This weekend’s liturgy is entitled, “Gaudete”—in our vernacular, “Joy.” We are almost to Christmas, when we remember, Emmanuel—“God with us” coming into our lives. We signify it by lighting a rose or white candle. I am wearing a rose stole today.

All the readings speak of joy.  Paul says, “Rejoice always, pray constantly and give thanks for everything!” Isaiah’s reading begins with the famous lines that Jesus quotes, making them his own at Nazareth when he begins his public life. “The Spirit of God is upon me, sending me to bring good news to the poor, to heal broken hearts, to proclaim release to the captives and liberation to the imprisoned. This tells us in no uncertain terms where justice will be meted out.  We saw this same message in our sung psalm today—Mary’s ballad of justice for the downtrodden in Luke—her Magnificat!

From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to its end, he was about bringing us to life and that life to fullness. It is precisely in bringing the good news to the poor, imprisoned, those held captive, that as Isaiah says, a year of favor will come upon them and their suffering will be over.  It is good to remember that in the Jewish tradition of Jesus’ time, every 50 years was a Jubilee Year wherein land and other good things taken from the poor were to be given back.

In doing good things for the least among us, we become people who like our brother Jesus, “turn things on their heads”—break from the status quo, to be his true followers.

Now at first glance; we might agree with this, but upon further reflection, we might ask, why we would want to change things–why can’t we be satisfied that while life isn’t perfect—it’s OK?   And my friends, Jesus’ life among us answers that question—as long as the least among us lives in unjust circumstances; we cannot rest.  As long as everyone is not given their voice, is not allowed to live by their well-formed conscience, even if it goes against orthodoxy; we cannot rest. When we think of what it is to be Christian, even human—are we not called to do all we can to make sure that people have at least, the basics in life, as I spoke of in last Sunday’s homily about the homeless in Winona, across this country and around our world?  Can we truly enjoy the extras in life when there are those without the basics? Can those who are privileged to be the gender of choice in church and society stand by while women are discounted because of how they happened to have been born?

Jaimie Mason, columnist for the National Catholic Reporter spoke well to the issue this past week in an article wherein she drew the connection between the sexual abuse we are currently hearing about in every walk of public life to that of the sexual abuse within the Catholic church and rightly names its cause, in both instances, as “patriarchy.”

In her article she quotes feminist author and activist, bell hooks, who speaks about the roots of this male aggression and violence.  She said that since the first revelations about Weinstein, she had read many commentaries and hardly any commentator had used the word, “patriarchy” to explain the root cause of all this bad behavior. “We want to act like this is individual male psychopathology,” hooks said, rather than admit that this behavior has been normalized for men by a patriarchal system.

Mason goes on, “Lately it feels like every day another man vanishes from the limelight, as if taken by a plague.  But in these cases, the pestilence was of their own making.”  And as hooks points out, patriarchy created the conditions under which it could breed.

Patriarchy is any system in which men hold power and women are largely excluded from it.  In a patriarchal structure, powerful men dominate women, children, nature and other men.  Frequently, one of the key ways that men predominate over women is by fixating on and controlling female sexuality.

Mason continues, “The Catholic church may not have invented patriarchy, but it has certainly sanctified it.  The patriarchal system that allowed famous actors, producers and newsmen to move about like gods is not much different from the patriarchy that has for centuries told priests that they are divine, exceptional men, set apart to rule over a lowly and lost laity.”

In another NCR article this past week, Bishop Vincent Long Van (new-yen)Nguyen of Australia comes at this abuse by addressing the Church culture wherein patriarchy thrives—that of clericalism and told his priests, in so many words that it must end if the Church is to recover from this scandal and truly be the Church of our brother Jesus.  Priests and bishops should not see themselves as above the people they are called to serve—they are servants, not little gods, as Pope Francis has spoken of so many times and tries to emulate in his papacy.

Isaiah speaks today of being “wrapped in a mantle of justice” and “clothed in a robe of deliverance.” As prophet, his challenge is to speak this word—our challenge as Jesus’ followers is to try to live this out in our daily lives.  “Just as a garden brings its seeds to blossom; our God makes justice sprout,” proclaims Isaiah. Our loving God can simply do nothing else but strive to bring justice.  And how does that justice happen, my friends? It happens through each of us, or it doesn’t happen!

Paul tells us that “we should not stifle the Spirit,” that we should accept only what is good.  John the evangelist gives us the Baptist’s words in a slightly different script than last week and we are reminded that he is one “crying in the wilderness” that we make straight our God’s road.  When I think of prophets, “crying in the wilderness,” I can’t help but think that this past week, we remembered that five years ago 20 six and seven year-olds and six adults were slaughtered at Sandy Hook Elementary school and of how the parents of the children have cried out in an apparent wilderness to our so-called leaders in Washington that they pass legislation that would make it harder for those who shouldn’t have access to guns to obtain them, to no avail.

So, we know that making the road straight is about filling in the valleys, moving mountains if need be.  We aren’t given a necessarily easy task—making the road straight is as Paul says, about “avoiding any semblance of evil.”

But yet, this is “JOY Sunday.” Again, Paul says, “Rejoice always, pray constantly and give thanks for everything.”  I believe we are able to do all that is required and asked of us today if we do it in balance—no one of us can do it all—but each of us can do something with our own gifts and talents that no one else can do just like us.  Each of us needs to find our own way.

