SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A

By Fr Munachi E. Ezeogu, cssp

Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent- on the Epistle
Home > Homilies > Year A > Advent 3 Gospel

Be Patient ... Until the Coming of the Lord

Isaiah 35:1-6,10 James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11

An Igbo proverb says, “Starvation does not kill when one has hope to
eat sooner or later.” The early Christians were a suffering people. On
account of their belief in Christ, their own people, the Jews, disowned
them. Because they would not worship the Roman deities, the Roman
authorities accused them of heresy and treason and hunted them down,
dead or alive. For the early Christians life was insecure and bereft of
joy. And because they knew they were innocent, they longed for justice
and vindication. Naturally, some of them would bow to social pressure
and renounce the faith to save their neck. In today’s second reading,
James urges them to be patient and courageous in the face of danger and
suffering. The reason he gives them is: the coming of the Lord is near.

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The

farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient
with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be
patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is
near. (James 5:7-8)

James points to nature to illustrate his point that patience is necessary.

The farmer suffers in sowing the seed. The same farmer will rejoice in
harvesting the crop. Between these two moments, however, there is a
long period of waiting. In ancient times, the period between sowing and
harvesting is also a time of famine, since food was in short supply. Yet
the farmer happily suffers this famine in the hope that harvest time will
soon be there and food will be plentiful again.

Now, what does it mean to be patient? To be patient is to understand

that my present suffering is meaningful and necessary. It is as
meaningful and necessary as the suffering of the farmer waiting for the
harvest. The justification for the suffering is in the good-times that will
come in the future. The glory of the Lord does not come to us on credit,
have it now and pay later. It comes to us prepaid. We pay for it in
advance. Now is the time to pay for it, and our present suffering is the
currency. People who do not understand this go about asking
themselves, “Why Me? What have I done to deserve this?” Worse still
they blame someone else for their suffering. James warns his fellow
Christians to avoid the blame-game, to avoid trading complaints against
 one another as if their present suffering was something unnecessary.
Believers who indulge in the blame-game betray their lack of faith in
divine providence, and so make themselves liable to judgment.

Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not
be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! (James 5:9)

James reminds such grumpy Christians that the Lord is very near, “the
Judge is standing at the doors.” It is the Lord who will judge
everyone, the sincere believer as well as the insincere, and give to
everyone what they truly deserve. He reminds those Christians who
grumble against one another as being the cause of their suffering to
focus on the glory of the Lord which is coming and not on their worldly
comfort and social status which is disappearing.

Is the message of James relevant to our church today? Very much so.
More than ever, we have many Christians who are grumbling against
one another and blaming them for the ills that have befallen the church.
Conservatives blame liberals and liberals blame conservatives,
heterosexuals blame homosexuals and homosexuals blame
heterosexuals, traditionalists blame charismatics and charismatics blame
traditionalists, feminists blame patriarchals and patriarchals blame
feminists. Advent is a time to remind ourselves that the Judge is very
near, at the very doors. He it is who will judge and give to everyone
what they deserve. As servants of the Lord we have a natural tendency
to separate the weeds from the wheat. But we must endeavour to heed
the explicit injunction of the Master: “Let both of them grow together
until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect
the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather
the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:30). Let both of them grow
together! Shall we?
SUNDAY HOMILIES FOR YEAR A
By Fr Munachi E. Ezeogu, cssp
Homily for 3rd Sunday of Advent- on the Gospel
Home > Homilies > Year A > Advent 3 Epistle

Blessed Is Anyone Who Takes No Offense at Me

Isaiah 35:1-6,10 James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11

Have you ever seen someone take offense at the Lord? I have. A certain
lady who spent her time working for the Lord — visiting the sick and
the bedridden, helping the elderly and the handicapped — was
diagnosed of a knee problem needing surgery. The surgery was not a
success and so left her in constant pain and unable to walk. It seemed
the Lord had ignored the prayers of this woman and her friends for a
successful surgery. This was a woman who considered herself a
personal friend of Jesus. And was she disappointed? Her otherwise
cheerful disposition turned into sadness and gloom. One day she pulled
herself together and shared with her confessor what was going on in her
soul. The confessor suggested that she go into prayer and ask her friend
Jesus why he has treated her this way. And she did. The following day
the priest met her and saw peace written all over her face in spite of her
pain. “Do you know what he said to me?” she began. “As I was looking
at the crucified Jesus and telling him about my bad knee, he said to me,
‘Mine is worse.’”

“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." (Matt 11:6)

Does John the Baptist in today’s gospel find himself in a similar

situation? John has spent all his life in the Judean desert in anticipation
of the Messiah who was to come. He has prepared the way for the
Messiah by calling the people to a baptism of repentance. Now he is
languishing in prison because he denounced the sins of Herod Antipas.
In the meantime Jesus begins his public work as the Messiah. He
doesn’t go to visit John in prison or send him a word of encouragement.
John hears that he is performing miracles. Why doesn’t he use his
miraculous powers to set John free and vindicate him? Doesn’t
prophecy say that one of the signs of the Messiah is that he will set
prisoners free? Naturally John would expect to be one of the first
beneficiaries. After all, it was he who baptized Jesus in the first place.
Some reciprocal benevolence would certainly be in order. So John sends
messengers to Jesus to remind him. Jesus’ message back to John was,
“Yes I am indeed the Messiah. But please do not take offence at me if
all your expectations are not met.” Blessed is anyone who takes no
offense at me.

