Advent Message Series - What Are You Waiting For? - Week 2 - Obey

We continue our Advent message series entitled What are you waiting for? Last week we looked at FOCUS. I hope that during the Thanksgiving preparations and festivities, regardless of how scaled back or full they may have been, that you were able to take some time and focus a bit more on your relationship with God. Sometimes it seems as if we have so many excuses about that spiritual project and we feel that we’ll get around to it … and we never do. But I’ve realized over the years that we need to just do it – take time, think, meditate and pray … everyday. Sometimes, everything else can and should wait! On Thanksgiving, I was able to focus and take some time in the afternoon for a good walk through our parish cemetery. I’m always inspired not only thinking about the lives of the people in the graves you’ve entrusted to us, but also by how many of you come and visit and decorate and pray at the graves and tombs of those you love. For many, the visits are to deceased parents, who were the first ones to pass on the Catholic faith – learning to love God and neighbor. For others, sadly it’s parents coming to visit the grave of a child – even some little ones whose parents never got to see them grow up and live their life. Both are signs to me of people who know the meaning of OBEY – children obeying parents and parents obeying the obligation to care for children, even in death. In the New International Version of the Bible, the word 'obey' is mentioned 223 times – so it begs the question, What is the Lord asking us to do, to OBEY in the Scriptures on this second Sunday of Advent? … and then …What are we waiting for? The word PREPARE appears five times in the readings this week. It seems to me then, that in obedience, we are asked to PREPARE … prepare our hearts, prepare our minds, prepare our homes for the coming of the Lord … not only at Christmas, but for our final meeting with him, the one that will take place face to face. And I can hear in the depths of my soul, kind of like a persistent parent, how many times do I have to tell you … prepare!? And while there is a bit of a penitential nature to the season, Advent is not a call to recognize our sin, but it is rather an invitation to change our lives. The hardest thing in the world is perhaps to change our lives. Some people shake at the mention of the word change. The Gospel introduces us to John the Baptist coming out of the desert, the last of the great prophets. It’s been over a hundred years since the people of Israel, the children of Israel, had seen and heard a prophet. And he is very recognizable, because he is dressed like Elijah the prophet, the clothes are Elijah the prophet, the words are the excitement of Elijah the prophet — the greatest prophet who never wrote a word but was the greatest and the first of the great prophets of Israel. And they all have the same message. The Lord has come. Prepare yourself for the coming of the Lord. Prepare yourself. Make straight His paths. What he means by that is … straighten yourselves out. We all know that in obedience to God’s will, there are many things about ourselves that we need to straighten out … even and especially when no one else is looking. We can sometimes be caught up with what everyone else sees and think that we forget the greatest reality … God sees everything. He knows us even from before we were in our mother’s womb ... and God challenges us to straighten out. Surely, there are many ways we can do so: · Being honest with yourself. · Being truthful to others. · Taking care of yourself. · Taking care of others. · Not pretending to be something that you’re not … and so much more! Advent gives us a time to make straight the path, so that the Lord can come and nestle into our hearts and make us transparent and open, make each of us no longer afraid to be who we really are, because in His eyes we are much richer than anything we could ever buy and much higher in His eyes than we could ever make of ourselves among each other. It is indeed God Himself who comes to walk down the straight paths and into our hearts. And to prepare, we are called to obey His Word, to prepare his Kingdom, and to focus on God’s presence here and now. I read recently that Albert Einstein, when he was told that the Declaration of Independence in America was “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” used to say the pursuit of happiness is for idiots. That’s kind of startling. But what he meant was this … They said, “Well, what should we pursue?” He said: You should pursue truth. You should pursue beauty. Not running around trying to be happy, happy, happy, buying things, doing things that will make you happy, happy, happy. Because they’re never going to make you happy.