The rejoicing comes out of our prayer and out of our grateful hearts—for everything that comes to us—both the good and the bad. Now, is it always easy to be grateful for everything?  Of course not! The parents of the 20 children from Sandy Hook are certainly a case in point.  Some of those parents have spent the last five years coming up with the Sandy Hook Promise, a program that is being utilized across this country to help children to get to know each other, to care about each other and to be aware when someone might be in trouble and help them before things escalate. Everything—each piece of our lives is part of our unique journey to God and possibly only when we achieve heaven will we know completely what the journey was all about.

Maybe our usual way of doing things won’t be good enough anymore.  It has always been my conviction; that we, as Christians, if we are true to the name—should not look just like the crowd! We should resemble Jesus and be shaking things up a bit.

In this next week, as we make final preparations to remember Jesus’ first coming among us, the words of my friend, Jim Callan, co-pastor with Mary Ramerman of Spiritus Christi parish in Rochester, New York are good ones to reflect on: “Jesus is coming and coming and coming throughout time and history, he comes anew each day, in each person we meet if we believe truly in his words, ‘I will be with you—ALWAYS!’ ”    Amen? Amen!

Friends, it would seem that silence is one of the gifts of Advent if we can find the space in our days to slow down a bit, ponder our life as a follower of our brother Jesus and seek the wisdom that his Spirit brings us.  Silence, it would seem, is the necessary component for us to really hear what is going on all around us, to really hear what is on people’s minds.

On Tuesday evening, Robert and I spent the night at the Winona Warming Center offering shelter for homeless people living in Winona.  I believe that knowing that there are people in our midst who are homeless should be a cause for great concern for all of us who do have homes.  It isn’t ours to judge why people are homeless so as to blame them, as much as it is ours to look on them with compassion, realizing that we could find ourselves in such a state if the right set of circumstances befell us.

As I listened to the stories of two people who talked with me individually at different points in the night, as each suffered from wakefulness; I came to understand this very truth—if I hadn’t had good support people in my life at certain key moments, had the “intestinal fortitude,” as my high school principal, Paul Nelson used to say; I could perhaps be homeless today too.  It seems that one major psychological-emotional or physical hurt in a person’s life can trigger a lifetime of what may appear to others, not experiencing the same thing, as bad choices, while the person afflicted is merely trying to make the pain go away.

And the truth of the matter is, as life happens to each of us; we are all fragile and could find ourselves falling through the cracks too. Given that reality, that we are all vulnerable, what if our country, as other countries have done, had a safety net for when people fall on hard times and were offered a hand up?

The ailments that can befall a person are many such as the woman I talked with on Tuesday evening related. She described herself as a single, adult woman, homeless, an addict, and with mental illness—she came from alcoholic parents.  This is a multitude, in my mind, of afflictions to befall a person and she told me that when her depression is really bad, she turns to alcohol and other drugs just to feel better or to perhaps, feel nothing.

Sometimes, those of us, who aren’t so afflicted, might wonder how people can be like this, when there are social programs to help—right?  And depending on who is in Washington, those programs can be more, or less.

We might wonder too why people have no homes. The woman I talked with told me that she has five children, but no one wants her because of the choices she has made.  She told me through tears, because she deeply loves her children, for them to be in her life again seems contingent on her getting drug-free and dry.

She spoke very intelligibly to me of how our country looks on all of these problems, from caring for the mentally ill, to housing and feeding our people. She spoke of such people, including herself, who are alienated from others, when being with people is what they most need to get better. Being alienated leads to spiraling downward. And in a very poignant moment she said to me, “I can tell when people don’t really understand how it is out there, and no offense intended, but I can tell talking with you that you don’t know what it is really like.”  I responded that she was right, I have never experienced being homeless and couldn’t imagine what it is like!”

We might also think that some people choose to live off of government assistance and that we enable them by continuing such programs.  My experience with these sisters and brothers of ours, for that is who they are, is that they don’t choose ultimately to be this way.  The woman I spoke of told me of spending a night in an outdoor port-a-potty.  It was safe and out of the wind. Now, you don’t choose to live this way if there is any other way!  But now, she has a choice with the Warming Center and we as a community should be so grateful to the Community Bible church for offering their facility.

One gentleman who availed himself to the care of the Warming Center on Tuesday evening told me that he is presently being treated with chemotherapy for bone cancer and that after his treatments, he doesn’t feel very good.  He went on to say; rather matter-a-factly, that it is hard when you don’t have anywhere to go afterward to lie down.

I asked him if the doctor knew that he was homeless?  Again, rather matter-a-factly, he said, “Yes.”  Maybe that is how we all act in the face of situations that seem too big to handle—we do nothing.

Two of today’s readings speak to us about, “a voice crying out,” about “clearing a path,” about “making it straight.” Jesus, our brother, came to do just that.

Advent calls us friends to silence in order to hear our God’s call in the voices of the homeless, the addicted, the hungry, the lost and alone—to not only help the immediate need, which I think we all do to one extent or another, but to get to the root causes of why our country tolerates these conditions.  Once we have that answer then we must cry out to our legislators and whoever else will listen, to make the needed changes.  If we are all truly sisters  and brothers, then we must work to have a safety net in place for any of us who might at one time need it so that none of us ever has to go without a home, without food, clothing or someone to befriend us.

Peter’s letter to us today speaks of “awaiting new heavens” and that “God’s justice will reside” and finally, that “God will wait for us” –to do what is needed.

As I have said so many times here—God’s work will only get done if we do it!”

May we all be challenged!