November 2005 Sánchez Commentaries and Sample Homilies

THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMENovember 6, 2005Tomorrow or Today?

Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

WIS 6:12-16 1 THESS 4:13-18MATT 25:1-13

Are you a procrastinator? Is it your habit to put off until another time what could be done today? History is replete with anecdotal evidence of the effects, both small and great, of procrastination. In 1902, on the island of Martinique, 30,000 people died as the result of the eruption of Mount Pelee. Although forewarned of the eruption by a week, those in authority had put off alerting the islanders. Similarly catastrophic was the final voyage of the steamship Central America. Sailing from New York to San Francisco, the ship sprang a leak and a rescue ship was summoned. When it arrived, the captain of the Central America decided to put off the transfer of the passengers until the next day. In the morning light, however, the rescuers discovered that the ship had sunk and her passengers had perished.

In a much lighter vein, a man found a shoe repair ticket while cleaning out his desk. Although it was 10 years old, he decided he had nothing to lose and went to the shop and gave the ticket to the repairman. After searching in the back room for several minutes, the shoemaker returned and gave the ticket back to the man. “What’s wrong?” asked the man. “Couldn’t you find my shoes?” “Oh, I found them,” replied the repairman, “and they’ll be ready next Friday.”

Physician and evolutionist Thomas Huxley (Technical Education, 1881) insisted that the “most valuable result of all education and training is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned, yet, however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson he learns thoroughly.” Too many people relegate the day of reckoning to the far-off future; they think that for now we can forget about the accounting we will be expected to render at the end of time.

Sometimes, some of us are shaken out of what has become a habit of procrastination by a struggle that befalls us or someone dear to us. Cancer strikes, or Alzheimer’s, or a stroke or a heart attack, and all of a sudden priorities shift, perspective sharpens and things long put off begin to get done. Suddenly time has become a precious commodity and no longer something to waste. But rather than wait for some hardship or tragedy to set our spiritual gears in motion, the church, in its wisdom, offers us an annual jolt.

Paul, in his correspondence with the Thessalonians (second reading), reminds his readers that our readiness should be characterized by hope and mutual consolation. We need not worry unduly, as some of Paul’s Greek converts tended to do. Authentic faith

and a vital hope should preclude such a misuse of time, energy and emotion; better to be given over to seeking and being found by wisdom (first reading). Those who find her find God; those who find God find themselves free from care, full of hope and duly prepared for all the knowns and unknowns of life.

With Paul and the author of Wisdom to inspire us, let us learn once again the lesson of the bridesmaids. Instead of procrastinating and finding ourselves unready to welcome the returning Jesus, let us live prepared to meet him anytime, anywhere and in whatever manner of encounter he may choose. To that end, the priest and poet Edward Hays offers “The Procrastinator Psalm”:

“Forgive me, my Beloved Friend, for I procrastinate, even postponing till tomorrow any personal conversion, any real reform of my life. Forgive me, for I love my habits more than I love you. I prefer my old daily ruts to traveling new roads, to becoming a new person in Christ. I prophylactically protect myself with my pious prayers that comfort me in my life of holy compromise instead of embracing your message of reform and radical change. Pardon first of all my procrastination, the enabler of all my other sins, and give me the penance to live each day as if it were the day of my death, so I can become serious about converting the root sins that really need reform. In all my efforts, I ask your help, Beloved Friend. I rely on your grace and goodness to do all I must to prepare to meet you, not tomorrow or the next day or whenever it shall be convenient, but today, in this moment, now. Amen!”

Wis 6:12-16 In her collection of mystical experiences titled Scivias, the 12th-century German

abbess Hildegard of Bingen described wisdom in glowing terms as “a very beautiful figure … She is the great ornament of God and the broad stairway of all the other virtues that live in God. Joined to God in sweet embrace, in a dance of ardent love, she is the Wisdom of God, for through her all things are created and ruled by God. She is adorned with the holy and just commandments, which are green like the first sprouts of the patriarchs and prophets and white like the virginity of Mary, and red like the faith of the martyrs, and brilliant blue like the lucent love of contemplation which, by the ardor of the Holy Spirit, mandates love for God and one’s neighbor.” This colorful description draws together the testimonies of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which featured Wisdom respectively as God’s helpmate and partner and as the very Word of God become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Regardless of how differently Wisdom may be described, both Jews and Christians can concur that sincere seekers of Wisdom will be rewarded with an experience of the presence and creative power of the living God.

Contextually, today’s first reading by the first-century B.C.E. sapiential author is featured as advice given by Israel’s famed king Solomon to his fellow monarchs. The ancient writer, speaking for Solomon, exhorted his royal colleagues to follow his lead and seek Wisdom above every other treasure, to seek her wholeheartedly and untiringly. The writer assured his readers that Wisdom is not elusive. On the contrary, Wisdom, a gift of God Most High, places herself in the path of the seeker. Just to begin the search for her is to find her.

Wisdom, promised the ancient writer, shall be found sitting by the city gate (v. 14) —happy news for those who are charged with the responsibility, royal or not, of leading others in truth and justice. As John L. McKenzie (Dictionary of the Bible, Macmillan Publishing Co. Inc., New York: 1965) has pointed out, the area of the city gates was the place where elders sat and held court (Deut 21:19; 26:7; Prov 31:23). Cases large and small were brought to them, and their decision on the matter was legally binding on all parties (Pss 69:13; 127:5; Job 31:21; Amos 5:10). There, at the city’s gate, commercial transactions also took place and were legally authenticated (Gen 23:10) Ruth 3:11; 4:1). Metaphorically, “gate” was a term that stood for the entire house or city or country. Therefore, if a ruler were so fortunate as to have Wisdom herself seated at his gate, presiding over all that transpired there, then that ruler and all the domain would be fortunate indeed.

This text contributes toward a valuable lesson in worthy discipleship, paired as it is with today’s Matthean Gospel and its parable of the sensible and foolish bridesmaids. If we follow Christ, we must be willing to be surprised by the manner in which Jesus comes to us, and we must be ready to accept the unexpected. Wise and sensible disciples are being asked to consider whether they can recognize the Lord in his daily incursions into our lives in the persons of the needy, the hungry, the homeless. Can you pick him out, seated among the gray-haired and the lonely at the city gates? On the corner? Asleep on the park bench? If we are not wise enough to recognize the Lord among us in all these people, in all these ways, however shall we recognize him upon his ultimate return?

1 Thess 4:13-18Statisticians have determined that in an average lifespan of 72 to 75 years, any

given person may spend about 22 years working, 20 years sleeping, six years eating, five years dressing, almost a year and a half on the telephone, seven years at leisure and, along with a few other activities, at least three years waiting for someone or something. While a certain amount of waiting is certainly unavoidable, most of us prefer to make better use of our time and energies. However, among the earliest generations of Christians, waiting, i.e., waiting for the returning Lord Jesus, had become a way of life and a type of spirituality to be carefully cultivated. Waiting for Jesus and for all that his second advent would bring became a factor that shaped and influenced all other activities. Such was the perspective of the believers in Thessalonica whose eagerness to welcome the Lord prompted Paul’s correspondence with them.

