Gospel for today, and know that the future history of the world has not been written.

Any suppositions about our future on Earth is merely guesswork. Some guesses are more informed than others, we can speak in terms of possibility and probability, but we cannot know anything about the days and nights to come.

Nothing is fixed, change is the only constant and everything is uncertain.

There are thousands of ways in which the plans we have laid, or the hopes that we cherish can come undone; lightening will strike, a tornado will blow, a meteor will fall, a volcano explode. A person in the fullness of their life may trip and fall, hit their head and die, leaving everything behind them without, it can happen without warning.

The promises we have received from God are not for this world.

God has promised to bring an end to suffering, injustice, hunger, illness. We can believe in this promise, but those promises are not of this world. These promises concern the world to come, a world in which human beings are not subject to the vicissitudes of the material condition, or the hungers of the flesh.

I cannot speak of that world, I will not pretend to because I have never seen it.

No one living has.

Our belief in a loving God, our hope in the words of the prophets, our trust in the Gospel, these allow us to believe that this world is real, but anyone who pretends to know for certain is over stating their case, or simply lying.

This is what we have been taught, and we should stick to it: we can live out our present lives as if the actuality of those promises were real.

That is the secret of the Christian way.

If we are just and loving, if we care for one another, then we do not have to wait for the end of time, or the world to come. We can experience something of the promise in the here and now.

In those moments, God is with us. God is always with us, but in those moments when we are working with God to bring about that better world, then God is with us in a special way, in a sacramental union.

If we trust in the reality of the things we hope for, we make it easy to live our lives as if it were true, and thereby manifest it for ourselves.

To the extent that fulfill the promise in our own lives, the presence of God is engendered among us. It is like inviting Jesus to have a seat at the table, he will have come. That will not the end of things, but the beginning.

First Reading – Isaiah 2:1-5 ©

The Lord Gathers All Nations Together Into the Eternal Peace of God's Kingdom

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In the days to come the mountain of the Temple of the Lord shall tower above the mountains and be lifted higher than the hills.

All the nations will stream to it, peoples without number will come to it; and they will say:

 

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths; since the Law will go out from Zion, and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

He will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples; these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles.

Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.

O House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 121(122):1-2, 4-5, 6-9 ©

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

I rejoiced when I heard them say:

  ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

And now our feet are standing

  within your gates, O Jerusalem.

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

It is there that the tribes go up,

  the tribes of the Lord.

For Israel’s law it is,

  there to praise the Lord’s name.

There were set the thrones of judgement

  of the house of David.

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

For the peace of Jerusalem pray:

  ‘Peace be to your homes!

May peace reign in your walls,

  in your palaces, peace!’

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

For love of my brethren and friends

  I say: ‘Peace upon you!’

For love of the house of the Lord

  I will ask for your good.

I rejoiced when I heard them say: ‘Let us go to God’s house.’

Second Reading – Romans 13:11-14 ©

Our Salvation is Near

You know ‘the time’ has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Gospel Acclamation – Palms 84:8

Alleluia, alleluia!

Let us see, O Lord, your mercy

and give us your saving help.

Alleluia!

The Gospel According to Matthew 24:37 - 44 ©

The Son of Man is Coming at an Hour You Do Not Expect

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes. Then of two men in the fields one is taken, one left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.

‘So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’

The First Sunday of Advent, A Holy Day of Obligation (Year A)