On the other hand,

… if you pursue truth, if you pursue the things that are really what your own hearts hunger for — love, forgiveness, compassion — these are the truths that are worth laying your life down for. And that is what Jesus comes to give us – all of us, even despite our weaknesses and our sins. He comes not only to teach us, He comes to live it with us. Advent gives us the chance to FOCUS, to OBEY and to PREPARE. And this is what John the Baptist was saying when he challenges us to PREPARE. He is saying make straight the paths because God Himself is coming. And when he comes, he is going to take us into a world that we cannot dream of. But it will be a world very unlike the one we’re in now, living in fear, constant threats, all these things. And He will make and keep us safe. And He will make us whole. This Second Sunday of Advent we are called in obedience to PREPARE … to prepare ourselves for the new world, for the world of heaven … so, it’s already December 6, What are we waiting for? RSM

What We Can Learn from Mr Rogers

I may be dating myself with this example, but you may recall the name Fred McFeely Rogers. He born in 1928 and died of stomach cancer in 2003 - an ordinary man, born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, earned a bachelor's degree in music began a television career at NBC in New York, ultimately worked for children's programming at NET. Later, with a degree from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, he became a Presbyterian minister, and the world came to know him as Mr Rogers.

He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001. I can recall watching him growing up quite regularly.

What you may not know is that Rogers had a difficult childhood. He was shy, introverted, and overweight, and was frequently homebound after suffering bouts of asthma. He was bullied and taunted as a child for his weight and called "Fat Freddy".

According to one director of the 2018 documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? She said, Rogers had a "lonely childhood ... making friends with himself as much as he could. He had a ventriloquist dummy, he had [stuffed] animals, and he would create his own worlds in his childhood bedroom".

Perhaps that’s why Mister Rogers' Neighborhood emphasized young children's social and emotional needs, focusing on children's developing psyche and feelings and sense of moral and ethical reasoning. And perhaps it's why his show and influence is still popular today.

Weaving together his Christian faith and good psychology, I think Mr Rogers is the perfect example when reflecting on the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians, the tenth book of the New Testament. It's a letter that declares that the Christian mystery of salvation, first revealed to the Apostles, is the source of true wisdom and that salvation through Christ is offered to Jews and Gentiles alike.

The letter encourages us all to lead exemplary Christian lives and to arm ourselves with the “shield of faith,” “the helmet of salvation,” and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God”, in order to resist the wiles of the devil. Those sentiments today are captured in the words:

Brothers and sisters:

Be kind to one another, compassionate,

forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

Or, more contemporarily, in the words of Mr Rogers:

There are three ways to ultimate success:

The first way is to be kind.

The second way is to be kind.

The third way is to be kind.

Let that be our focus this day!

RSM

Advent Message Series - What Are You Waiting For? - Week 1 - Focus

Happy New Year! Today we begin the new liturgical year with the First Sunday in Advent. We also begin our four-part message series entitled, What are you waiting for?

• FOCUS

• OBEY

• REJOICE

• MAKE ROOM

What are you waiting for … FOCUS!

We live in a world filled with trials, temptations, distractions and deceptions. Therefore, as Christians we must nevertheless try and remain focused and maintain a right course, especially if we live and work around sincere and well-meaning people who do not share our values and convictions. It can sometimes be easy to forget that there are plenty of dangerous traps to deceive and destroy the unwary believer. We also know that the Bible is filled with warnings about the consequences of losing our focus and it gives us plenty of instructions for staying on course— if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear! So, what are you waiting for?

There is an old saying that those who do not learn the lessons of history will repeat the mistakes of history. The Sacred Scriptures record many examples of this fundamental truth.

• Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden because their focus was diverted away from God’s instructions in listening to Satan and his subtly twisted half-truths, following their own flawed human reasoning.

• The ancient nation of Israel went into captivity because it followed misguided leaders and focused on pagan ways of worship instead of following God’s holy commandments.

• David got into trouble, and Solomon’s heir lost the ten-tribed House of Israel, because they began to focus on the physical creation, instead of obeying their Creator and His instructions.