Paul had preached the Good News in Thessalonica during his second missionary journey. His message was welcomed warmly and with great enthusiasm, such that when he moved on to other mission fields, Paul left behind a community so eager for the endtime that they had quit their jobs and abandoned their ordinary routines so as to devote themselves completely to preparing a worthy welcome for Jesus. When false teachers arrived in the city attacking Paul’s authority and criticizing the Gospel he preached as diluted and second-rate, many Thessalonians experienced a crisis of faith. Had they believed in vain? Had they been duped? These problems were exacerbated by the fact that some members of the community had died and it seemed likely that more would also pass away before Jesus’ return. Many worried that their loved ones would not be present to receive the coming Christ.

When Timothy reported these worries and concerns to Paul, he wrote quickly and with loving understanding to reassure his converts, to strengthen their faith and encourage them in their hope.

Reasoning from the principle that those who live and die in Christ will also rise to new life in Christ, Paul insisted that nothing, not even death, can breach the bond that unites Jesus Christ with those who believe in him. Because Christ, who lives, has conquered death, those who die before his return shall not be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, says Paul, “those who have died in Christ will rise first” (v. 16). Then, Paul called forth several of the recognized apocalyptic symbols (clouds, trumpets, angels’ voices) to paint for his readers a vision of joyous reunion with the Lord. Those faithful dead, along with the faithful who still live, will be together forever in Christ. Therefore, dear readers, live in hope.

Paul’s response, as Beverly Gaventa (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1995) has pointed out, demonstrates the inherent connection between his theological and his pastoral concerns. He addresses both the theological issue that has been raised as well as the emotional distress it has caused the Thessalonians. Rather than grieve, like those who have no hope, Paul exhorts his readers to affirm their faith in the resurrection of Jesus as well as in their own share in Jesus’ eternal life. Then, by virtue of a shared faith in the same theological truth, believers will be able to encourage or console one another (v. 13). It is not enough for Paul to encourage or for pastors and teachers to encourage. Christians need to hear and speak and share their faith with their fellow believers. This mutual ministry of encouragement not only sustains and strengthens the community; it also makes the community a living sign of hope in a hope-starved world. Therefore, let us console one another with this message … not tomorrow, but today and every day.

Matt 25:1-13The spiritual significance of this parable, unique to the Matthean Gospel, evolved

as it was passed on from generation to generation and accommodated to the changing times and circumstances of the growing church. When first spoken by the Matthean Jesus during his earthly ministry, the parable functioned as a lesson about the kingdom of God that had begun to be revealed in the person and through the mission of Jesus. Some readily welcomed Jesus and, with him, the reign of God. Others refused, and for their refusal of Jesus, they were warned that they would also be refused entrance into the wedding feast of the kingdom.

Adapted for us by the early church, the parable taught a lesson about being prepared for the return of Jesus, who is represented by the bridegroom. Although he was expected to return imminently, as is reflected in today’s second reading, the gap between Jesus’ advents was growing into decades and more. Because of this — what scholars have termed “delayed eschatology” — many were given over to disappointment, discouragement and even doubt. Urgency and enthusiasm began to yield to procrastination as many began to put off their preparation for what they had come to wonder would ever come to pass.

Since we continue to stand in the same space as the early Christians, and since we, too, live and wait and watch for the returning Jesus, what does this parable mean for

us? How does it challenge us? Does it reveal us to ourselves as a people prepared, or are we procrastinating about the most important encounter we shall ever experience?

Lest we misunderstand his point and think that we must never rest, the Matthean Jesus tells us that all the bridesmaids nodded off and fell asleep. Insomnia is not a requisite for welcoming Jesus. Rather, having one’s oil at the ready is what is required. But what constitutes that oil? Martin Luther was certain that the oil the sensible had and the foolish did not represents faith. Others have insisted that it was enduring love that caused the lamps of the sensible to burn brightly. A more popular solution equates good works with the oil. Recall that earlier in the Great Sermon, the Matthean Jesus urged his own to let their light shine so that all would see the good that they do and glorify God (5:16).

Douglas R.A. Hare (Matthew, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1993) warns against reading too much symbolism into the oil. Being ready for welcoming Jesus would, of course, require doing good, but the Matthean Jesus cites other very practical obligations as well: refraining from bad behavior (15:19); love for enemies (5:44); love of other believers (24:12); willing, frequent, unlimited forgiveness (18:21-35); loyalty to Jesus (10:32) and love of God (22:37). All of these are ways of watching, waiting and preparing for the coming Lord. All of these help to keep in check the tendency to procrastinate. It is not enough, insists Jesus, to wait until the last minute and cry out “Lord, Lord” (see Matt 7:21) and to pretend or presume a relationship that does not exist because we have not cultivated it. Indeed, the foolish bridesmaids did as much (v. 11) and found themselves on the outside of the festal door, rejected by One who claimed no knowledge of them (“I tell you, I do not know you!” v. 12). The returning Jesus will extend welcome only to those who watch and wait every day and every night, seeking out and doing the will of God in practical, palpable ways.

Sample Homily: “Hoping in God”November 6, 200532nd Sunday in Ordinary TimeFr. James Smith

Paul wrote that we should not be like those who have no hope — the hope of being with God forever.That is what hope finally is: the expectation of meeting God in

person. Hope is not the wish for good health or a raise or a loving relationship. All these are good and desirable things, well worth our energetic pursuit, but they do not reach the elegant height of the theological virtue of hope.Hope, along with faith and love, are called theological or divine

virtues because their object is God himself. All other virtues, such as mercy and honesty are called moral virtues because they are concerned with our ethical life, our relationship with others. You can only trust Tommy while you can believe in God; you can love Sally after a fashion while you can love God absolutely; you can wish for happiness while you can hope only in God.When we exercise the divine virtues of faith, hope and love, we are

dealing with God himself. But not with our own power, our own virtue. With all other virtues, we are dealing with fellow human beings, with equals, so we can relate to them on our own power. We and they can

naturally be patient and kind and forgiving because we are dealing with our own kind.But God is a different kind altogether. So we cannot believe in God

and hope in God and love God by our own strength. Our arms are short to box with God or do anything with God. God is entirely beyond our capacity to contact, totally beyond our ability to hear, touch taste, see, experience. Which means that whenever we really hope in God, we know that God himself is involved in that experience, that God himself met as halfway — or 9/10ths of the way.To repeat, hope is the expectation of finally meeting God personally,

directly. Every earthly experience of God is an indirect experience of God. It is more accurately an experience of the presence of God. God is beyond our finite experience. So, in our mortal condition, God can contact us only through limited things. When we get out of ourselves and lost in a feeling of wonder or beauty, then we have a sense of God’s presence. And we hope for the experience of God himself. When we say that we will see God face to face, that is only a fond wish, because God has no face. When we say that we will see God as God is, that is presumptuous. If we knew God as God knows himself, we would be God. Those are just our imperfect ways of saying that now we see God only through a mirror, but in heaven we will experience God directly, without having to go through anything.That should be an amazing hope. But some people are afraid that heaven

will be boring, that even God will get old. That is a reasonable idea, since all of our experience points in that direction. We are mesmerized by a beautiful picture until we see that it is only a matter of color; we are awed by goodness until we discover that is also self-serving; we are stunned by love until it becomes routine. How would God be different?Ah, all earthly things are limited. We can get our minds around truth,

our arms around possessions, our hearts around love. No matter how great any earthly experience, it and we are finally exhausted. But God is inexhaustible, without limit. Every experience of God opens up into another, more fascinating revelation of God’s goodness and beauty. Heaven is not the endless view of a Perfect Being. Heaven is the ever-increasing intimacy with boundless love. Your heart just keeps expanding without bursting. Forever.

THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMENovember 13, 2005“Go-Getters” for God

Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

PROV 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-311 THESS 5:1-6MATT 25:14-30

We all know them — the “go-getters” who take an idea or and run with it through the ups and downs of life until they achieve success. Our shared human story is made so much more interesting by these people who have started small and finished big, all

because they were bold enough to risk whatever was necessary to realize their goals. Some of these “go-getters,” such as David Thomas (Wendy’s), David Edgerton and James McLamore (Burger King) and Ray Kroc (McDonald’s) took a concept like “fast food” and made it what many find to be a “necessity” of life. Most of these entrepreneurs share similar stories. Like Glen Bell Jr., the founder of Taco Bell, who grew up in poverty and rode the rails during the Great Depression, most have overcome considerable obstacles before finding themselves numbered among Fortune’s 500. As Bell put it, “it is possible to have humble beginnings and, through hard work, to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.” But what is it that enabled these “giants” of industry to accomplish their purpose? How did they succeed where so many others have failed?

What, for example, made Abraham Lincoln continue to pursue a career in public service after two failures in business, eight defeats at various runs for public office, a nervous breakdown and the loss of a sweetheart to death? What would cause a person to continue to follow studies in science after being labeled a “misfit” by his teachers and “abnormal” by his parents because he had not learned to read by age nine? What would make him persevere after miserably failing his college entrance exams? Fortunately, these obstacles did not deter the man whom the world would later know and admire as Albert Einstein.

What, for that matter, would account for the disparity in the success rate of the servants featured in today’s Gospel? Therein, the Matthean Jesus tells of three persons who were entrusted by their employers with a share of money — each, as we are told, “according to his ability.” While two invested and recouped the employer’s money as well as a sizeable profit, the third took the route of the ostrich and buried the money, as well as any hope of a profit, in the ground. What made this third person fail where the others succeeded? Was it fear? Was it a lack of gumption? Was it laziness, as the employer’s angry words appear to suggest? Or was the servant simply unwilling to becoming as fully invested in his employer’s business as his employer had intended?

This servant called “worthless” (v. 30) and the others who are called “industrious,” “reliable” and “dependable” provide the lesson today for Jesus’ disciples. As sharers in the “business” of Jesus, i.e., of preaching and teaching the good news of salvation by word and example, we are called to be risk-takers who choose to commit ourselves to the cause of truth and justice and peace. While it may be safer to bury or to hold tight the good news that has been invested in us, we are challenged to be daring in its promulgation. We are to take it with us to people and to places that may not afford us welcome. We are to dare to speak its message even where and when it shall be deemed unpopular, unwanted or passé.

As Charles Cousar (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1995) has pointed out, today’s Gospel parable, as well as the other readings, clarifies the alternatives available to those who would share in Jesus’ Gospel ministry. To those who choose security over risk, the Lord will be shown to be a harsh taskmaster who, by his own admission, will reap and gather where he did not sow or scatter. Fearfulness only breeds more fear and diminishes the prospect of joy as well as the freedom of response. But those who dare to risk all they are and all they’ve been given will discover a Lord eager to share the power of his presence and the fulfillment that comes with participating in his mission. Those who dare to risk all in his service will discover a link with the teller of this story who knows all about risks and whose love is

neither prudent nor cheap nor calculating. Which would you rather hear when the end of your life becomes a new beginning: “Come share your master’s joy” or “You worthless, lazy lout”? The choice is yours and mine to make — today, each day, until the end.

PROV 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 Consider, please, these words of a valiant woman and mother who lived nearer to

our times than the woman who is featured in today’s excerpted text from Jewish sapiential literature:

“Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. No human creature could receive or contain so vast a flood of love and joy as I often felt after the birth of my child. With this came the need to worship, to adore. … The poor are Christ’s poor. He was one of them. … In the … Church, one never needs money to start a good work. People are what are important. If you have people and they are willing to give their work — that is the thing. God is not to be outdone in generosity” (from Eight Spiritual Heroes, by Brennan R. Hill, St. Anthony Messenger Press, Cincinnati: 2002).

When Dorothy Day died on November 29, 1980, her funeral was attended by all the sorts of people in whom she had seen and served God. Beggars, day laborers, bag ladies, executives, addicts, alcoholics, priests and nuns gathered to pay their respects. At the church door, as Cardinal Terence Cooke met her body to bless it, a demented person pushed through the crowd and bent low over Day’s coffin. No one interfered because all present knew that it was in such as this man that Dorothy Day had seen and reverenced the face of God. Just as the Proverbs author’s description of a worthy woman was a verbal portrait of Wisdom personified, so also are women like Dorothy Day personifications of the Wisdom or Word of Jesus Christ made real and tangible among us.

The Proverbs author offered this portrait for his contemporaries as encouragement in their efforts at living in accord with the promptings of God’s wisdom. Featured as feminine and as a partner to God, Wisdom embodies all the virtues to which women and men are to aspire. Strong and industrious, given wholly to family, she is also generous in her concern for the poor, making their needs an integral part of her daily agenda. These are enduring qualities, far superior to that physical attractiveness upon which too many relationships are shakily based. While the ancient author does not say that this heroine was “nothing to write home about,” he underscores the fleeting character of charm and physical beauty. His valiant woman’s comeliness lies in her relationship with God, of whom she stands in awe and because of whom she exudes goodness and graciousness to all.

Although only an abbreviated description of this wise woman has been offered to the praying assembly today, it is sufficient to inspire our admiration and to prompt our careful emulation. Wisdom was and continues to be that quality that should guide us in all our undertakings, whether these be as ordinary as making a house a home where family and friends are welcomed and loved (vv. 10, 13, 19) or as laudable as stretching out the bonds of family to include and care for the needy poor (v. 20) or as honorable as public service (v. 31). In all we are, in all we do, Wisdom leads us to be men and women who are undaunted “go-getters” for others, for the Gospel, for God.

1 THESS 5:1-6A frequently run television advertisement features a series of people who have

recently purchased a burglar alarm system for their homes. The system, duly installed, promises to alert the appropriate security system specialists and law enforcement authorities whenever the slightest breach is detected. Having been assured of their protection from a thief in the night, the homeowners respond enthusiastically, “At last, I will be able to go on vacation and finally be able to relax!”

In his letter, Paul would have the believers at Thessalonica be similarly assured that even if the return of Jesus were to surprise them “like a thief in the night,” they should be able to relax and go about their everyday activities — even vacations, if only they managed to live in a constant state of readiness. That readiness would require that those who await Jesus live as “children of the light and of the day” (v. 5).

