Friends, I was reminded today, that I didn’t share my homily as usual to the web yesterday. All I can say is that I was coming off a long, lovely weekend of Thanksgiving with family, and the first snowstorm of the season that caused us to cancel Mass due to wanting to keep people save….have a good week! Pastor Kathy

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My friends, those of you who have been part of our parish for a while have heard me say over the years that I love the Season of Advent, and for the newer folks, now you have heard it too!  I think a part of why I love this season is that it calls us to be counterculture, slowing a bit at a time that is all about rushing.  Enter Advent, and the call to balance – to slowing down so as not to miss the true joy that Christmas time can bring. 

   I am of course talking about our culture’s tendency to rush Christmas’ coming – which can be so wonderful that we can’t wait!  Advent, almost a full four weeks this year, gives us the time to prepare well, a step at a time.  Having just finished a Church Year that at its end gave us opportunity to ask, “How did we do this year in basically, being our best, and how might we like to do better this next year?”

   I personally find what helps me most in getting ready for Christmas is a balance between what I will call “Advent things and Christmas things,” and they do overlap a bit.  The Advent preparation might be as simple as reading the Sunday Scriptures and then thinking on how the themes found in the gospel stories for instance affect us here and now.

• Mary traveling to be with her aunt Elizabeth to both comfort her in her pregnancy come late in life, and Mary’s search for belief and confirmation in the miracle that has befallen her.
• John the Baptist’s journey “finding a straight path in the wilderness of life,” not unlike our own personal searches for meaning and truth. 
• Joseph and his seemingly dashed dreams of fulfillment – something we all experience in life from time to time.

     All these stories my friends are only meaningful if we let them become so –if we try to see how they are like our own stories. 

   In the beginning I mentioned that it is important to prepare, little by little for a big event.  Perhaps a personal story will make this clearer.  About a month ago, Robert and I were visiting our son Isaac and daughter-in-law, Lauren. She and I came upon a wonderful sounding recipe for Pecan Cream Pie.  Since we were there for a long weekend, we decided to make this treat that comes right out of the Amish Cookbook which tells you immediately that it would be very rich in ingredients. 

   There were several steps in making this wonderful treat and Lauren and I decided to split up the sections to make it easier and go quicker. “Cutting to the chase” so to speak, this recipe needed much fine-tuning, it wasn’t something you could rush – each step had to be done in order to make it turn out. 

   It took us most of the day from reading the lengthy recipe to actually doing each part.  We decided that the recipe was poorly written and because we wanted to make it for Thanksgiving, I would rewrite the recipe and we would tag-team on it, each doing a part as was suggested, slowing it down.  Taking our time made it come together in a much better way.

   Advent calls us to this kind of slowing down, not rushing to the joy that Christmas time brings before we have really prepared.  Anything that is really important takes time to bring about –I think of awaiting a new baby, studying to earn a degree that may lead to a job, and so on.  I find that sending out Christmas cards and letters helps me do this slowing down, connecting with many that I only do, once a year.  For others, it may be something else.

   The Scriptures for today speak of  “dark and light;” encouraging us to move, evermore toward “the light.”  It is an interesting concept, here in the Midwest, as we live, at this time of year more in physical “darkness,” than light. 

   Isaiah, in today’s 1^st reading encourages [walking] “in the light of our God.”  And to him this would mean, “not [raising] the sword against another, nor [training] “for war again.”

   In a better world, can we imagine a time when “we train for peace, instead of war?”  Many times, we find that after long wars end, conflicts still remain – all too true in our world today.  From Alcoholics Anonymous comes the following wisdom –  “to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity.”

   Paul in his letter to the Romans says basically, [it’s time] “to wake from sleep.”  Matthew’s gospel for today tells us to “be prepared.”  Had we met today, we would have sung that prayer at the beginning of Mass. 

   Isaiah’s mention today of God’s home being on a “high mountain,” exegetes tell us is not so much about a place, but more so about us, as God’s people working evermore to be about love – a higher good – as opposed to hate in our lives.

   Dan Schutte, former active Jesuit priest and composer, who in recent years has given on-line retreats said of Advent [it’s all] “about joy, as God created us for this.”  He too though, speaks of preparing well – “There is always more in us that needs light shed upon it.”  And he concludes that thought with, “All who choose to accept the light, share it and spread it.”  As we said last week, it is not enough to say, “Here I am,” but, “we are ready” to do our part to make our world better. 

   A final thought as we begin this holy season – Advent really calls us, “to be aware” of all that is around us, over and above the upset and distrust, even meanness which may be around us.  Having just celebrated Thanksgiving, hopefully you found much, or at least, some things to be grateful for.  And that brings us back to awareness and not rushing through life.  George Carlan I think said it well. [It’s] “ not the number of breaths we take, but the moments that take our breath away!”  Awareness – my friends, preparation, and joy!  Amen? Amen!

   My friends, in most Catholic and Christian churches today, except for ours,  you would hear that we are celebrating the feast of, “Christ the King.”  Here, we name this feast, Jesus, the Christ, our Brother and Friend, and we do that for a definitive reason – Jesus never claimed to be a “king” and never wanted that title.  This Church feast is, in fact, just 100 years old this year! 

