Second Sunday in Advent 'B'

Saturday December 6, 2008

On the verge of war or peace

It was December 10th, 1965 in East Jerusalem, about two years before the six day war between Israel and Jordan. Taking a Christmas break from graduate studies in Rome, we were fully engaged in a very special pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Jerusalem was a divided city—the east belonging to Jordan, the west to Israel. We had landed in Amman, Jordan four days earlier and had traveled to all the holy places including Bethlehem, Nablus, and Jericho in what is now called the “west bank”. Traveling across the border from Israel to Jordan was not permitted. Crossing from Jordan into Israel required special visas and several security checks.

Soon it was time to cross “no man’s land,” a field of barbed wire and mines between the two disparate sections of Jerusalem. Cameras in view were confiscated. We could see guns perched through narrow windows atop thin towers with soldiers taking aim in case any traveler turned out to be an unwelcome intruder. It was my first experience in the heart of a cold war zone. I dropped my breviary accidentally along the path leading to the checkpoint pass and picked it up cautiously lest someone think I was chancing a false move. Dried mud is still visible on the edges of the pages. In hindsight, it was a pretty scary experience. Young people have more courage than common sense.

This was just a taste of the enmity that has divided Jews and Arabs for centuries, a forecast then, of the divisions that still exist throughout the Middle East and in the world at large between people of different ethnic origins. As we traveled along the route of Jesus’ journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem, I thought how true that axiom: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

But despite these divisions and the bitterness that endures between estranged governments, and that has continued through the centuries among many nations, there have always been people at the ‘lowest’ ranks of society, among the ‘little people’ – among you and me, yearning for concord, giving voice to a latent hope that one day, peace will reign. Notwithstanding liturgical purists who forbid any anticipation of Christmas joy, I submit that people need and want to sing and listen to Christmas carols on the day after Thanksgiving because they buoy their spirits and offers a sense of hope that maybe this year things will be different.

The words of Isaiah, our primary Advent preacher, echoed by Mark in the opening words of his gospel ring as true today as they did in Ancient Israel: “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God,” not for Caesar.

I reckon the callousness of the human heart is more difficult to overcome than the barbed wire and field mines that divide nations. Do not killing fields and ethnic cleansing camps begin with the self-hatred that blinds both terrorists and righteous warriors to God’s indiscriminate acceptance and love of all people.

St. Mark places our second Advent preacher, John the Baptist, in an historical context in which worldly powers claim the absolute will to power. Returning from war, ancient ‘Caesars’ and emperors were acclaimed “Lord and savior!” And the people were told to pave a pathway for them. But Mark wants us to name Jesus, not Caesar, as Lord and Savior as he appeared in human form, and as he merged in the early Church and as he has appeared through the centuries in the continuing flow of divine love in human form wherever believers recognize God as the ground of their being.

There is comfort in the proclamation of the Advent prophets and preachers as there is comfort in the heart of Christians who allow themselves to become powerless in the face of divine love but empowered to rise above human differences, putting on the compassion of Christ.

To “prepare the way of the Lord” is to challenge governments and corporations to integrity in the face of excessive politicizing, exploitation, deceit and a lack of transparency.

To “prepare the way of the Lord” is to overcome the bias and bigotry that infects even the human dimension of the Church with its blatant clericalism and sexism to say nothing of the lack of transparency and accountability. Our Church shepherds need to hear from and listen to the ‘little people’ like you as me.

“In Christ there is no east or west, no difference between slave or free person; between Jew or Greek; between male or female, between gay or straight, because all have become one in him who has saved us.”

Perhaps the greatest challenge that we face as Christians is not so much what we say and do, but the manner in which we speak and act. It’s not that our case and cause have no merit in themselves but that we slip all too easily into a script that belies what we believe, a script that puts other people down rather than one that lifts them up. To challenge with love is much more difficult than fighting with weapons of mass destruction emanating from the human tongue.

John paved the way for Jesus. Our shepherds need to defer to Christ the true Shepherd.

And so let us pray:

Lord,
help us to accept this season of Advent
not as an opportunity to condemn the secular
but to consecrate the human.

There are so many hurting hearts
waiting for someone to fill the void and heal the emptiness
that comes from our hunger and our anger

Your son took on human flesh in Jesus
so that we might know the power of divine love
in human form.

Open our hearts to the grace of this season of giving,
may we find joy in knowing that our gift of self to those in need
will be our greatest blessing
when you come again in glory.

This is our Advent prayer but Lord,
may our concern for all our sisters and brothers
always be a reflection of your incarnate love
for all humanity.

Let God’s people say, “Amen!”

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