The contrast between light and dark, day and night is a popular motif in Jewish apocalyptic literature, as well as in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian scriptures. The imagery references the “battle” that is constantly being waged between good and evil, justice and injustice, peace and war. Blessed by the saving death of Jesus on the cross, believers have also been blessed with the upper hand or advantage over evil, darkness and sin. Grace enables both the option to choose and the courage to live in the light and in the day, relaxed and without undue uncertainty or fear regarding Jesus’ return. This is the watchfulness Paul advocates for all his readers.

Nevertheless, as Beverly Gaventa (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1995) has pointed out, the Christian watchfulness and wakefulness Paul recommends may sound strangely outmoded for those who live more than two thousand years into the wait. But the watchfulness Paul advocates is not merely a matter of time; it is also a matter of utmost importance. To watch for Jesus and the endings and beginnings his coming will precipitate is to confess that God stands at the beginning and at the end of human life and that we shall remain accountable for all that we do in the in-between time.

In today’s Gospel, the Matthean Jesus’ parable will suggest that the time between Jesus’ first and second advents is best spent in recognizing the talents given each of us by God and utilizing these to the best of the abilities we have — also given by God. Shall we invest ourselves, our time and our energies fully? Shall we procrastinate and do nothing until is it too late? Or shall we learn a lesson from the “go-getters” of this world and make the most of who we are and what we have, now, while it is still day?

MATT 25:14-30Do you remember Shel Silverstein’s parable The Giving Tree (Harper and Row

Publishers, New York: 1964)? “Once there was a tree,” it begins, “and she loved a little boy.” Every day from the boy’s childhood to his teen years to his adulthood, he came to the tree. When he was a child, he came to climb her trunk, eat her apples and swing from her branches. And the tree was happy. As he matured, his requests for the tree’s particular gifts and talents became more insistent, more costly. First, when the boy needed money, she gave her apples to sell, and she was happy. When he needed a home, she gave her branches; when he wanted to get away from it all, she happily gave her trunk for a boat. At long last, the boy, who was an old man by now, came back to the tree, who was no

more than an old stump. Since all the man wanted now was a place to sit and rest, the tree offered her stump to him. And the tree was happy.

Like Jesus, Silvestein told a parable that captured the essence of what it means to acknowledge our gifts and talents and to place them freely and fully at the service of others. Such generosity with oneself requires the type of risk-taking that is exemplified in the first two servants. Each dared to risk investing all that had been entrusted him by his employer. Neither held back anything even though worldly prudence may have dictated for him to do so. From these risk-taking servants, and from the giving tree, we learn that all comes to us from God as gift; therefore, all should be given as gift, without judging the worthiness of the recipient and with full awareness that what we give may be misused, undervalued or even abused.

In contrast to the two daring servants and the utterly selfless tree, the third servant chose what he thought to be the safe path. He did not risk, he did not give, and in the end even that which had been entrusted to him was rescinded. So it goes with those who refuse to spend their God-given selves, their time, their talent or their treasure with wanton abandon for the sake of the kingdom. These may, in the end, retain what they have, but what good shall a treasure be that cannot traverse the final passage we know as death?

When Jesus first told this parable, it functioned as a crisis story, intended to urge his contemporaries to risk “investing” themselves, through faith, in his message. If they did, the parable promised a pleased master, acknowledgement of a job well done and, of course, even greater responsibilities. Not to choose, not to invest, not to risk was to find oneself thrown into a darkness that words cannot describe. Only wailing and grinding of teeth will tell the story.

As the community grew during the post-Easter period, the parable took on an eschatological tone, challenging Jesus’ disciples to use their gifts to their fullest as a preparation for welcoming the returning Jesus. Not mentioned specifically, but known to believers, were the risks entailed — persecution by Rome or Judah, rejection, suffering and even death. Those who risked all for Jesus would find in him a welcome; those who risked nothing would face an accounting for their actions (or non-actions).

Today, the parable continues to speak its message, assuring us that we are both gifted and graced, and in that capacity we are to be both gift and grace for others … even if we are only an old stump where another can find rest.

Sample Homily: “God Is Already Here”November 13, 200533rd Sunday in Ordinary TimeFr. James Smith

God seems to act strangely in this parable. But that depends on how we view God’s dealing with the world. The most popular view is the most obvious: Since we see the world but do not see God, we presume that the world is pretty much on its own and God makes an appearance now and then. We think that the world follows its own internal laws until they are overridden from the outside by God’s personal will.That means that sacraments are seen as God’s unusual, dramatic

interventions in human affairs. Baptism means that God rescues an infant from inherited sin; confirmation is the instantaneous infusion of

miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit; penance is the church’s declaration of God’s forgiveness; Eucharist is the magical conversion of bread into body; matrimony is the spiritualization of merely natural love; ordination is the transformation of a human tool into a divine instrument; anointing is God’s last-ditch attempt to save a sinner in spite of their wayward life. Although this is an exaggeration, you may privately want to consider

just how far removed it is from your practical approach to Catholicism.And, on further consideration, you will recognize this as a rather

primitive view of reality. It presumes that God made an imperfect creation and has to tinker with it to make it work. It imagines that God has a merely impersonal, proprietary relationship with his world instead of a deeply personal one. It believes in a God who is merely the biggest, smartest, strongest being rather than the source of all being, the future of every being, the innermost being of every being.The other view of reality understands that every known reality exists

within the mysterious reality of God; that every being is sustained in existence by God; that God is intimately involved with every single activity in the world. We believe that we exercise our limited freedom within the absolute freedom of God, that we live and move and have our being within God’s life. This means that there is not both a sacred history and a profane history but only one history in which God works out his will in his and our world.From this perspective, the sacraments are experienced not as invasions

from outer space but as internal developments, not as corrections of human error but as celebrations of human potential.Baptism is not the rescue of an infant from evil but the celebration

of that infant’s possession of God; confirmation is the celebration of a youthful growth in the spiritual life; penance is the public celebration of God’s private, prior forgiveness; matrimony is the recognition that all love is from God; ordination is the ecclesial acceptance of an individual’s desire to serve God’s people; anointing is uniting the suffering and death of Jesus to the suffering and death of one of his sisters or brothers.And the Eucharist is not the invasion of the Risen Christ into

defenseless bread. The consecration at Mass is not Superman Jesus changing into his Clark Kent outfit. Eucharist is the transformation of matter into spirit; it is the supernatural fulfillment of natural bread. Jesus rises from bread as the yeast of life. Bread is not twisted and forced, contrary to its nature, into the body of Christ — bread exists in the first place in order to become the body of Christ!What is true of God’s activity in the sacraments, which are the

church’s official celebrations, is also true in God’s private dealings with us. When you pray for the health of your mother, you are not calling God’s attention to someone God forgot or asking for something that God did not intend to do. No, God knows your mother better than you do; God loves your mother more than you do. Even before you think of praying, God is already deeply involved with your mother. Your prayer simply involves you in their ongoing relationship.What is true of our personal dealings with God is also true even when

we do not consciously relate with God. Whether we know it or not, God is involved in every famine and harvest. Whether we think about it or not, God is part of every virtuous act and dastardly deed. Whether we like it or not, the history of the world, the story of our life and the activity of God intertwine together, world without end.

THIRTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIMENovember 20, 2005Liturgy of Our Lives

Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

EZEK 34:11-12, 15-17 1 COR 15:20-26, 28MATT 25:34-46

We are standing together on the threshold of a liturgical year now ending and another soon to begin, poised with one foot in the past and the other about to step into the future. When endings mesh with beginnings, it seems only natural to look over our shoulders at what has transpired in our lives, in our families, in our world, in our church. As we take truthful inventory and determine the measure of who we are, who we were and who we hope to become, it also seems appropriate that we gather up all that we are and offer it to God as the liturgy of our lives. But just what constitutes that liturgy? How do our lives come together to venerate and celebrate the One whose kingship we acknowledge today and in whose reign we desire to share? What sacrifice have I, have you, have we to offer to the Lord of all life, whose own sacrifice has opened the way to life everlasting for us (1 Cor, second reading)?

Centuries ago, the prophets posed similar questions to God on behalf of their contemporaries. How could they make of their lives a liturgy worthy of the character of the God who called them into being, who led them forth from slavery, who entered into covenant with them and who forgave and forgot their repeated infidelities? What had they to offer in prayerful thanksgiving and worshipful praise to the God who promised to be their shepherd, rescuing them when they were scattered, bringing them home when they strayed, binding and healing their wounds and giving them a protected rest (Ezek, first reading). God’s answer to the prophets’ questioning was as challenging as it was simple: “Do justice; love tenderly; walk in truth with God.” In this challenge lies the whole of the law and the prophets; in this challenge lie the seeds of a life-liturgy worthy of God.

When the late composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein turned his mind and faith and spirit to the challenge of the life-liturgy, the result was a celebration of the human experience that he titled simply Mass. First performed in 1971, Mass was composed against the backdrop of race riots, the draft, the Vietnam War, student protests of the same, the Women’s Liberation Movement and the growing disillusionment with and subsequent rejection of the Nixon presidency. While all these aspects of the human struggle were acknowledged in Mass, either directly, indirectly or through its wide range and style of music, one theme, one heartbeat, remained constant throughout. Intoned by the celebrant of Mass was the invitation to “Sing God a simple song; Lauda, Laude … Make it up as you go along; Lauda, Laude … Sing like you like to sing. God loves all simple things. For God is the simplest of all.”

With this song’s emphasis on simplicity in mind, we turn to today’s uniquely Matthean Gospel, wherein Jesus, who is featured as the glorious Son of Man, teaches us the words and the gestures, the rites and the rituals to the simple song or life-liturgy that best acknowledges, thanks, loves and praises God: “I was hungry; you gave me food. I was thirsty; you gave me drink. I was a stranger; you welcomed me. I was in prison; you came to visit me.” These are the prayers of the true life-liturgy without which no other liturgy, in church or mosque or synagogue, has meaning. If the hungry are not fed, the naked are not clothed, etc. then we have failed to recognize and tend the God who lives among us in these least ones. If the thirsty are not offered drink and the ill and imprisoned are not visited and cared for, then even when two or three gather, the promised presence of Christ will be lost to us.

If and when we do take the Gospel challenge seriously, let us not think of what we are doing as charity. Let us realize that we are merely beginning to meet the demands of justice, a justice by which we accept to live when we agree to love tenderly and walk in truth with God.

EZEK 34:11-12, 15-17 During the French Revolution, in 1848, Archbishop Denis Auguste Affre of Paris

became horror-stricken at the ongoing slaughter and resolved to do what he could to bring about reconciliation between the warring factions. Fully vested, he made his way to the Place de la Bastille. Knowing the danger he faced, the people he met along the road begged him to turn back. But Affre quietly responded, “It is my duty as the shepherd of God’s people.” After he was mortally wounded and as he lay dying, Affre prayed, “God be praised! May God accept my life as an expiation for my omissions during my episcopate and as an offering for these people.” Then he said, “A good shepherd gives his life for his sheep … and may my blood be the last that is shed.” With that he died. True to the example set by Jesus, the Good Shepherd par excellence, Affre offered himself as a living sacrifice for his people. As we admire in him the qualities of Jesus, the prophet Ezekiel reminds us of the manner in which those qualities should be exercised.

Prophet to his people during their exile in Babylonia, Ezekiel shared their sense of having been failed by their leaders, who, from David onward, had been ideally cast in the role of shepherd of God’s flock, Israel. As history attests, however, that ideal was not always realized and, as a result, the people of God were left unattended, like sheep left to founder on their own, without a shepherd. Ezekiel’s harsh indictment of Israel’s failed shepherds can be read in the verses that immediately precede today’s excerpted first reading. On them the prophet hung the blame for the conquest of Jerusalem and the disgrace his people suffered as displaced persons in Babylonia.

Lest they be without hope, the prophet also promised his contemporaries that restoration would come to them through the loving leadership of their God. Whereas other shepherds had failed them, God would not. As in the days when their relationship was new and true, God would gather them and tend them, pasturing them and bringing them to rest again in their own land. Although they were now experiencing the loss and alienation of exile, God would heal their injuries and restore them to physical, political, spiritual and economic health.

Unfortunately, Ezekiel’s message of hope seems to be mitigated by the parenthetical phrase in verse 16: “but the sleek and the strong I will destroy.” Some

scholars suggest that this surprising statement is clarified in subsequent verses (Ezek 34:21), wherein God’s hostile action is interpreted as punishment for the fat and the strong who have been instrumental in the persecution of the weak. Their deprivation, explains Walter Brueggemann (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995), has called forth God’s action as a judge whose mercy is not lavished without discrimination.

Other scholars, citing the incongruence of such an action with the graciousness of God, regard this parenthetical remark as a gloss that should be omitted from the text as a later interpolation. Still others, who are probably more correct, refer us to the Syriac and Vulgate translations of the Septuagint, where the text reads, “I will watch over” rather than “I will destroy.” Amazingly, one single Hebrew letter, if copied in error, completely changes the meaning of this text.

Clearly, Jesus understood this text’s true meaning and chose to exercise his ministry as shepherding the lost, the sick and the injured. Surely those who follow Jesus’ lead and continue to desire a share in his ministry will similarly serve God’s people until our Shepherd-King comes among us once again.

1 Cor 15:20-26, 28Richard B. Hays (First Corinthians, John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1997) has

pointed out that ours is a culture that evades telling the truth about death. Because of this, Paul’s teaching on the resurrection comes as a blast of fresh air. Hays recalls the conversation he had with a young woman whose 18-year-old sister had been killed in a car accident. Members of her family were saying things, like, “She is so much happier in heaven, recall how unhappy she was here” or “God wanted her to be with him” or “I know she is watching over us now and telling us not to be sad.” Infuriated by such saccharin talk, the dead girl’s sister nevertheless felt guilty because she thought she should believe and find consolation in those words. Thus it was that Paul’s words on death came as a liberating force, allowing her to regard death as it is, as an enemy, the last enemy to be destroyed by the resurrected and reigning Jesus Christ.

Through 1 Corinthians 15, Paul has enabled us, his readers and fellow believers, to name death for what it is but not to be defeated by it. Admitting that death is an inevitable aspect of the human experience and one that every one of us shall face, Paul quickly contrasted this negative reality with the positive and even more powerful reality of resurrection. His Adam-Christ comparison does not allow us to linger long in death’s darkness and pain. While avoiding euphemisms that try to tidy up the pain of death, Paul faces the enemy head on and looks beyond it to life; he invites us his readers to do the same.