Scripture has recorded these examples for the admonition of Christians in order to remind us to keep our focus.

The second reading today is from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. In it, Paul writes to a Church that also needs perspective and focus. Considering itself ready for the Lord’s coming, the Corinthian Church will learn in this letter how woefully unprepared the apostle thinks it really is. The Church in Corinth is marked by:

• Theological errors and unethical practices;

• Misplaced priorities;

• Forgetting the poor;

• Constant infighting; and

• Interest in self-advancement.

Some might suggest that unfortunately, these are still hallmarks of our church today!

At the letter’s beginning, Paul celebrates the fact that for all their faults, the Corinthians are nevertheless a true Christian community. He reminds them that God alone keeps them faithful.

The true gospel message that Jesus Christ proclaimed will surprise many professing Christians who have lost their focus. The world generally assumes that Jesus came with a gentle message about love, grace and salvation for all who give their heart to the Lord and who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, without any personal response. Yet the Bible reveals that even demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus, by contrast, commissioned His disciples to preach the true gospel, emphasizing the reality of the coming Kingdom of God. This was the gospel Christ preached before His crucifixion. Jesus emphasized that to be in God’s kingdom, one must repent of sin and must keep the commandments of God. In other words – we are called to FOCUS on Him and live our lives accordingly, each to the best of our ability.

After His resurrection, Jesus told the disciples that they were to be witnesses to the world that His suffering, death and resurrection were necessary for the forgiveness of sin. And even after His resurrection, Jesus continued to focus on the Kingdom of God, as did His disciples.

Sadly, over the years, some have lost sight of the gospel of the kingdom, and the challenges and sacrifices it requires, mistakenly watering down the challenges of the Gospel, and reducing the Church to a sort of casual Christian country club. In the days of Jesus and in our day too, there surely have been and are plenty of misguided leaders who have lost the proper focus, causing confusion, doubt and scandal.

The Church founded by Jesus Christ and His apostles can be recognized—if we focus on what we see revealed in the Scriptures, Sacred Tradition and the teaching of the magisterium. Each of these sources of God’s revelation can help us to better our focus on what really matters on how we are to live and to leave in the blur those things that are unimportant and even detrimental to our faith and our everlasting life.

In the stories of faith, the disciples were not just preaching about a cute little baby Jesus who loved everybody. They did not portray the Church as a mere spiritual hospital for lost souls. They were preaching about a real coming kingdom and the return of a powerful Christ who will shake the nations and restore the government of God to this earth – sorting out the sheep from the goats! Yikes!

The challenge facing us Christians today is to stay focused on the right priorities: the true God, the real Jesus, the word of God, the true Gospel, the servant Church. As Christians, we are called to develop the knowledge and character that God can use, to accomplish the mission of His Church and bring to fruition His great plan.

In these days of Advent, perhaps our New Year’s Resolutions can be working to increase our spiritual attention by:

1. Identifying our distractions

2. Pray regularly, asking God to help us find practical ways to minimize distractions

3. Asking God to speak through His word and show us each time one specific thing to focus on

4. Regularly reading God’s word in the Bible

5. Pondering and praying about the one thing that stands out as we read

6. Reflecting on one way we can apply what’s been read

7. Writing it down – keeping an Advent journal

On this first Sunday of Advent, despite the ominous message of Mark’s Gospel that warns us to “Watch, therefore; because we do not know when the Lord of the house is coming” we are reminded of a number of things that are comforting:

1. All of us fall short of God’s expectations and in love our God does not harden his heart against us but makes possible a way for us to gain his presence again – focus.

2. Despite our imperfections, our sins, and our weaknesses, we are unified in our Christian community through Christ. We grow in him and are strengthened by him. Let’s pray for each other in our community too!

3. Though God understands our weaknesses, we are called to overcome those weaknesses in Christ.

We pray that by our improved focus, and God’s grace, that through Christ that we will be found blameless on the last day.

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to it!

RSM