Advent I

Almost inevitably, a homily for the first Sunday of Advent begins with the words "Happy New Year". It is the first Sunday of the liturgical year and starts the new year cycle of scripture readings that take us from the first Sunday of Advent through the celebration of Christ the King. I've decided to observe the "New Year" not as an effort to conform to tradition, but as a "good riddance" to a very unpleasant year. I confess this selfish intention at the start of this post to leave no doubt that I'm ready for a new start however humble, and for whatever reason. The start of the liturgical year will do just fine thank you!

The past year has provided sadness in abundance with the passing of several friends who stood as symbols of past happiness and who participated in formative moments leading to the evolution of my current self. Little reminds one of the passage of time and the advanced journey into middle age than the death of those who shared significantly in that journey. This is all the more true when they die younger than anyone might reasonably expect to live. Just last night, I learned of another friend's death at the age of fifty when most would expect another twenty five to thirty years of life. Marvin died alone and of the painful ravages of pneumonia. He was as they say "discovered" already dead in his apartment in San Francisco.

Marvin never got a fair shake at life from it's earliest beginnings. His parents divorced while he was still a preschool child and he was shuffled around to various relatives, staying nowhere very long. He had very little contact with his mother and mostly harsh treatment from his father's infrequent attentions. Not surprisingly, Marvin started using drugs and getting into trouble as a teen and young adult. His father used this as an excuse to have nothing more to do with him. While some might say this was "no big loss", Marvin now had no one to turn to and the little affection he was allotted dried up and disappeared.

When I was a child of eight or nine, Marvin was introduced to me by his father and I was asked to show him around the neighborhood and introduce him to my friends. Being a rather solitary child myself, it wound up being Marvin hanging around with me. I can't remember much of what we got up to, but I do remember long conversations during which Marvin asked me what it was like to have two parents and siblings. I in turn asked him about his life and learned of his loneliness and longing to be a part of a "real family".

By the time I met Marvin, his father had remarried and had started a new family. His new wife tried to make Marvin a part of the family, but Marvin was understandably needier than most children and coupled with some health issues which required several operations and lengthy therapy, Marvin's place in the family was never secure. Marvin's insecurity, feelings of rejection, neediness and ongoing health concerns resulted in his "acting out" both at home and in school. Once again, Marvin was shipped to relatives who lived in a depressed mining town in the Appalachian Mountains. It would be many years before I saw Marvin again.

One Christmas Eve, Marvin showed up with his half-siblings from his father's second marriage. He was in his twenties and lived and worked in the nation's capital. He was quite the life of the party and spoke of his girlfriend and of their happy life together. Knowing Marvin had found some degree of happiness was the best gift I received that Christmas. Sadly, this contentment was short lived and Marvin's continued drug use destroyed more than one romantic relationship and the ties he had with his siblings. It was at this time that I lost touch with Marvin once again.

After some years, I'd heard he had moved to California and was in sporadic communication with one of his brothers. When Marvin called, he was usually asking for money and managed to burn most of the bridges that connected him to his family back east. I would ask one of his brothers how he was doing from time to time, but usually I was told that no one had heard from him for quite some time. At least a dozen years passed as I waited in silence for word of Marvin; when it came he was once again far beyond my reach.

Whenever I prayed for my family, I always included Marvin. In this small way he could at last belong if only in my thoughts and in that human connectedness that prayer makes possible. I'd like to think that he found some happiness, but he died alone and confined to a wheelchair. No one knew the reason for his confinement, so I fear the silent years were at least in part "more of the same" for Marvin.

Most people observe the season of Advent (if at all) as a time for shopping, parties and decking the halls. We've lost touch with it's true intent which is to bring to mind the Parousia, the end of time. It's easier to focus on baby Jesus in the manger and to sing Silent Night. Perhaps before we put up the tree and wrap our gifts we should remember the line from the Advent carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel "....ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here". Marvin surely knew exile, captivity and loneliness. My only comfort in remembering his life is that he has been ransomed and his loneliness is at an end.