Among his Corinthian readers, however, problems had arisen; some were denying the resurrection from the dead (v. 12). Some scholars suggest that they did not so much deny resurrection as claim that they had already attained it. Recall Hymenaeus and Philetus, who are described in 2 Timothy 2:17-18 as having “deviated from the truth by saying that the resurrection has already taken place.” They were of the school that claimed that since believers mystically die and rise to life in Christ through baptism, they are already risen and do not look forward to bodily resurrection. This erroneous notion of “overrealized eschatology” also assuaged the Greek aversion to the very idea of bodily resurrection. As Hays (op. cit.) has further explained, some in Corinth thought of

themselves as hyperspiritual Christians (pneumatikoi), so rich in every spiritual gift that the very notion of a resurrection of the body was crass and embarrassing. No doubt misunderstandings were further exacerbated by the fact that the phrase translated “resurrection of the dead,” anastasis nekron, means literally “rising of the corpses.” Obviously, for the Corinthians, this was not the stuff of Christian hope, and Paul had to work hard to bring them to a correct understanding of this elemental tenet of the faith.

To that end, he pointed to the transformed and risen Christ as the firstfruits (vv. 20, 34) of all who have fallen asleep. Recall that the aparche or firstfruits was that portion of the harvest offered to God in thanksgiving, thus implying the consecration of the entire harvest to come. The finality of the resurrection of Jesus will be fully realized when the entire harvest of humanity rises to glory with him. Until then, we offer all we are and all we do, especially for God’s least ones, as part of a life-liturgy that will be a worthy preface to the everlasting liturgy of all the risen.

MATT 25:34-46Jesus appears regal indeed in this vision of his return as Son of Man in glory to

judge among the assembled nations of all the earth. He is King. But, asks Baptist pastor Melissa Scott (The Abingdon Preaching Annual 2005, David N. Mosser, ed., Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.: 2004), what kind of a king is Jesus? Jesus answers this question himself: “As often as you cared for one of my least brothers and sisters, you did it for me.” Jesus is the hungry beggar on the side of the road. Jesus is the elderly woman in the nursing home waiting for someone to remember her and remind her that she is loved. Jesus is the transient who wandered into the church foyer, uncertain of a welcome. Jesus is the prisoner, discouraged with life and disgruntled with himself, sure that salvation is beyond his reach.

What kind of king is Jesus? He reigns not from an unattainable height but at the same level as his lowliest subjects. He chooses their lot, not out of pity or with any condescension in his demeanor. Rather, Jesus sides with the least ones to lift them up. Those who would follow him in life, through death, to glory can do no less. This scene, unique to Matthew’s Gospel, illustrates Jesus’ point with a clarity that cannot be ignored.

Similar scenes of judgment appeared in Jewish apocalyptic literature popular at the time of Jesus as well as in other (e.g. Egyptian) literatures concerning the fate of the dead. Although there are recognizable similarities between those other literatures and this Matthean text, the Gospel retains its uniqueness in its criterion for judgment — active care for God’s least ones. Walter Wink (Hunger For the Word, Larry Hollar, ed., Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn.: 2004) calls our attention to the fact that the judgment all of us will face is not between believers and unbelievers or Christians and non-Christians or church members and the unchurched. The judgment is not even based on confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is wholly contingent on whether one has responded humanely to the needs of the marginalized, the nameless, the homeless, the disreputable.

What the Matthean Jesus is asking in this Gospel, insists Miguel A. De La Torre (Reading the Bible From the Margins, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 2002), is whether the individuals before him have participated in acts of liberation that led others toward an abundant life, or if they have instead participated in enslaving acts that left others to die. The radical nature of salvation is that Jesus judges all people on how they interacted with

the disenfranchised in society. In the letter of James (5:1-6), a similarly harsh judgment was leveled at the rich who heaped up treasure but ignored the cries of the poor.

Our first reaction might be to excuse ourselves from this judgment, arguing that we are not rich but middle-class, and struggling to maintain that status. Therefore, let those in higher tax brackets beware the judgment! However, middle-class status in the United States and other industrialized countries is tantamount to living in luxury when compared with the average yearly income for one of God’s least ones in Kenya ($300), India ($300) or Bangladesh ($160). About three billion people in this world live on less than two dollars a day. We must take this Gospel’s challenge seriously.

Serious also are the questions of Taiwanese theologian Choan-Seng Song, who asks: How can a church that profits from a rich and affluent society find solidarity with a God who suffers and dies with the victims of global economic injustices? How can a church in a nation like the United States follow the God of the crucified people? How indeed?

These questions remain with us as we end one year and look ahead to another. God’s grace also remains with us, enabling us to recognize and tend our God and king through the least ones in whom God chooses to be revealed.

Sample Homily: “Loving God and Neighbor”November 20, 2005Feast of Christ the KingFr. James Smith

The equation of love of God with love of neighbor is the high point of Christian morality. It is the very end of a very long process of humanization, the conclusion of an ethical system that was slowly developed over centuries all the way from life in caves.It all started before there were any laws, any neighbor to love as

self, any self, and God to love above all. Imagine ancient Hagar and Hilda standing in the middle of the world. They don’t know what being human is because they have never seen anyone else like them.Suddenly, out of the fog, they see two animals approaching. As they

get closer, Hagar says: “Hilda, they look a lot like us, but not exactly. Shall we treat them like some other animals or treat them the same way we treat each other?”In that simple question, Hagar encountered the first moral imperative:

The moment we recognize another being as a fellow human being, then we must treat them as we treat ourselves. That means that love of neighbor is basically recognizing another human as an equal, having the same rights that we enjoy. We are different in many ways; we have different needs and talents, but underneath it all, we owe each other the right to the basics of life. Minimal love. But how does this basic love requirement play itself out in the various aspects of life? Let’s keep watching our primitive friends.When the strangers meet Hagar, morality gets complicated, as life

always does where two or more gather. The stranger says: “I’m tracking a behemoth for dinner; did you see it?” Thus, Hagar meets his second challenge: Does he tell the stranger where it went or does he send the stranger off in the wrong direction and keep the behemoth dinner for

himself? Does he tell the truth? That is, does he recognize that honest communication is the basis of living together?Hagar opts for the truth, and the stranger responds by offering to

hunt together with him. They finally capture and kill the beast. Which brings the next ethical question: Who gets what? They have to consider all relevant angles: who saw it, who threw the first spear, does one need more meat than the other, etc. The law of justice is born, along with private property, welfare, fair distribution, labor rights.After dinner, they start to bunk down for the night. Hagar could have

sworn that the stranger’s mate looked at him funny. If she did, he has to consider: Is she the stranger’s property or his equal; is she untouchable or available; is the sex drive different from the hunger drive? Thus do the ethics of sex, gender and marriage become crucial to life together.You will have noticed by now that each of these decisions, in fact

every possible ethical decision is nothing more than a matter of how love for neighbor is to be expressed in various situations. Truth is love in communication, justice is love in distribution of wealth, chastity is love in sexual relationships. Hundreds of ethical laws were then developed over the centuries as humankind exploded in number and social relationships increased exponentially.Then, someone noticed that all these laws were based on the nature of

humanity, that each neighbor had rights by his very nature. They concluded that Someone with a higher nature, a super-nature, created all of these lesser human natures. It was finally realized that obedience to all the laws was at the same time obedience to God.This was incipient love of God: the recognition that God was the

source of their very being. It was a long way from there to real love. Some people still haven’t made the journey. We still think that laws are arbitrary things we must simply obey, with no connection to love, and that God deserves better treatment than neighbor.No so. Love is not just the first among many laws — love is the source

and substance of every law. There is a moral connection between love and every law; there is a physical connection between God and neighbor. If you love your neighbor you love God. If you do not love your neighbor you do not love God.The Last Judgment: automatic and eternal.

