Homily for Third Sunday of Advent 2016

To paraphrase the Gospel, what did you come here to see?  Pretty Advent decorations?  What did you come here to see?  Finally dressed people?  What then did you come here to see?  A prophet, a homilist who could string words together in a complete sentence?  Ah, yes, and more than that.  You came to see if love is really possible, to make sense out of nonsense, to feel comforted and a bit more centered by a Word of HOPE.

We all need a huge dose of HOPE and we spend a lot of time and do a lot of things to try and find HOPE if not enduring LOVE.  At times we say “we placed all our hopes on (you fill in the blank) only to be somewhat or hugely disappointed.  Some of you, if you are close to my age, will remember at time when cereal box came with coupon offerings for toy and nick knacks on the back.  If the sugary non-nutritional cereal wasn’t enough they would grab us with outrageous offers.  I’d send them off and then wait, and wait, and keep watch for the mail-carrier. Ah the expectation that the underwater “ATOMIC” submarine would really work as described on the cereal box.  It didn’t, the picture on the box always looked better.

As we grow up this waiting and hoping gets more serious and the results can be more devastating.  I always tried to be home on Christmas Day because of course my mother just loved it. We had a tradition in our family, It was a rather unspoken tradition, that the smallest package was always the best gift. So I always saved the smallest until the last. About 25 or 30 years ago which would make me in my mid 40s or so, I went home as usual and we started opening the gifts and I saved the smallest alas. With great expectation I opened the box, which had that heavy weight feeling of something really important or at least expensive. I opened it and looked inside and my heart sank right out through the bottom of my feet. There before me was a brand-new, state-of-the-art, probably the most expensive, Electric shaver that you can possibly buy! I didn't know what to say! You see the problem is, I have never, and I mean never, have I used or had any use for an electric razor. I sat there for a moment, it seemed like a long time, and thought of all the things I could have bought with that electric appliance.  A few days later I finally got up the nerve to ask my dad "Why did you give me an electric razor?" He said well when you're a teenager we never gave you one and we've always felt that we should have and we're trying to make up for what we didn't do back then.  That razor now sits on my shelf or I can see it everyday as a sign that love is often and sometimes hidden in things that we don't even want.

I believe that the Advent season is the most beautiful season of the Church year; but it is also the most hidden.  Its peace, love and joy is buried under all of our activities, buried under all our expectations and preparations.  In our rushing around we miss so much because we are focused on what might bring us hope and miss the hope right in front of us; in fact well live most of our years so absorbed.  This is not new.

Even John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, missed seeing what Jesus was really all about.  John was expecting something different, maybe more powerful and flashy; but Jesus tells John disciples “tell John what you SEE happening.”  The blind are given their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear — the really GOOD NEWS that John was looking for was right in front of him; and he failed to see it.  This is true for us as well.

Last Sunday evening Fr. Joe and I went for a walk to look at the city’s Christmas decorations.  I laugh when people whine and moan about the war on Christmas — my word, everything around our city is screaming CHRISTMAS — people may want to call them Holiday Trees, or say happy holidays be we know they are screaming CHRISTMAS.  The love, peace, joy and hope are found in the eyes of children, and in those hanging on to the edge of the skating rink in Union Square trying their best to look like graceful skaters.  It is all there, it is all here - if, if we take the time to notice, to really see behind even the things we don’t care that much about.