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Sign & sacrament

22 Dec 2013 - Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A

The O Antiphons can be thought of as Jesus’ spiritual autobiography. They connect the events of the past with the reality of his birth, life, ministry, and death. Today’s O Antiphon prayer, “O Flower of Jesse’s Stem,” reminds us of God’s promise to send a messiah through the family of Jesse. For us, what often looks like a random jumble of experiences takes on a pleasing shape when viewed as a means to understand how God has been present throughout our lives. In the spirit of the O Antiphons, Advent is a good time to begin taking stock of our spiritual history. Where are we now in relation to God and our faith? And: How did we get here?

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08 Dec 2013 - Second Sunday of Advent, Cycle A

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse. Justice will flourish. A time of hope and encouragement is blossoming in our world. Prepare the way of the Lord! Everything scripture says this week is fresh and budding with possibility. Do we feel it? Are we prepared to be renewed and enlivened, to burst forth with brilliant new life? Some of us are. For some this season poised between two great American holidays is reason enough to revive our spirits. Jingle those bells and sing those carols! Deck the halls and decorate that tree! Send cards to everyone you ever met and see how many fond replies are returned. Go ahead: Bake something you shouldn’t be eating; buy gifts that stretch your budget to the brink. Attend every party. In a thousand ways tell all the world the good news that all of us are loved, cared for, remembered, included. Spread the warmth and cheer. Of course the nonstop, wall-to-wall environment of celebration we call December is only one aspect of Advent. There’s also an internal side, and John the Baptist is the master of ceremonies for that. Preparing the way of the Lord is not about stringing up the lights and putting an angel at the top of the evergreen. It’s not about listening to Perry Como or Burl Ives and an endless loop of holiday songs. Those are external signs of an inward reality we don’t want to overlook or neglect. In preparing for the reign of God, the kingdom of heaven, there is one thing John says we simply must do: repent! For only an instant that may appear to be like a dark word added to a season devoted to good cheer. Repent sounds harsh and makes John the Baptist seem like the school marm determined to wreck our fun in the one season dedicated to happy thoughts and lovely memories. So think of repent as helpful advice rather than a grim kibosh lowered on your sleigh ride through Advent. If happiness is our aim, then repentance is the most reliable way to get there. We’re after the good fruit in this blooming season, as John reminds us. If a shoot is to sprout from Jesse and justice is to flower in the land, then some careful pruning is in order first. Just think: The holidays won’t be as joyful if unforgiveness is the atmosphere around the table. If we’re feasting while others can’t feed their families, that’s no good either. If Advent is all about shopping for things no one wants or needs, and we neglect contemplation of the mystery of divine love at the heart of this season, we’ll find ourselves with a hollow feeling at the end of the year and wonder why. Repent, return, reassess—and there will plenty of reasons to rejoice. Related scripture links The Baptist’s warning to tax collectors and soldiers: Luke 3:10-14 Prince of Peace: Isa. 9:5-6 Last Judgment: Matt. 25:31-46 Love the enemy: Luke 6:27-36 Snake imagery: Gen. 3:1-15; Mark 16:17-18 Catechism links Justice: CCC 1905-1917; 19

Authors Alice Camille

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30 Aug 2009 - Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Here’s a dichotomy of readings that invites us to think: Moses presents to the people a law that ostensibly contains the mind of God. Not a thing must be added or subtracted from it. Jesus disparages the legal experts for clinging to the law, down to the last details. How can both these passages be accepted in faith? Most Christians don’t regard themselves as anti-Semites. Roman Catholicism in particular has taken great strides since the Second Vatican Council to clean up its record in response to the Jewish community. Nostra Aetate clearly states: “Jews remain very dear to God, for the sake of the patriarchs, since God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made” (see also Romans 11:28-29). Despite these conciliatory words, however, many Christians take a stance that makes us into what theologians call “unconscious anti-Semites.” We believe that when Jesus arrived, he found the law defective and established its replacement. So: Out with the law, and in with grace. Funny how we have no problem proposing Judaism’s virtual obsolescence, meanwhile resenting it when other religions take Catholicism and do the same thing. Try as we might, we can’t blame this legacy on Paul, the great Pharisee ironically considered the founder of Christian anti-Semitism. In trying to graft Gentiles onto the stump of Jesse, he inadvertently did some damage to the original limbs—but let’s face it, Paul was not a gentle guy. Still, he never, ever renounced his Jewish identity nor did he encourage another Jew to do so. Rather, Paul seems to have glimpsed the Christian proposal so plaintively described in Mark’s gospel: “Hear me, all of you, and try to understanding. Nothing that enters a man from outside can make him impure.” Jesus does not dispose of Mosaic law’s jots and tittles with this statement. Mosaic law held the purity of the nation as its central concern. Jesus honors that concern. Purity is Israel’s special commission as the people with whom God chooses to dwell. If you live with God, you are in mortal danger unless you become a proper vessel for that proximity. (Touching the Ark unworthily always led to a bad situation.) Rather than dismissing the law and its purpose, Jesus reinterprets it through the insight of Israel’s prophets. Their tradition maintains that the law is written on the heart more significantly than on tablets of stone. In the teachings of Jesus, it remains true that the pure heart will see God at last. Related scripture links Faith without works is dead: James 2:14-18 Paul on faith working through love: Gal. 5:6 Jesus on hypocrisy in religion: Matt: 6:1-8, 16-21; 7:1-5 Jesus on the commandments: Matt. 5:17-48 Catechism links Word as revelation and truth: CCC 203-217; 456-463 Teaching and law: CCC 425-429; 1961-1974; 2173

