December 8, 2024

Second Sunday of Advent Cycle C

Baruch 5:1-9; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6

My last homily two weeks ago was on the world of art, or rather my reaction to it, and then, what do you know, a work of modern art pops up in the news. A few weeks ago, just before Thanksgiving, there was an artwork that went on sale. It is titled Comedian and is a 2019 artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Now I'm sure most of you have seen this, since it was in all the major news outlets at the time of the sale, but it is one yellow banana duct taped to a plain white wall. That's it. That's all there is to it. But despite the fact that it probably only cost $1.50 to produce, it sold at auction in New York City for six and a quarter million dollars. It was bought by a man who has made a fortune in cryptocurrency. And what does he plan to do with his expensive artwork? He told the media that “in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.” [ https://www.cnn.com/style/duct-taped-banana-maurizio-cattelan-auction-hn... ] And true to his word, on the day after Thanksgiving, he ate it, although he was in Hong Kong and so probably wasn’t still stuffed full of turkey and dressing like all of us here probably were.

Now, like I said in my last homily, I don't understand modern, abstract art, but I do study history, and this should have told me that it would only be a matter of time until another example from the world of art would leave me dumbfounded. I didn't know it would be so soon, but this is a happy coincidence since it gives me a topical example for this weekend.

Now, it is easy in life to deal with those things that we like and understand. However, it is another thing when we encounter something we either do not like or do not understand. So, when I or anyone else is confronted by such things, we don’t have a choice in our initial emotional response to it, but we do have a choice, once we have thought about it, in how we react. We have two basic choices for response, two different attitudes we can adopt. On the one hand, you can refuse to see any value in it. If I can’t see good in it, it can’t be of any value. If other people see it, they must be wrong. Since we are approaching Christmas, we have a readymade example. This is the choice of Scrooge in Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. He has let concerns about money overtake all other values, and therefore his only understanding of good or worth or value is whether or not it produces financial profit. Therefore he refuses to see any good coming from Christmas, and so his only response to anything having to do with Christmas is “bah, humbug.”

But there is another way that we can take these things in life that are hard to understand. This approach is demonstrated by Saint Paul in the second reading today. Now what you need to know is something that is not in our reading. The people who drew up our Lectionary for some reason, perhaps to make the reading slightly shorter, left out a verse which gives an important piece of information: Paul is in prison as he writes this letter to the Philippians (Philippians 1:7). Since Paul was in jail several times, historians don’t know exactly where this letter was written, the leading candidates being Rome or Ephesus. But the fact that he is in prison brings out an important quality to the message from Paul that we heard. It is easy to be joyful when life is going our way. But we all know what it is like to face a world that throws obstacles and trials at us that we can’t understand, or even if we understand it, we don't like. In frustration at being imprisoned after all he has done to try to bring the gospel of Christ, a gospel of hope, to all people, Paul could have said “Bah, humbug” and thrown in the towel. How can you understand a world where bad things happen to good people? But Paul refuses to let something which he can see no benefit from affect his outlook. He chooses the attitude that he will take and doesn’t let his emotions take control.

If you didn’t know that he was in prison, would his first line from the reading – “I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you” [Philippians 1:4a NAB] – would that have even hinted at it? It reflects a conscious decision to find a sense of freedom while in confinement, a sense of joy amid the harsh conditions of a first century prison, a sense of gratitude when life is not giving you what you want, an ability to find value in a situation most would say is worthless. And not only can he find all this in himself, but he also wants the Philippians to find it in themselves as well. Remember his prayer in the second reading: “And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ” [Philippians 1:9-10].

This then is our challenge during this Advent season, to also be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” Advent is simultaneously a remembrance of the first advent of Christ and an acknowledgment that we are still waiting for the second advent, whenever that might be. We no longer wait for the Messiah: he has already come and is here already, both physically in the Eucharist as well as spiritually in the presence of the Holy Spirit in each one of us. But we must always be ready for the end, whether it is the end of the world or the end of our life. And if we are Christians and live the life that Christ asks us to, we live, like Paul, in the hope of the final kingdom of God.

Which brings us to an important topic that we should start a discussion of today. Every 25 years our great Church declares a Jubilee Year, a Holy Year of celebration. The last one was in 2000 with the Millennium celebration under Pope John Paul II. This year, on Christmas eve, Pope Francis will kick off the Jubilee Year by opening the special door in St. Peter’s Basilica that is only opened for these jubilee years. The theme that has been chosen is that our Church become pilgrims of hope for the world. Pilgrimages to Rome for this year are part of the celebration, but the Church realizes that most can’t do this, so we are invited to make our own journeys of faith, breaking away from the mire and sin of the world and deepening a faith that brings us closer to God through a spiritual pilgrimage. It is then that we will be able to be pilgrims of hope, bringing hope to those people who need it, like Saint Paul in the reading today, preaching a gospel of hope to the Philippians. As a local parish, we will follow the jubilee year closely, and mirror many of the events that are happening in Rome with our own events, and the diocese will do so as well. We should all make a new year’s resolution to find ways of participating in some events, making our own journeys, whether physically going or finding a way of making a spiritual pilgrimage of faith. This jubilee year can make no more difference in our lives than a banana taped to a wall, an attitude that special Church events are all just a lot of humbug. Or we can decide that it will be a part of an ever-deepening life in Christ for ourselves and those around us. That is the conscious choice that we all are called on to make.

As we continue with our Mass, let us draw strength from the body of Christ to help transform us into pilgrims of hope this Advent season. I can do no better than to end with a quote from that pilgrim of hope, Scrooge’s nephew Fred, who, when Scrooge scowled at him that Christmas had never done him any good, said this: “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round – apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” [ https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm ]