+ J. M. J. +
Homily Outline for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “Christmas is a season of giving.” Unlike a lot of catch phrases, I think that’s actually right on target, but I also think we can deepen what we understand and mean by it. Many of us are in the midst of getting gifts to give, but it doesn't always go as planned! 4 or 5 years ago I was trying to decide what to get my brother-in-law, John. My dad had introduced him to hunting as soon as he met him, so I decided to get John a classic hunting book that I had read growing up, “The Old Man and the Boy.” I was able to find a used copy online of the very same edition I had read. I thought to myself, “Aha, this is the perfect gift!!!” I ordered it and had it sent to him, content that I had done my Christmas duty. Some weeks later, I was talking to my sister Becky, and she said, “Ben, do you realize that’s exactly the same gift you got John last year?” I was flabbergasted, but then I remembered! I had very carefully selected the same gift two years in a row… completely oblivious!
Some of you, like me, may have most of your Christmas shopping still to do! Yikes! Obviously it’s possible to go overboard and to allow Christmas to become all about the gifts, but the thing itself, gift-giving, is good. Why do we give gifts on Christmas? Part of it is the echo of the Three Kings, who we’ll hear about in a couple weeks when we celebrate Epiphany, but I would propose to you that there’s an even deeper motive. We give gifts at Christmas to imitate the one who gave us the most perfect gift, His only Son! It is God’s gift that came first, and makes possible all the celebration, all the cookies, praise God!, and all the gifts!
In our Gospel today we hear of what led up to Christmas from the Gospel of Matthew. This Gospel focuses on St. Joseph. We barely hear about the Annunciation, but we do hear in more detail about what Joseph had to navigate… suddenly his betrothed and beloved Mary is with child, and it’s not his! She has received a precious gift, but it looks to Joseph, in all good will, like he has been sadly betrayed.
God’s gifts are deeper, purer, but also more complicated than the gifts we often give each other. Receiving God’s gifts often involves being stretched and moved in directions and in ways we would never have imagined on our own. It seems clear that Joseph desired the great and God-given blessing of marriage and family. It seems likely that he eagerly anticipated sharing a life and a home and a bed and a family with Mary. Those hopes seemed to be crashing down around him. We could empathize with him if he had been filled with bitter anger and despair… maybe he did struggle with those destructive urges in his heart. And, yet,
Joseph is open to God’s justice and mercy, and he decides not to harm Mary, even though she has apparently harmed him. He decides not to throw the book at her, not to open her up to public abuse and shame and judgment. Just think for a moment… what would you encourage your son or friend to do if their fiancé was suddenly pregnant by someone else? How would you feel in such a situation? This struggle, this choice not to respond to apparent betrayal with violence, opens the door in Joseph’s heart, and the angel comes to him in a dream, and reveals God’s VERY surprising work… the child has been conceived through the Holy Spirit, the child is the fulfillment of God’s promise, a promise Joseph would have been familiar with. Unlike Ahaz, who we heard reject God’s promise in our first reading, Joseph doesn’t turn away from God’s surprising initiative, but he acts on God’s instructions. A simple sentence, but so much is packed in there: “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.”
God gives us life, and breath, and every good thing, and astonishingly, He offers us even Himself. In response to our betrayal and self-destruction, our confusion and wandering, God comes Himself in infinite humility and vulnerability, as a tiny baby child. That child comes into the world through two people who allow God’s gift into their lives, even though it means reconfiguring everything they had hoped for and planned for.
So… here’s the challenge for you and me. First… can we receive the Gift God offers us this Christmas? No one can give what they have not received… we cannot give of ourselves, we cannot give love or mercy, unless we have first received all that we are, all that we have, as the gift that it is. Are we filled with profound and heart-overflowing gratitude for life and faith and family, however difficult each of those may be for us right now? St. Paul describes the gift of being called and set apart for God, and he speaks of us as those “called to belong to Jesus Christ.” God gives us everything, and dealing with reality involves acknowledging that.
And if we will receive -- if like Mary and Joseph we will say yes to God’s plan, even as it restructures everything we had thought or planned -- if we will receive, then we can give truly and authentically. Some of us priests were able to meet with our new bishop-elect, Fr. John Doerfler, this past Tuesday. My impression is that he is a very good, a faithful, a prayerful man, and I could see in his face and hear in his voice that he is still very much coming to grips with leaving his very busy vocation as vicar general of Green Bay and coming to a new place, to take on a yet deeper responsibility. His call didn’t come in a dream, but as a phone call from the Apostolic Nuncio! Pray for him… he is in the midst of imitating Mary and Joseph.
Physical gifts are fine, often good… we should give money and time to those in need, we should give good gifts to our children and friends… but these are not the gifts that matter, unless they serve as symbols and tokens of what does matter… do we give of ourselves? Can we call someone we need to be reconciled with, or who needs a word of encouragement from us? Can we spend time with the family members and friends that we struggle to like even as we choose to love? Can we give the gift of patience, presence, kindness, and encouragement? Can we make the sacrifice and take the risk of reaching out to those who are lonely, or afraid, or sick, or hurting during these festive days?
God’s gift comes first, and it empowers us to give in return. This is infinitely present and true now as we turn to this altar where God will transform the simple bread and wine into Jesus own Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. May we receive this gift and be transformed. May we receive God, and then give from all that we have received.
+ A. M. D. G. +
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