4TH SUNDAY ADVENT (B) 18 December 2011

We have now arrived at the fourth Sunday of Advent and are getting closer to the celebration of Christmas.  For the first time in Advent we meet Mary in the readings.  The angel visits her and announces that she is to be the mother of Jesus.  Advent is a time of preparation and hope.  Today the focus shifts more squarely to the birth of Jesus at Christmas.  But we should not forget the bigger picture that we have been seeing over the last three weeks.  Mary is also part of that picture.  She is one of the People of God who lived their lives in expectation that God would visit them and change their lives and their world.  As our eyes are drawn to the birth of Jesus we too must allow him to shine a light on the bigger picture of what God is doing in our world.  Mary will help us do this.

The gospel reading we heard suggests that Mary was troubled by the angel’s visit.  Let’s notice why Mary might have been troubled – and I think she was troubled by several things.  We all quickly recognise that the first thing to trouble her was the news that she was to be the mother of Jesus.  She is astonished at the angle’s greeting because she is a virgin and not yet married.  It doesn’t take much thinking to realise why she would have been troubled.  It wasn’t just because there were so many things unexplained; perhaps more troubling was the prospect of where this would leave her in her family and community.  She was about to find herself in an embarrassing situation, and could well end up being shunned and excluded from the family.  In those days this was a terrible thing to happen to a young woman, because it meant she no longer had any place to live or any means of support.  In her case it may have been even worse, because Joseph might have decided to divorce her.  So, we can understand why she was troubled.

But the angel says something else that troubles her.  He tells her that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and the power of God will overshadow her.  Perhaps we don’t give enough attention to how troubling this news must have been.  We have probably never much thought about what this means.  I’m sure that Mary was a young woman who had grown up in the faith of her people, that she would have followed all the usual religious practices and worshipped God in the same way as everyone else.  She probably had a sense of the dignity of every human being, remembering the words of the Book of Genesis that we are made in the image and likeness of God.  But she had probably never considered that the power of God would come to her in any unique or particular way.  So she had to think about herself and what God was doing in her life.  It wasn’t just that she would be a mother, but that God was calling her to something special.  Not just that – God was giving her all that she would need to live out the plan he had.  She now had to decide to cooperate with God.

There was one other thing in the angel’s greeting that would have troubled her.  And this was about the child, who was to be called the Son of the Most High.  Even she would have recognised that this meant that the child would have a unique relationship with God.  She wouldn’t have fully understood what this was about, but the angel made it clear that the child was going to have an impact far greater than just the local family or village.  Jesus would eventually bring about God’s reign and would be more powerful than any of the kings of the earth.  So, Mary was being drawn into something that was changing the world.  We could say that she received earth-shattering news.

We can understand now why Mary was troubled.  It wasn’t just that Jesus was going to be born.  It probably had more to do with his identity as the Son of God.  It probably also had to do with the dawning realisation that her son was going to change the world.  Mary would have understood all this as bringing to fulfilment what she had heard from the prophets as they were read in the synagogue.  God’s plan was unfolding in her life and in the world.  But God also gives her the freedom to respond to the invitation.  As we know, Mary’s response has become famous: “Let what you have said, be done to me”.

What are we to make of all this?  I think that this scene with Mary invites us to ponder what happened.  But in remembering what happened back then we should also consider what God is still doing in the world.  During Advent we have been hearing about and pondering the promise God made about the future.  Advent invites us to have hope, and to allow the present to be shaped by our hope about the future.  In this way we are a lot like Mary: we are being called to become part of God’s plan as it unfolds in our world.  Like Mary, we may find this troubling.  Maybe it is what is unknown that troubles us; maybe it is the seeming enormity of being involved in God’s plan for the world; or maybe we don’t think of ourselves as so close to God that God would use us to bring about a new world.  But if we think about it, Mary was asked to have a baby.  She could manage that.  The Holy Spirit worked through her to bring about God’s will.  I think we are asked today, as Christmas approaches, to prepare a dwelling place for God in our hearts, and to allow them to be so transformed that we live out of the love that God has poured into our hearts.