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Begin Year BNovember 27, 2005God in Our Hands, God in Our Hearts

Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

ISA 63:16-17, 19; 64:2-71 COR 1:3-9MARK 13:33-37

Popular among the ancient Greek and Roman tragedians was a theatrical device known in Latin as deus ex machina. The phrase, literally translated from the Greek theos ek mekkanes, means “God from the machinery.” When deus ex machina was called into

play, the featured god or gods would be lowered onto the stage via a pulley or makeshift crane to resolve what seemed to be a hopeless and otherwise unresolvable situation. The phrase deus ex machina has been extended to refer to any resolution of a story that does not pay due regard to the tale’s internal logic and is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief.

Through the centuries, many authors have tapped into this device. In William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” for example, the character of Puck ends the tale with a decidedly deus ex machina flourish. In “The War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells, the Martian invasion is finally halted by earth-borne bacteria. In short, a deus ex machina is a quick fix in a story and functions like the cavalry charging into the fray in an old Western movie or a beaten and bedraggled Popeye finally deciding to open his can of spinach.

Is this the sort of quick fix for which the Israelites were hoping when through the prophet Isaiah (first reading) they cried out to God to “Tear the heavens and come down”? With their backs against the wall, politically, economically and spiritually, the prophet and his contemporaries sought relief, admitting their lack of worthiness while relying on God’s love and mercy. Isn’t this also the sort of remedy each of us desires when we look at our lives and our world and find no other solution to our struggles save that of a dramatic divine intervention?

We see the proliferation of violence and war and we move nearer and nearer to disbelieving that human beings could ever make a lasting peace. We are overwhelmed by the ever-increasing immorality and inhumanity that erodes our relationships and wears away at the ethical fabric of our culture. We recognize the unconscionable greed and disregard for justice that too often steer commerce, pollute the environment and control the economy. We bemoan the lack of integrity and altruism in those who are entrusted with the responsibility of leadership. In our frustration, we cry out to God, “Tear open the heavens and come among us to fix all this mess!” And yet, as the annual season of Advent reminds us, our desire for a deus ex machina is unfounded, for God has already come among us, has already become fully invested in our flesh and blood, completely engaged in our time and space and has chosen to remain with us as bread and wine, as word and spirit, as wisdom, Lord and love.

While much of this holy season is future-focused, in that we anticipate the fully revealed presence of God upon Jesus’ return in glory (second reading), these weeks also call us to an existential awareness of God in our midst, in our hands and in our hearts, here and now. This blessing of God’s continuing presence with us has become available to us through the birth of Jesus.

In an essay on Jesus’ birth, the late, great Karl Rahner (The Content of Faith, Crossroad Publishing Co., New York: 1992) marveled at the wonder of such an event. To be born, insisted Rahner, is something quite distressing; it means to come into existence without being asked. The starting point of our life that determines it for all eternity is in the hands of another. But even the Lord had to begin, and Jesus accepted this surrender on our behalf. Through his birth, he put on our history. At his birth, he accepted the need to do as we do: to begin the long march of living that will ultimately end in death. But because Jesus was born into our living and dying, a vital aspect of God remains forever with us and within us.

Therefore we need not look anxiously to the heavens, impatiently awaiting and imploring God to “send in the cavalry” or “pop open the can of spinach” that will resolve our struggles. Planted deep and growing, if only imperceptibly at times, in all of us is that divine spark that began to exist in each of us when Jesus was conceived into our humanity. Each Advent, we stir that spark into a flame, or at least into a glowing ember, by our renewed attentiveness to God in our midst. Each Advent we are renewed in hope and confidence because God is within us. Each Advent, we remember that we are the cavalry and we are the can of spinach; we must work together for good, and together we become a power that no evil can defeat.

Rahner (The Great Church Year, Crossroad Publishing Co., New York: 1994) urges us toward an Advent joy that does not doubt, that does not quit. He invites us to pray with him: Listen, my heart. God has already begun to celebrate Advent in the world and in you. God has taken the world and its time to heart, softly and gently. I believe in the eternity of God who has entered into our time, my time. God is here, never to leave, and because of this divine power available to us and within us, there is no difficulty, no struggle, no evil that we — God in you and God in me — cannot overcome. Listen, my heart and believe in Advent’s promise. Amen.

ISA 63:16-17, 19; 64:2-7Advent is a season celebrated with joyous gratitude for God’s incursion into

humankind in Jesus and with eager anticipation of Jesus’ final coming among us. Today, though, this lament of Trito-Isaiah sounds a somber note. Ministering to his people after their return from exile, the prophet reflects the desperation of those who have realized that, apart from God and without God’s help, they are nothing. Left to their own devices, the people find themselves in spiritual, political and economic gridlock. Although they were relieved to be free again, at least relatively speaking (a Persian governor ruled Judah), they were frustrated at what seemed to be an impossible task, the reconstruction of their infrastructures, the reestablishment of their liturgy and the revival of their economy. Comparing themselves to “polluted rags” and “withered leaves” that are “carried away by the wind,” the people admitted their guilt in one breath and in the next they entrusted themselves once again to God’s parenting, guidance and molding.

“You are our Father, we the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands” (v. 7). No longer stubborn and unyielding, the exile had made the Israelites aware of their need to surrender to God. Their independence and self-sufficiency now tempered by suffering and shame, they acknowledged their need for God and, true to the spirit of the lament, they were bold and even brash in their demand for God’s attention and assistance. Using the two rich images of father and potter, Israel insists to God: “You made us, you own us, you are responsible for us; we belong to you. Therefore, we are your burden to carry, your responsibility, your problem, your treasured possession. Because you love us,” Israel dares to say, “you can never be rid of us, and because You are You, we can trust fully in your love, your care, your help.”

Walter Brueggemann (Texts For Preaching, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993) would have contemporary believers further appreciate the juxtaposition of moods at work in this lament. Although Israel gives ample reason why God cannot and will not attend its prayer (“we are sinful, unclean”), its demands that God do so are just as passionate. Even though Israel’s failure precludes the very intervention it

desires, that juxtaposition between yearning and failure is precisely the mode in which faith awaits “the coming.” “We are,” says Brueggemann, “mixtures of expectation and defeat, of urgency and self-awareness, of insistence and the very candor that blocks our hope.”

As we dare today to make this prayer of Third Isaiah and Israel our own, we can adapt it by styling it after our own struggles and shaping it after our own sins. Even though the names of our failures may differ, we are still all polluted rags and unclean people before God. Thankfully, God is also still God, loving, caring, forgiving, saving. Do we dare, as Israel dared, to call God “Father” and mean it? Do we dare to surrender to God as clay to the potter? Do we dare to bow low, so as to be truly the work of God’s hands?

