2nd Sunday in Advent (C)12/09/2012
A conversationtakes place in the movie,Home Alone,between Kevin and his next door neighbor. They are in a church on Christmas Eve and are listening to a children’s choir sing. As they talk, Kevin, learns that his neighbor is in the church to listen to his granddaughter sing because he isn’t welcome to hear her sing during the midnight service.
When asked by Kevin,‘Why?’ He explains that he and his son had an argument many years ago and haven’t spoken with each othersince they separated.
Kevin asks ‘Why don’t you call your son?’
His neighbor tells him, ‘I am afraid that my son won’t talk to me.’
Kevin, before he leaves, says to his neighbor, ‘You should call your son. If he doesn’t want to talk to you, at least you will know, and you won’t have to be afraid any longer.’
Our first reading this weekend from the prophet Baruch and our gospel story from Luke invite us to see and experience our lives as they are, but then be willing to allow ourselves to be taken beyond them.
Israel is in exile. They can see no logical reason for them to believe – or even imagine – that the City of Jerusalem and the Temple will be restored. They are both in ruins and far away. Nor can they bring themselves to accept that God will remember them and once again relate with them as God’s partner. Babylon is now their home, and in many ways, the culture and the economic opportunities here are better than they had in Jerusalem.
Baruch invites Israelto go beyond the life they now know and with which they are comfortable and familiar. The prophet imagines for them something that is both improbable and impractical. He proclaims to Israel, ‘Up Jerusalem! stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God.’
Our gospel story from Luke begins to tell us the story of John the Baptist. It is a story in which we are the doers. We fast; we do penance; we make things right with our neighbor; we connect with God. This can be a good and solid way of living – much like the way of life Israel knew in Babylon.
The gospel writer, however, imagines, and he sees that this way of life of the Baptist holds us hostage by an unconscious fear. It is a way of life that can take us only so far. We, like Israel in exile, also must allow ourselves to be draw into a conscious imaginingthat God is doing for us – God is remembering us and relating with us as God’s partners. Such imagining always takes us into the unknown… the place where God dwells with us.
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