A homily for the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2022
Is 2:1-5, Rom 13:11-14, Mt 24:37-44
Long before 9/11, long before we all were told that if we see something we must say something, people in the armed forces had a profound call-and-response:
Stay alert!
Stay alive!
Because, of course, sleepwalking through the day can lead to disastrous consequences.
“Stay alert, stay alive” was probably the first thing I learned during my brief dalliance with Army ROTC, and it probably should have been helpful during escape-and-evasion training during a weekend FTX at ignominious IGMR*.
It wasn’t. I was recaptured and executed by the faux enemy, though I did get to evac on a Huey a couple of times.
And I never thought I was sleepwalking during that pitch-black night, but, apparently, my failure in the training proved otherwise.
I guess I was sleepwalking.
Then again, don’t some of us sleepwalk sometimes?
Sleepwalk through our days?
Sleepwalk through our entire lives?
Do we realize we’re doing it?
Throughout the last few weeks, as Ordinary Time and the liturgical year came to a conclusion, our passages from the Scriptures focused on the end times, on the final judgment of all of humankind and the transition of each individual to the next life. Those passages were full of Gehenna and lacking in golly-gee-whiz, warning God’s people about the torments that awaited those who fall off the straight and narrow.
Those passages also led many of the earliest disciples of Jesus Christ to expect his return in their lifetimes, perhaps as soon as next week or next Easter. Even today’s segment of the Letter to the Romans might be interpreted this way:
For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed;
the night is advanced, the day is at hand.
That’s where Matthew’s Gospel offers some greater clarity.
OK, Jesus explains, maybe the monumental day of judgment is near. Or maybe it’s not. No one can know the date or time or even the circumstances of their passing. No one can know the date or time of the end of everything.
And none of us knows precisely when we will see the face of God.
But if we live in a spirit of kindness and justice, if we are not sleepwalking through our days, then we will see the face of Christ Among Us often.
If we are awake and ready, we will encounter people who have Christ within them and for whom we can be Christ.
All of our readings from Scripture this week cajole us to avoid the sins of the flesh, the sins of selfishness, which the readings enumerate in grim detail.
Fair enough. Not being bad can be considered a lot like being good. But there’s more to good than Not Bad (think of all the disappointing times that fishing for a compliment yielded “not bad” instead of “excellent” or “outstanding”).
Good is active, the way Isaiah describes turning weapons of death into tools of sustaining life.
Good is active, the way Matthew — in the 25th chapter of his Gospel — describes the sheep who care for the least of Jesus’s sisters and brothers.
Good is what we are called to be. Good is what we are called to do, at every hour of the day or night.
Good means seeking out our fellow humans who are in need, especially as the weather turns cold and wet. Especially as the holidays that should be a season of joy can instead trigger depression in some people.
Good means if we see something, we should do something, whatever our unique God-given gifts and talents enable us to do.
Good means paying forward the love of God, who gave us everything, including our eyes to see and our hearts to understand and empathize.
If we stay alert, our sisters and brothers will stay alive.
*FTX — field training exercise, aka a campout in fatigues with M-16s loaded with blanks. IGMR — Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, now designated as Fort Indiantown Gap, in Annville, PA.
