Reflection on the Readings at Mass for The Second Sunday of Advent (Year A). The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray.
The Liturgy is for People Who Know Their Lives are Messy
As we continue our approach to the Christ Mass this Advent, this selection of readings today gives us an opportunity to marvel at the intentionality of the religion that God has gifted us with. I am not quite sure when religion became such a bad word in our society, but the idea that one can have a Christian spirituality outside of a Christian religion is the height of the Protestant idea; the presumption that I have Christ without His Church and that I can set my own path, is antithetical the entirety of sacred Scripture. No where does God say, go ahead, do you own thing, set your own path, and try to find me that way. God never says I will not provide you precepts, or commandments, or grace, or anything to help you know and follow what is good and true. Nor does God ever say that I will not bring you into my community for you to live in communion with all my children; rather, I’ll just let you figure it out on your own. Not only does the sacred Scriptures of our religion flatly reject the idea of God being such an apathetic clown, but aside from a narcissist would dare say they believe in a God who doesn’t believe in you?
When one has a religion, what they have is an invitation, a way; a path to their God, but for the Catholic, religion moves beyond merely being just a one-way approach. Rather, because the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, truly comes to dwell in us through Baptism, and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Christ Jesus, comes to communion with at the Holy Mass as the Holy Eucharist; so that we might have a bridge and access to our Eternal Father, religion becomes more than just an invitation or a way or a path for us to approach God, but also an invitation, a way, and a path for God to approach us in all of His magnanimity.
What we are talking about when we speak of religion is a way to explain the means of encounter; of the created and their Creator encountering one another, and the messy work ongoing transformation through that ongoing encounter. Yes, religion is messy, but that messiness is not a good reason why we should want to reject it; rather, because it is messy is why we should embrace it. Even the liturgy is messy; not because of its order or form, but, rather, because of the people involved with it. What do we see at the Holy Mass; messy people processing up to encounter the God who comes meet them in their messiness; so that they might cooperate with Him to bring peace to strife, order to chaos, and symphony to cacophony.
It was not a coming of ice cream and cherries that the prophet Isaiah foretold in today’s reading. “On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” That image itself is messy and unorderly. Hardly an idea image of what one would like to see. Typically, you would like to see a new tree sprout out some rich soil, not a stump. A stump is something chopped or sawed down; it’s broken, stepped on, discarded; overlooked; yet, out of the crack of a stump of Jesse, the Isaiah prophesied that a new tree is going to sprout of it and begin to grow and things will be messy at times. “He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. But out of that messiness, “shall come abundant joy and peace; “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them. The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest; the lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea. On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.” What Isaiah is talking about here is religion; that is, the ongoing transformation through ongoing encounter; resulting in true peace.
Consider Saint Paul’s letter today to the Church in Rome. It would one thing for us gathered today to hear the words, “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to thinking in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Speaking with one voice should be easy for us today, because we have the sacred Scriptures, the Creeds, the dogmatic teaching, and even a whole Catechism, but imagine hearing this call then; imagine the Jews and Gentiles; the circumcised and uncircumcised being asked to forget their old ways of thinking, but now think anew and think in harmony with each other through our Lord Jesus Christ. “Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.” What a messy religion this is many must have thought. The letters and the epistles of the New Testament affirm that this was a very messy time in the history of the Catholic Church. Yet, many in the Church Triumphant today; many in the cloud of witnesses who intercede for us today began their ongoing transformation through ongoing encounter with Christ Jesus in those very trenches. Indeed, their witness is testimony to the fact that our because religion is from God, it works not because of us, but in spite of us.
We encounter fewer people in the scared Scriptures whose lives appear to be messier than John the Waymaker. Here was a man who was completely unconcerned about his appearance or diet; completely unconcerned about what people thought about him; completely unconcerned about being accepted by the religious establishment. This prophet of the Old Covenant, whom Christ Himself said no prophet was greater than, devoted his life to religion. He said, himself, “I am the ‘the voice of one crying out in the desert, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” as Isaiah the prophet said. This is why I prefer to call him John the Waymaker, rather than John the Baptist, because he did not come to baptize, but to make a way. What is this way, one might ask – or which way does this way lead to? John came baptizing repentant sinners; that is, people knew their life was messy – baptizing messy people in the Jordan provided them the way to encounter Christ Jesus who had been born of the Virgin so that He might encounter them.
Those who come to the Divine Symphony of the Holy Mass come in cacophony. They come noisy, messy, broken, and troubled, and there we encountered what? – Broken Bread. Broken, an image of a God who knows exactly who we are because He dwelt among us, and in spite of that He comes to encounter us broken as we are, so that we might become one with Him and the Father through the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Mass is the method of religion that the Catholic Church provides us with. This is the way of ongoing transformation through ongoing encounter with the Holy Eucharist that Christ Jesus sacrificed His life so that we might have. The sacraments are not for the righteous, but for the messy. Remember this way of this religion of encounter and transformation as you begin on your way up the communion line today.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