1 COR 1:3-9Without any reference to the word Advent, Paul has included in this text the

essence of what we need to know and how we are to live our lives attuned to the spirituality of this season. Today’s second reading, part of his greeting to his converts in Corinth — in which Paul praises and thanks God for them — today’s second reading affirms that believers now live in the interim between Jesus’ two appearances (v. 4). In this in-between time, however, we are not left alone because Jesus Christ, whose second coming we await, strengthens us to the end (v. 8) and God, who is faithful, has called us to await the Lord’s return within the context of a community (v. 9). Besides the encouragement we gain from the continuing presence of Christ and the love of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are also, Paul assures us, blessed with every spiritual gift (vv. 5, 7). Why then, we may ask, is life so difficult? If all we could ever need or want is readily available to us, why do we struggle from Advent to Advent? Why do we lose hope and entertain doubts?

Paul himself offers an answer to these questions by framing all he says to the Corinthians within the context of thanksgiving. Even though, as Richard B. Hays (First Christians, John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1997) has pointed out, the Corinthian church was riddled with problems (not unlike our own), Paul gave thanks because he saw the church as the work of God in the world. Earthen vessels and wounded healers were they and are we, and yet through the power of God’s gifts and God’s grace, goodness will inevitably prevail. In his reflections on the church and the necessity of thankfully acknowledging God’s gifts within it, Dietrich Bonhoeffer agreed with Paul (Life Together, Harper and Row, New York: 1954). He wrote, “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith and difficulty; if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.”

This, insisted Bonheoffer, applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors about their congregations: “A pastor should not complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people — nor to God. A congregation is not entrusted to a pastor so that he become its accuser before God and men. … Indeed, what may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God.”

Paul obviously modeled this thankful stance before God and his converts. Even though he knew his letter to them was going to include references to their weaker, seamier side (e.g., to their pride, favoritism as regards preachers, incest, lack of charity and sensitivity, misbehavior at Eucharist, disbelief as regards resurrection), Paul began his message with a thankful embrace that surely made what was to follow a little easier to accept. So it should be with all who share in the ministry of salvation.

MARK 13:33-37Clearly, the message we are to take with us upon hearing today’s Gospel is that

we are to be watchful. However, there are various interpretations about how we are to understand the Marcan Jesus’ command to be watchful. Lamar Williamson Jr. (Mark, John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1983) references three of those interpretations, the first being a literal one. Those who ascribe to the literal view erroneously identify specific historic events with the various phenomena described in Mark 13:5-23. This interpretation has often sustained oppressed people who view their own struggles as portents of the endtime.

A second interpretation rationalizes the future hope in terms that offer practical guidance for the present. A good example of this understanding of watchfulness can be found in the story of an eclipse that took place in colonial New England. Legislators who were in session began to panic, and several moved to adjourn. But one of them argued, “Mr. Speaker, if it is not to be the end of the world and we adjourn, we shall appear to be fools. If it is the end of the world, I should choose to be doing my duty. I move, sir, that candles be brought.” This understanding of “Watch!” affirms the value and dimension of present responsibility.

Williamson’s third interpretation is one that demythologizes the apocalyptic language of Mark 13 and understands the future coming of Jesus as a purely existential experience. This encounter may come as a resolution of some severe personal struggle or as a “divine invasion” at the end of one’s life. This interpretation is individual and inward as it anticipates an encounter with the Son of Man in one’s own Galilee (Mark 16:7).

Whatever interpretation one chooses, this exhortation of the Marcan Jesus advocates a renewed devotion to discipleship and a responsible stewardship of the task with which each of us has been charged. While no one knows the appointed time, all of us do know and believe that the Lord will return in glory and as judge. Each of us is also aware that there shall be a reckoning wherein all shall be held accountable for our devotion to that given task. This writer doubts that final accounting will include any statistics as to the number of prayers one has prayed, the number of liturgies one has attended or the amount that one has donated to charity. Rather, it seems more in keeping with what we know of Jesus that we shall be called to account for how well we witnessed to God in our midst. How did we love? How did we care for God’s least ones? Was God clearly evident in our hearts and in our hands as we took care of one another along the way?

Sample Homily: “Death as a Fact of Life”November 27, 2005First Sunday of AdventFr. James Smith

Isaiah sighed as he prophesied: “We are like withered leaves — our guilt carries us away like the wind.” We know he’s right, yet being withered leaves is not all bad. Because falling leaves can teach us a great deal about withering and dying.In Edmond de Rostand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” as Cyrano is dying

in a garden amid falling leaves, he tells Roxane: “The leaves know how to die. A little fear of mingling with the common dust — and yet they go down gracefully — a fall that seems like flying.”And so do Christians know how to die. Like the leaves, we know that

death is simply a fact of life. But beyond that, as human beings, we understand that death is a punishment. And as Christians, we believe that death is ultimately an act of faith.To accept death as a fact of life seems obvious enough. And yet, how

we fight against that fact! We reluctantly let go of youthful clothes, adolescent language, cosmetics and cosmetic surgery. Some of this is appropriate. We naturally want to look nice and healthy. But why is looking nice “old” not as appealing as looking nice “young”? And of course, the secret is out when we boast that our dead friends look so alive in the casket!But no matter how we may give in to social custom. Christians know

that it is not a bad thing to grow old and that death is just one of those things: the price we pay for being alive. We are willing to pay that price without complaint. Because we understand the poet’s complaint that “nothing begins and nothing ends that is not paid with moan; we are born in others’ pain and perish in our own” (Francis Thompson). We accept this animal aspect of our existence and willingly make way for the next generation.But we are more than animals; we know that death did not have to be

this way. Something suggests that death is painful because of sin. What else could account for such a shattering experience of death? Oh, we would probably die anyhow, so other people would have a chance at the excitement of life on earth. But death could have been painless, perhaps even a pleasant experience of reaching our human fulfillment and perfection.But since our ancestors disobeyed God and disrupted the laws of

nature, death became somehow “unnatural,” therefore scary and painful. All the more so because we ratify that original sin and magnify our distance from nature by our own sins. Even our ripest moments are speckled by the blight of rot. We don’t quite fit in the natural process, which is why death brings that “little fear of mingling with the common dust.”That is not just queasiness about dirt. It is a remembrance that we

came from dust — that is, from nothingness. And if we return to dust, we fear that we will return to nothingness, that we will cease to be.And yet, like the dead leaves, we finally “go down gracefully.” We are

able to face death in that gracious way because we recognize that death is ultimately an act of faith. All appearances to the contrary, we believe that just as there was a God before our dusty beginning, there will be the same God after our dusty end.We cannot prove this but we believe it. Not the way we believe that

Mary was conceived without sin or that there are three Persons in one God. No, this belief is part of our sense of self. We may not know all of what we are, but we know that we are not someone else. In the same way, we may not know anything about life after death, but we instinctively know that our life will not end in nothing.

And so, like the leaves, we “know how to die. A little fear of mingling with the common dust — and yet we go down gracefully — in a fall that seems like flying.”Not only “seems like flying,” but really is a flying upward, toward

heaven and home.