Thanksgiving

Twenty nine years ago at the age of 25, I lived in a small monastic community for three months. Before my first meal with the community, I anticipated a rather long grace that would render the soup as cold as that frosty January night. Imagine my surprise when the monks chanted this grace in unison:

"All that is good comes from your hands, may we live our lives in gratitude. Amen"

I was as surprised by the prayer's brevity as by the hot soup's burning my tongue. I thought, what gives, these men are professional prayers? With time, I learned to love this grace as upon reflection I realized that one could make meditation upon these few words the work of a lifetime. Being grateful is straight forward enough, but what does it mean to live one's life in gratitude?

In the nearly three decades since I first heard this grace, I've only begun to understand how I can choose to live my life in gratitude. One insight has been that to live in gratitude inspires one to give of oneself in service to others. A grateful heart is generous in opening to others in need. Not only the poor or those who want for the physical necessities of life, but open also to those who hunger and thirst for emotional and spiritual sustenance. These later can be the most challenging and sometimes frustrating of our sisters and brothers.

One New Years Eve about ten years ago, I intended to do some outreach work for my job on this most celebrated of nights. Knowing my plans, a friend suggested we have dinner together to celebrate before I started work. After dinner, he asked if we could go back to my apartment to chat for a while. As the departure time for my outreach activity drew close , I noticed he made no move to leave. Deciding to be patient, I said nothing as he talked on and the hours ticked away. I began to realized that he did not want to be alone at the dawn of the new year. Grateful for his friendship, I said nothing and made mental plans to do my outreach another night.

Living one's life in gratitude also seems to embrace satisfaction with one's "state in life". While there is nothing wrong with working to make changes for the better, it seems to me that being grateful for what I have now is important. I may not like my job, but I should be grateful for a means of support. I may want a new car, but I should be grateful the "old clunker" is still running well. A grateful heart lives in the present and seeks to limit the "living for the weekend" mentality we can so easily adopt when bored or dissatisfied.

A few years ago, a man showed up at my office asking for a few moments to speak with me about an important issue causing him concern. He laid out his story to me and shared the "one thing" he needed to be happy and explained why this could never be. What he wanted was not only not possible, but as a social worker I recognized that what he wanted was not socially acceptable. This conclusion was not a matter of my own opinion, but a universally understood taboo. This man wanted what no human being has a right to posses.

Seeking to be nonjudgmental, I took pains to list the many things he had in his life that were good and understood by most people as the ingredients of a happy life. No matter what I brought to light, he declared they brought him no joy and that only the forbidden treasure could bring happiness. This man not only did not live his life in gratitude, but he also counted his many blessings as worthless. In his predicament we see that the lack of gratitude can in itself be the cause of our unhappiness.

Without coming close to exhausting the subject, I'll offer one last thought on living one's life in gratitude. Driving home from work two weeks ago, I had my first holiday light display sighting. The holiday illuminated was Christmas, not Thanksgiving. Two weeks after Halloween, someone began their observance of Christmas. Whatever happened to Thanksgiving? One of my facebook friends has been posting Christmas videos for a few weeks now and declaring his love of the "holiday season". I wonder if living too far in the future is a sign we have lost touch with the present moment and the gift it represents?

One way we can purposefully choose to live in gratitude is to pause to reflect and be thankful even if we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. Lets all take time on Thursday to be aware of and grateful for the people, situations and possessions we sometimes take for granted. Perhaps then our Turkey, tofurkey or franks and beans will become a communion of gratitude.

Woe to you blind guides.......Matthew 23:13 - 24

It would seem that the "scribes and Pharisees" were in for a tongue lashing extraordinaire in this passage from Matthew's Gospel. Jesus provides example after example of the ways he sees these religious leaders fall short of their call. In a word, the theme of his denunciations is that they are hypocrites in preaching the "RIGHT" while living as if they are above these very same teachings. Without mincing words, Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of these men who time and time again questioned him in order to trap him in a violation of the law. A more modern idiom might be that these men practiced the "do as I say, not as I do" school of religious leadership.