Rev Dr Gerard Kelly

CHRIST THE KING (A) 20 November 2011

Each year we celebrate the feast of Christ the King as the last Sunday in the Church’s liturgical year.  The gospel we listen to on this feast rotates on a three yearly cycle.  Last year we heard St Luke’s gospel account of Jesus on the cross, with one of the thieves crucified beside him asking Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom.  Here was Jesus the King and the cross was his throne.  Next year we will hear from St John’s gospel and see Jesus before Pilate.  Pilate asks him if he is a king, and Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world.  Once again, we see the kingship of Jesus associated with his passion and death.  The gospel this year from St Matthew is a different scene.  We have the judgement scene where the sheep and the goats are separated.  This gospel presents Christ the king as a judge, sitting in judgement.  In separating the sheep from the goats he is welcoming people into his kingdom.

The striking thing about this gospel account is what it tells us about what we need to do to find a place in the kingdom of God.  In some ways it is very easy: you need to give food to the hungry; give the thirsty something to drink; welcome the stranger; clothe the naked; care for the sick; and visit the prisoners.  But as we listened to the gospel you probably noticed that none of the people being judged had much sense of what they were doing.  Both those on the right and those on the left, say to the Son of Man, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison?”  The response is simple: when you reached out to one of the least of these people you reached out to me.  This is the great insight of today’s gospel passage; this is the thing we are meant to learn.  We encounter Jesus in others.  This is the key to understanding his kingdom and appreciating what it means to celebrate Christ as king.

My guess is that if you sit people around in discussion groups and ask them what do you have to do to inherit the kingdom of God they would come up with a different answer to what we heard in this gospel.  They might say “keep the commandments”, or “say your prayers”, or “live a moral life”, or “keep your heart pure”.  Yes, these are all important things.  But they’re not mentioned in today’s gospel.  I wonder why.

I think the answer is that when we speak about each of these things we can easily be focused on ourselves; we can be tempted to become a little self-righteous.  The big difference between this attitude and actions Jesus is looking for is that all the things mentioned in the gospel today draw our attention away from ourselves and on to others.  These activities have traditionally been referred to as the works of mercy.  As we see them described in the gospel there is a close link between mercy and charity.  Both mercy and charity are selfless acts.  They give without counting the cost; they give without seeking any reward.

Throughout Christian history the church has been noted for its works of mercy.  The church was concerned for the education and welfare of poor children.  The church provided hospitals for the sick.  Think of the word “hospital” in English: it is linked to hospitality.  The church provided shelters and refuges for the homeless and the needy, for the stateless and refugees.  Of course, in the last hundred years or so governments have become involved in these works of mercy, and effectively taken control of them.  It goes by the name of welfare.  No one speaks today of these activities as works of mercy.  Perhaps this is because governments need to set criteria for assistance, which means that not everyone is assisted.  Even the word charity has changed its meaning so that it is seen as something cold, uncaring and anonymous.

In modern times the church often struggles to work out how it will contribute to this aspect of the social fabric of our national life.  Churches have had to decide whether they will administer government assistance to the needy on the terms set by the government.  This is a difficult decision for the churches because their motives are very different from the motives of a government that is by definition secular.  The motive of the church for all that it does is the kingdom of God.  There can be no categorising of people into the deserving and the undeserving poor.  The question of Christ the King rings out loudly: When I was ... did you..?  But I think the response of the sheep and the goats also pricks our conscience: Lord, when did we see you...?  And he replies: When you did this to one of the least of my children...

Today’s feast celebrates the kingdom of God – a kingdom that has dawned in the world and is already visible in Jesus.  We are invited into it, so that we might become like him.  But what has already been realised in Jesus is still coming to be in us.  It is not easy to live this gospel; it is not easy to make the choices that it demands.  It takes a life-time to arrive at that point; it takes until the judgement.  But we make progress little-by-little, step-by-step.  Let’s get to know Christ the king, and take those little steps into the kingdom.

 Fr. Gerard Kelly