   Pope Pius XI, in 1925, established this feast as he felt that Catholics were forgetting about Jesus and that this feast would re-establish his place in our lives.  It is too bad that the emphasis was in “Jesus’ power over us” rather than uplifting his life and encouraging us humans to “walk in his footsteps.” 

   So, as always, let’s look at the Scriptures.  Each selection today speaks in one way or another about what the people, in the times of the book of Samuel in the Old Testament, Paul in the New Testament, and in the gospel of Luke would expect from a would-be king or leader. 

   In the 1^st reading from Samuel, the people come to David, their would-be king and ruler and tell him that he will “shepherd” them – an interesting take and connection to David’s earlier occupation of “shepherd to the sheep” – now he will “shepherd” people.  The peoples’ response is “Here we are” [!]

   As an aside, in the early days of Roman Catholic Women Priests ordinations, many of us, me included, placed the words, “Here we are,” on banners, and added, “We are ready” as our statement of faith in what God was doing within us. 

   These words, “Here we are” seem appropriate today, indicating that in response to our baptisms, not only are “we here,” but that, “we are ready” to do our part.

   As we think about David and his call, “to shepherd” his people, we realize another of the reasons for using the right, perhaps more correct names for our leaders.  There is the human tendency to, “take power,” if we are given it, and “run with it,” forgetting “why” this power was entrusted to us in the 1^st place.  If we recall the story of David, we remember that he forgot “to shepherd,” for a time, and opted for “reigning,” as in “king,” instead, until he once again found his way. 

   It is interesting in this light, to consider the term, “reverend,” a term that many priests, both male and female use as a title.  “Reverend” comes from the Latin, reverendus, meaning [one who is] to be revered/must be respected.  For me, it seems that, just because “one is ordained,” doesn’t mean they should automatically, “be respected,”  but rather, by their actions. 

   And for that reason, I use the title, “pastor,” as it continuallly reminds me, to try “to pastor” folks, not “rule them.”  A small example to this point is of a newly ordained male back a few years ago who told me that he “demanded” that his parishioners call him, “Father” – it always struck me that his stance of “demanding,” was all wrong. 

   The second reading from Paul to the Colossians shows us his relationship to Jesus, as, “the Christ” – as this was the only way Paul knew Jesus, as they had never met as humans, one to the other.  If we reflect on “the Christ” as theologians and Franciscans, Sister Ilia Delio and Father Richard Rohr speak of Jesus, we realize, “this” Christ is a “big enough” God for all believers, “a Cosmic Christ,” yet Paul’s understanding is more narrow –Paul’s “Christ” is one who came “to save us from our sins” “through Jesus’ death on the cross,” as he speaks of it in today’s 2^nd reading, as if that was the only reason for Jesus becoming human.  We know today from modern exegesis that in one sense, Jesus did “come to save us,” but, in a larger sense, “from ourselves,” by showing us, “the way” to live and to love. 

   In Luke’s gospel selection for today, it is clear that the soldiers ridiculing Jesus as he dies, didn’t understand either why he came.  Interestingly though, one of the men dying alongside him did! “This one has done nothing wrong” [as he spoke of Jesus’ earthly life of justice, mercy, compassion and love for us humans.

   The fact is, though, what he said about Jesus is not entirely true—that “Jesus had done nothing wrong.”  In the eyes of the powers-that-were in Jesus’ time—he had done plenty wrong! Jesus was advocating that the leaders deal out justice for all, especially the least among them, and criticizing them for not being the “servants” that true kings and leaders should be.  The only way to silence such a one, or so they thought, was the punishment that Jesus was suffering. 

   So, my friends, if we are to be true followers of our brother Jesus, then we cannot get caught up in the theology “that God sent Jesus to die for our sins.”  If we stay there, then Jesus “does” it all—there is nothing for us to do, but live, without ever questioning, never looking at ourselves, never taking the responsibility for our own actions and doing our part. 

   Jesus came to show us how to live our human experience in the best way.  Sometimes that may get us into trouble, as it did Jesus, but we are expected as his followers to get out into our world, in the midst of the sometimes mess we find there, as in our present time, and to do our part to make things better.  Jesuit and social activist in the 1980s, Dan Berrigan, was known to have said,  “If you want to follow Jesus, you better look good on wood!” 

   In conclusion then, let’s home in on Jesus’ true mission for each of us—anything that isn’t ultimately about attempting to be our best through kindness, mercy, and justice for all, including ourselves—basically about love, should not be wasting our time.  And you will notice that I included, “ourselves,” as we can’t be there for others if we forget ourselves. It’s a balance.

   So, also as we said last week in concluding another, Year of Grace, this “being a Christian” isn’t easy – it will at times call us to some hard decisions, most likely, not “crucifixion,” but sometimes standing alone, even among family and friends.  But we must remember that we have strong shoulders to stand on in our brother and friend, Jesus, the Christ!” Amen? Amen!