A homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec. 20, 2020
2 Sm 7:1-5, 8B-12, 14A, 16, Rom 16:25-27, Lk 1:26-38
Have you ever given or received a present marked “Some Assembly Required”?
Or, more accurately: How many times have you given or received a gift marked “Some Assembly Required”?
When we’re the recipient, we’ll sigh, make a snarky joke about “the gift that keeps on giving,” and then set to work putting all the pieces together. Sometimes we’ll even follow the instructions. And sometimes — sometimes — it goes together easily, correctly, with no pieces left over.
In any case, a gift that requires some — or much — assembly also requires some — or, often, much — commitment.
The kind of commitment King David had. The kind of commitment Mary, the Mother of God, had.
The kind of commitment we have?
As our readings from Scripture today remind us, Mary and David each committed their entire lives, their time and talent and treasure and thoughts and prayers to achieving the goals God set out for them. Those goals were tangible — a dynasty, the birth of God Made Man — and they came as a surprise to Mary and David.
Talk about God having other ideas when people make plans.
Mary was going to be a nice Jewish wife to her nice contractor husband. David was going to build a magnificent home for God’s presence on Earth.
Instead, David and his wife helped continue God’s Creation by bringing forth descendants, and Mary completed the dynastic task by providing an immaculate home for God’s presence on Earth. Jesus, son of God and son of David.
David and Mary were committed to God’s plan, which played out in God’s time, not necessarily theirs. They were obedient to God’s plan, even when they were unsure what their commitment would entail.
Every day, and especially in our Advent season of preparing for Friday’s Feast of the Nativity, we too are challenged to commit ourselves obediently to the plan God has for us, especially those parts of the plan that surprise us.
Scripture repeatedly advises us to stay ready, for we know neither the hour nor the day. …
And when we hear that warning proclaimed, when we read it ourselves, conventional wisdom urges us to remain in a state of grace to be ready for our call home to God’s eternal reward. Wisdom, indeed.
But more immediately, we also know neither the hour nor the day when God is going to ask us to commit to some new or revised part of her plan for us. Are we ready for that?
David was told, no, it’s not your job to build the temple, even though you think it is. That came as a shock to him.
Mary was asked to commit the rest of her life to bringing the Son of God into the world and then — though she didn’t know it yet — hold his tortured, crucified, lifeless body in her arms and consign him to a borrowed tomb. The Annunciation stunned her.
God’s ongoing Creation — some assembly required — required of David and Mary and Abraham and Moses and countless saints and many, many of us sinners to commit to following God’s instructions. And they did. Humanity is all the better because they did. Because we did, and do. Even when God’s request may have the power to knock us onto our heinies.
As Advent winds down, we must reaffirm our commitment as followers. Reaffirm our commitment to being ready to accept the surprise challenges that without a doubt God will set before each of us, often with instruction booklets that sometimes may make no sense at first.
Sometimes God’s instructions include a detailed illustration of the finished product — our lives, and how we used our lives to contribute to Creation and all of our fellow creatures.
Most of the time, though, those instructions do not. And that is one of God’s beautiful contradictions. God gives us specific goals of charity and justice, of stewardship and caring for Creation, with a sense of the overall scope of the commitment he expects, but then lets our individual God-given talents and skills and interests and fascinations shape the finished product.
God doesn’t specify how we are to care for our brothers and sisters in need; God trusts us to do the best we can, as long as we commit. God doesn’t specify how we are to leave the Earth better than we found it; God trusts us to do the best we can, as long as we commit.
We’re four weeks into a new year in the Church. We’re about to start the new year of 2021 as well. Let’s make this the year of Yes, I Commit.