Authors Alice Camille

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08 Dec 2019 - Second Sunday of Advent, Cycle A

Everyone beyond grade school age in this country knows the story of George Washington and his ax. On one side of the scene lies the felled cherry tree and an irate parent. On the other side stands young George, resolutely holding onto his integrity. “I cannot tell a lie,” he says. He may be a tree killer, but at least he’s an honest one. We never learn why George thought it would make good sport to chop down a fruit-bearing tree. That gleaming ax may have been too tempting to pass up, and the tree a haplessly close target for the blade. Of course the point of the story is not about environmentalism but what qualities make for a good president. Someone who can be counted on to fess up even to shortsighted and misguided decision—and presumably to accept the consequences—must have seemed an ideal candidate for the job. What’s left in the story, after George takes responsibility, is the stump of a tree, unable to give shade, bring forth blossoms in the spring, or produce fruit. A tree stump is a sad thing. It is a tombstone carved from the very thing it memorializes. A shoot shall sprout OK, that was a bonus ax story. There are two more given to us in the lectionary this week. This time, the scene opens long after the chopping, and no one is taking any responsibility. The house of Jesse, which is the house of David once removed, has been a dead stump for ages. Though God once promised David that his house would rule forever, it seems God must have had the divine fingers crossed during the pledge. The lineage of kings went as far as David’s son Solomon, then the tree was split in two and rival kingdoms ruled and fought and were eventually subdued by stronger forces altogether. Long gone are the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. What’s left are the Roman occupation, a puppet king Herod, and a stump where the tree of Jesse once proudly stood. Is it too much to imagine, 10 centuries after the time of David, that the stump of Jesse would produce another king? The prophet Isaiah, writing only three centuries after David, still felt hopeful. The roots of the kingdom are still there, he declares, and that is enough to produce a spring of renewed hope. The Spirit of the Lord is still willing to rest on such a king, and justice and peace might yet gather around his harmonic reign. Then seven more centuries pass, and spring never arrives, and the king doesn’t come. Is it reasonable to keep our hopes fastened on this stump? One mightier is coming Enter John the Baptist. Now here’s a fellow you don’t want to trust with any stray axes lying around. He’s charismatic, fearless, confident, and wildly popular. He’s perfectly willing to point at the seats of power and accuse their inhabitants of the most outrageous things. All of which happen to be true, but what is truth? John also cannot tell a lie, and he’ll lose his head for this indiscretion. In the meantime, he’s calling everyone within the sound of his voice to repent, turn around, change your life, a new Kingdom is coming! John even quotes Isaiah, the prophet of the original “return of the king.” At this point, the story begins to sound Tolkien-esque. The one who plunges all comers into the river proclaims the near arrival of one who will plunge his followers into Holy Spirit and fire. The average listener might wonder whether the times, bad as they were, really warranted a messiah. And then John produces the eschatological ax, laid at the root of the trees from all eternity, ready to call forth God’s justice by separating the fruit-bearing from the ground-encumbering among us. If this doesn’t strike you as good news, then be forewarned that it doesn’t get any better than this in the prophecies of John. Even the mighty one, when he arrives, will be called the Lamb of God—the sacrificial lamb, let it be added. And though John wields the ax at the moment, it will come down on his own neck at the end. No one escapes the violence in John’s proclamation. This Kingdom, when it comes, comes bloody. Applying the word How about a nice Advent message? John’s call to repentance is not, we should point out, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is eponymously good news. John’s inter-testamental proclamation is more like Old Testament moralism as the Hebrew prophets served it up: Get your act together or know the wrath of God. Jesus begins his ministry on the hinge message of John: Repent, for the Kingdom is at hand. And then Jesus inaugurates this Kingdom and the universe swings wide open on its paradox. Sinners are now forgiven! The lame walk and the blind see! The dead rise again! A hinge articulates in two directions, and so do the ministries of John and Jesus. If John emphasized the “repent” side of the message, Jesus spends more time telling stories of the Kingdom and its ways. John isn’t wrong, strictly speaking; nor does he ever become a follower of Jesus. His job is to complete the past, to be the last signpost on the way to the future. John seemed to know this, as when he later acknowledged the need to decrease as Jesus increases. Maybe his recognition that the old prophetic style was passing made it easier for John to speak the truth to power. If you’re on your way out, why not take the pillars down with you like Samson did? Something has to die in order for something else to live, the botanists tell us. Scripture has the same message. We have to let go of the past, the old ways, the old self, in order to usher in the new life we long for. We can’t serve two masters, and we can’t have it both ways. You want new life? First you have to die to the old one. Now where’s that ax? Related scripture links God’s promise to David: 2 Sam. 7:8-16 John speaks truth to power: Matt. 14:3-12 Behold the Lamb of God: John 1:29-34 Violence in the kingdom: Matt. 11:12 John must decrease: John 3:22-30 Samson and the pillars: Judg. 16:23-30 Another story of the ax: Matt. 7:15-20

Authors Alice Camille

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