What is going on here? Wrong expectations. Popular theology in

biblical times held that prosperity was a sign that God was with
someone and adversity a sign that God was not with them. The author
of Job questioned this theology by telling the story of Job who was a
man of God and yet met with adversity. But that theology has survived
and is still with us today in spite of the teachings and personal example
of Jesus.

In Jesus we see that the sure signs of God’s presence are not primarily
material but spiritual. It is true that in the ministry of Jesus “the blind
receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised” (Matt 11:5), yet these miracles can be seen
as “signs” of an inner spiritual blessing. What does it profit a person
 ultimately to receive the use of physical eyes and feet if they continue to
be spiritually blind and lame? No. The vital signs of God’s presence are
spiritual — spiritual enlightenment (blind see, deaf hear) and
empowerment (lame walk, dead raised). Of course these have inevitable
salutary effects on the physical order, but these are secondary.

Once there was a blind man who became a preacher. He drew crowds to
his preaching because, even though he was still physically blind, he
would often begin his preaching by declaring, “I was blind but now I
see.”

In advent we are like John waiting for the coming of the Lord. What are
our expectations? Today’s gospel reminds us that we need to entertain
expectations that are in accordance with the Lord’s priorities. Without
discounting the physical and the material we are reminded that the
primary domain of God’s saving work among us is the spiritual.
Ultimately this has saving effects on the material and social order, but
God’s salvation is primarily spiritual.

3 R D
S U N D AY O F A D V E N T, C Y C L E A

M E P K I N A B B E Y, M O N C K S C O R N E R , S O U T H
CAROLINA

DECEMBER 15, 2013

A R E YOU A FOL LOW E R OF JOH N OR JES US ?

B Y ( R E V. M S G R . ) N I C H O L A S P. A M AT O

John the Baptist

Back in the first century in Palestine, there is a man named John the Baptist.
John is a fiery preacher. People like his talk about God’s consuming wrath.

They figure that God’s wrath will come down heavy on the Romans who are
occupying their country and oppressing them. They want the Romans to get their
just desserts and John seems to be saying that God will take vengeance on them.

John points to Jesus as the one who will lead his people in all of this. He refers to
Jesus as “one more powerful than I.”

Jesus
Jesus has listened to John and even been baptized by him.

But then, Jesus goes in a completely different direction. He doesn’t talk about
wrath or about God as punishing or vengeful.

Instead, Jesus introduces a whole new language about God and our relationship
with God. He speaks in terms of love, compassion and mercy.

Jesus even speaks about the forgiveness of enemies. He speaks of union with
God and with one another and not of division.

Jesus emphasizes that God comes to us as a savior from what oppresses the
human spirit. He does not speak of God in political or military terms.

Jesus replaces John’s austere life in the desert with a lifestyle centered on meals.
He replaces John’s good guy/bad guy, insider/outsider mentality with an
approach that is open to everyone.

Jesus doesn’t push away or condemn people. He eats dinner with those looked
down upon and labeled as sinners and he converses with these people about the
deep issues of life.

And beyond all this, Jesus does something that John he Baptist never does. He
heals people.

Jesus brings healing and wholeness wherever possible. And his physical healings,
while real, seem to point to something deeper – to the healing of the deepest
hungers and hurts of the human spirit.
And very remarkably, Jesus directs a lot of his attention to the lost and the last
and the least of society. And that includes women and children.

A Revolution
That is the background to today’s gospel.

This is why John sends some of his followers to ask Jesus:“Um, are you really the
One we’ve been waiting for? You’re looking pretty different from what we
expected.”

Jesus responds by going back to Isaiah, to what we heard in our first reading. He
knows that Isaiah gives the true, the accurate idea of what this Savior from God is
to do, and he knows that this is revolutionary.

So Jesus says: “Tell John what’s happening. The blind now see a vision and
purpose and meaning for their lives.

“The deaf now hear a message of unconditional acceptance and self-worth. The
lame are now able to walk through the challenging bumps of life.

“Those as good as dead are now alive and have something to live for. And the
poor now have their deepest hunger satisfied.”

So what he’s telling John is that a revolution is taking place. He is bringing a

whole new understanding of God and our relationship with God.

The Revolution Continues

And I would add that Jesus’ revolution continues and must continue.

Why? Because some still hang on to John the Baptist and his understanding and
expectations.

Some see faith as a checklist of truths that have to be assented to. They miss
faith as an alive, personal relationship with Jesus.

Some see Church as a club with members, with the importance of determining
who’s in and who’s out. They miss Church as a community of persons who can be
at different places in their journey with the Lord, a community where there can
be unity without complete uniformity.

Some see God as judging, punishing, and condemning those who don’t measure
up for this or that reason. They miss God as revealed by Jesus as not just reaching
out, but as being with and accepting those whom we may think are doing wrong.

Conclusion
Maybe it all boils down to this. We need The Joy of the Gospel. That’s what Pope
Francis is talking about in a recent and very refreshing document.

Francis has expressed the revolutionary way of understanding God and us that
Jesus presents on this Third Sunday of Advent. He calls us to embrace this more
fully.

And my bet is, if we do, then the One whose coming into the world we will
celebrate at Christmas will come more fully in our world. He will again have
impact beyond our wildest imagination.