One thought I had as I read this passage was how little things have changed in two thousand years. One has only to read of the Belgian Roman Catholic Primate's statement on AIDS "I do not see this illness as a punishment, at most a sort of inherent justice … Perhaps human love also wreaks revenge if it is mishandled, without there having to be a transcendental source.” or to witness the hateful antics of the Westboro Baptist Church and it's pastor Fred Phelps. These "religious leaders" seem to have fallen into the same trap as the scribes and Pharisees in neglecting "...the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith"(v.23).

Human denunciation of these hateful statements and actions don't touch such people who are absolutely convinced they are "RIGHT". Such people remain unmoved by Jesus' call to be "TRUE" to the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faith. They insist they are doing just that in spreading their nearly universally condemned teachings and repugnant actions. In such people, the scribes and Pharisees walk among us.

I have great hope in seeing people who remain TRUE to the gospel values of justice, mercy and faith despite the words and actions of so called "religious leaders". While present day scribes and Pharisees seem to get all the press, I believe history and the evolution of human society will go the way of those who seek to remain TRUE.

Shop steward, I have a grievance!..... Matthew 20:1-16

This passage relating the parable of the householder who hires laborers throughout the day to work in her/his vineyard today might result in a complaint to the union shop steward or labor relations board. The "householder" goes to the marketplace five times in the course of the day and hires laborers to work in her/his vineyard. The first group works the whole day, while the last but an hour. When it's time to pay the laborers at day's end, s/he not only pays them all the same amount, but does so by starting with the group hired last. I confess I have sympathy for those who worked all day, they receive the agreed upon wage, but feel cheated since they "have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat"(v.12). Jesus explains in the voice of the householder that all receive what was promised, and that indeed the "last will be first, and the first last" (v.16). Where's the shop steward when s/he's needed? The parable's text and a brief explanation by Mike Harrison can be found here.

Scripture scholars and theologians believe this parable addresses a need for understanding (and probably cause for argument)among the members of Matthew's community of the place of Jewish and Gentile members of the church. The Hebrew people have labored centuries in the vineyard while the Gentiles have only recently joined the people of faith. Shouldn't one who labors long receive a greater reward than one who works but an hour? To our minds, it seems only natural and just that this be the case, but Matthew's Jesus says it isn't so. All receive the same reward in return for their assent to the faith (in Christ) professed by the community.

Channel surfing on any give day, especially Sunday will expose one to dozens (sometimes it seems hundreds) of televangelists preaching (often screaming) that "ALL" must believe as they believe and act as they direct. The theme of just who will be saved seems a constant in the electronic pulpit. At times their messages seem to fly in the face of this gospel parable. "If you think you're going to be saved by listening to those other preachers, well let me just set the record straight". Pressing mute and changing the channel NOW!

Just as in Matthew's day, people today arrive at their differing beliefs and spiritual understandings and at times may (and almost certainly do) disagree. To my mind, getting caught up in arguments about who's "right" is a waste of time and almost never causes anything but further division. Who can count the number of christian denominations each often claiming to be the only way to salvation? People of good will can and do disagree, but we can find hope in this parable which promises all laborers the same reward. Wars have been fought (Reformation and Counter-Reformation and round it goes) over how we are "saved" with an uneasy armistice landing on FAITH (just don't get too specific about a definition of just what that means or you'll start another war).

Faith, however we define it seems to be the nature of the work we've been assigned as laborers in the vineyard. Resisting the temptation to be RIGHT, perhaps we should try to remain TRUE. That may mean something different to you than it does to me, but I'm fine with that. Trusting in the "Householder's" ability to read the intentions of the heart, I'm standing in line for my pay. We may disagree on the specifics of our labor, but I'm going to try not to grumble over the size of my paycheck. Lets talk about the weather as we wait. Are they calling for rain?