December 4^th 2016. Second Sunday of Advent

GOSPEL: Matthew 3:1-12

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL: Matthew 3:1-12

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair 
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves, 
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you, 
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit 
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, 
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand.
He will clear his threshing floor 
and gather his wheat into his barn, 
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In this week’s Gospel, John the Baptist is preparing for the coming of the Messiah. This, we are told, involves “straightening the ways of the Lord”. In our narcissistic world, there is a tendency to think that “conversion” involves straightening out my personal problems, sorting out my issues until I feel comfortable with myself. But this is not what John the Baptist is talking about at all! He asks that the ways of the Lord be straightened! We have a tendency to domesticate God. We try to get him to conform to our ways, to bless our initiatives. We don’t pray to discover what God wants with us, but pray that God will bring about what we want. This is how we make the ways of the Lord crooked! And we only make his ways straight when we renounce our own will and place ourselves before him in humility to try to discover his will. John the Baptist challenges us by pointing out that our neglect of the Lord’s ways will lead to painful consequences. This is not to make the Lord a “wrathful” God, but simply to acknowledge that evil is not trivial, that the Lord defends the innocent by permitting our maltreatment of others to result in painful consequences for ourselves. This Advent the Lord is coming! Maybe we would prefer if he didn’t come so that we could go on living our ambiguous lives? But he is coming all right, and he comes to us every day in the holy providence of God which challenges us to rid ourselves of the useless chaff, to simplify our lives and return to the simple and clear ways of God.

When people speak of “conversion” they sometimes think of a process by which they get the mess in their own lives straightened out. But John the Baptist is not asking us to straighten our own lives out – he is asking us to straighten out the path ways of the Lord! This Advent we need to return to the simple things, opening ourselves to the intervention of God in our lives, allowing the Lord to enter with his transforming power

In this Sunday’s Gospel, John the Baptist is preparing the people for the visitation of the Lord. It is good to be ready for someone’s visit. When a guest arrives at our house unexpectedly, our welcome can suffer as a result. To fail the welcome the Lord adequately is a great pity because we miss out on the grace, beauty and salvation that he brings. John the Baptist gives some advice on how to welcome him well. He says: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Today true repentance is difficult because we live in an age that is so imbued with narcissism and the pursuit of ourselves. Nowadays, when people speak of “conversion” they are often speaking of something that is directed towards their own personal wellbeing, their own feelings of contentment with themselves. No! The preparation that John the Baptist calls for is the preparation for someone else, it is not a preparation that is focussed on self-contemplation! John tells us that the kingdom of heaven is near, the kingdom of someone else, the splendid situation that prevails when the Lord is finally my king. The reference from the prophet Isaiah to the “voice of one crying out in the desert” was an announcement of the return from exile of people of Israel. It was time to prepare the way of the Lord, to make his paths straight. When we think of conversion and consider these lines from Isaiah, we have a tendency to think that we need to get our act together and get ourselves sorted out, that we need to straighten the mess in our own lives. But Isaiah was not talking about straightening out our ways! He was speaking about straightening the way for the Lord to come! In the Old Testament, references to the “ways of the Lord” were allusions to the Law of God. John the Baptist, in his preaching, was also calling for a return to an authentic form of obedience - a rejection of the tendency of humanity to domesticate the ways of the Lord, the propensity to cut from our own cloth a comfortable interpretation of the will of God. This is how we make the ways of the Lord crooked! We stand before God and domesticate him, making him follow our ways instead of we following his. We turn him into our personal chaplain who is expected to bless our initiatives. John the Baptist calls us to make straight the Lord’s ways. The word “prepare” means to place oneself in front of something, to confront it in anticipation. We are asked to place ourselves in front of the ways of the Lord. How in love we are with our own thoughts! It is time to open ourselves instead to the thoughts of God.

We have domesticated God. We have twisted him so that he conforms to our crooked ways. This Advent, part of the process of making straight the ways of the Lord involves placing myself before God in humility and asking myself what is the will of God for me.

The prophet Isaiah goes on: “My ways are not your ways”. This is a challenge to reconsider the will of God for each one of us. A noble question that perhaps we do not pose often enough is: “What is the will of God for me? What is his plan?” Many of our brothers and sisters in the faith are surprised by this question and react: “What are you saying? God has a plan for me?” The whole character of John the Baptist is one that radically places us before this question. His clothing of camel hair and his diet of locusts and wild honey demonstrate that he is a man who has returned to the origins, to the time that Israel was in the desert and was being called by God. During the time in the desert, the Lord spoke to his people and showed them his ways. For each of us, there have been moments in our lives when we felt close to God and felt that he was speaking to our hearts; a time, perhaps, when we were more open, and we felt that the Lord was showing us the way. But then we began to complicate things and learned the art of domesticating God.

It is essential to reflect on the fact that our bad actions lead to painful consequences. This is not to turn the Lord into a “wrathful” God. It is to acknowledge that evil is not trivial, that the Lord defends the innocent, that he wishes us to be awoken from our negligence towards others.

John the Baptist speaks out against this twisting of the ways of the Lord. When he sees the Pharisees, he cries out, “Children of snakes! What made you think you could flee from the wrath that awaits you!” All of us have fallen into the tendency of thinking that we do not have to consider the consequences of our actions. We forget that there is a sacred wrath of God that is directed towards our errors. The “wrath” of God should not be understood in a negative sense. Actions have consequences. When things are done wrong, they give rise to pain. God loves all his creatures. If I do wrong to another person, do I think that God does not love that other person? Do I think that the Lord will not defend that person? There is a mechanism in reality whereby the painful consequences of evil serve to waken us out of our illusions about the wrongs that we have committed. John the Baptist refers to this when he asks the religious leaders if they think they can do wrong and not suffer the consequences. Do I think that there are no ill consequences for my utter neglect of what is good? Do I think I can lie and no harm results? This is not true at all.

The Messiah is coming all right. He comes to us every day through the holy providence of God. He purifies us and rids us of our useless baggage, showing that the ways of the Lord are straight and clear.

This is a time to straighten the ways of the Lord. And the ways of the Lord are straight! They are simple and clear. They are non-negotiable because the ways of evil procure suffering. If we continue to be negligent in the way we treat ourselves and others, then it will lead to consequences, and the consideration of consequences helps us prepare for the coming of the Lord. It prompts us to face up to our weaknesses. We are told that the one who is coming “has a winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” In other words, this redeemer will purify things, ridding us of that which is not good and which does not save. Some people would prefer to continue living ambiguous lives. Some people might rather if the Messiah did not come. But the Messiah is on his way, he is coming, he comes many times through the changing circumstances of our lives. The holy providence of God is challenging us daily to free ourselves from this useless chaff, this dross that we carry around with ourselves, but which does not lead us anywhere. To prepare the way of the Lord means to become simpler and more humble. The time of Advent is a wonderful time to wake up and remember the goods that we have received, a time to detach ourselves from evil, a time to return to our true selves.