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The Third Sunday of Advent
If you know me at all, you know that patience doesn’t figure high among any virtues I may have. I hate to wait! I envy people who, when caught in traffic gridlock like we had in that recent snow storm, are able to sit patiently behind the wheel and say their prayers. And I envy people who chill out and go with the flow when they go through airport security. Not me. I size up which of the lines is likely to move faster, and make my move for the short line – which invariably turns out to be the slow line. It’s no different at the bank or the supermarket or in choosing freeway lanes. I try to tell myself that waiting is good – that it builds character – but I have yet to convince myself! Advent was made for people like me. Advent is all about waiting, patient waiting. In today’s second reading, James gives us two fine models for patient waiting: the farmer and the prophet. They’re an unlikely twosome, but both plant seeds and both wait for the seeds to take root and grow. Farmers plant their crops and then they wait; prophets plant the seed of God’s Word and then wait for that Word to take root in human hearts. Farmers wait for rain and sun to do their work; prophets wait for grace to do its work: to open closed minds and soften hard hearts. James wrote his letter to people who were tired of waiting, people who were becoming impatient about Jesus’ return in glory. Things were dragging on and on and weren’t getting any better. If anything, they were getting worse: the righteous were suffering, the poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were prospering. Did God see this, they wondered? Did God care? James’ only answer to them was to be patient like the farmer and the prophet. “Make your hearts firm,” he said, “the Lord is coming.” I wonder if James’ advice worked. Does it work for you? For me? Mixed reviews, I think. The gospel gives us John the Baptist who definitely gets mixed reviews on patience. John was patient to a point but he was no poster boy for patience. He was languishing in King Herod’s prison and tired of waiting, waiting for the fulfillment of what he had preached and promised; waiting for the long-awaited Messiah to do what he was supposed to do. John was running out of patience when he sent disciples to Jesus to ask him: “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?” We can sympathize with John, can’t we? I know I can. But then I need, and so do we all, to listen to Jesus’ answer. Reaching back to Isaiah’s great prophecy spoken many hundreds of years earlier, Jesus gave evidence of that prophecy being fulfilled. In him. The blind were seeing, the lame walking, lepers were being cleansed, the deaf were hearing, the dead were being raised, and the poor were having the good news preached to them. And he added: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” Was that Jesus’ way of telling John to be patient? It would seem so. Now, ‘fast forward’ to this moment. To our world, to this place, this time. If we had a chance to ask Jesus a question would it differ from John’s, “Are you the one who is to come?” Our issues may be different from the Baptist’s, but our question is largely the same: how can you be the One, Lord, when so much is wrong in the world? For starters, our world is convulsed by natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions), and our world is equally convulsed by disasters of our own making (wars, violence of all kinds, terrorist plots, reckless pillage of the environment). And our country? Our country seems to be on life-support these days with a broken economy, disastrous unemployment, deep political divisions, callous disregard for human life, and an ever-growing gulf between rich and poor. And then there are our own personal lives which much of the time are far from serene: we struggle with sin, battle all kinds of illnesses, work hard to make ends meet, sacrifice for our kids, deal with divorce and family break-ups, mourn the loss of loved ones. The Baptist’s question to Jesus is our question, too: “Are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another?” And the only answer we get is the one Jesus sent to John,“…the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are being cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are being raised, and the poor are having the good news proclaimed to them:” That’s the answer. And while it may not satisfy, it’s no less true, because Jesus is accomplishing those things. He is. How? Through the Church. Through you and me. He is working through the Church, through us, to heal and care, to love and forgive, to reach out and raise up, to announce the good news to the poor. My friends, think of John the Baptist as our ally, our Advent ally. His impatient question from prison gives us some cover and it gives legitimacy to our impatience. He makes it okay for us to question and to wonder. But during these Advent days, dark yet pierced by hope, we can be grateful for the answer Jesus gave to John. Steadily, quietly, imperceptibly, against all evidence, but with a momentum that is irreversible because it is God’s momentum, the Kingdom of God is being built. And we’re among the ones God is using to build it! Father Michael G. Ryan |
