HOMILY – 2^ND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA CHURCH & FURMAN UNIVERSITY

DECEMBER 6, 2009 – 8, 10, 12 NOON & 6:30PM

May the Lord for whom we wait, give us His peace.

Good company, partnership, bringing us back.

Good company. The Prophet Baruch who we hear from this morning wrote after the Temple in Jerusalem had been raided and plundered.

He writes to a people who are shocked and hurt by their times. You can just hear them, “Things have gotten very bad lately. It is not like the old days. People have lost their minds, sacking a temple of God.”

Yet he comforts them with what God asked him to say as a prophet. God will bring us back. God Word will lead us. We will always have God’s company, even in bad times, His mercy and justice as good company, even as we watch our temple destroyed. He is a good prophet with good news and we need him too.

Any of us can say the same thing of our time. The temple of the human body is being sold, discarded in clinics, used as spare parts in embryonic stem cell research. We are viewing people’s bodies without knowing them that well. “Things have gotten bad lately, people have lost their minds, it’s not like the old days. Except that God is the same as the old days. We are free to live in His company. Baruch says we will advance with God’s mercy and justice for company.

Partnership. One of the things St. Paul speaks about today is his huge appreciation for the way people have received the life of Jesus Christ and followed. He is very grateful for the way they discern what in their time is of value and what is not of lasting value. He expresses his affection.

May I do the same? To everyone of you who does the right thing through pain at work, who bites their tongue at home, who does the duties of this life to love others from God loving you – thank you. For each of you who gives of their time, treasure and talent, knowing it came to you as a gift and must go as a gift – thank you. I speak to you with the affection of Christ.

I’d like to mention specifically the people who serve the liturgy, who serve the education to faith, who maintain this glorious church, who show it’s true way of following Christ in His love for the poor. As you hammer, dig, clean, bring and distribute food, we are found prepared in the waiting, pleasing God and assisting our sisters and brothers. You who look at the poorly educated, the dying, the imprisoned as your special charge, thank you for your partnership. St. Paul and I feel the same way. May what God has begun in us bring it to completion.

Bringing us back. But let me bring us back to the task at hand, and that is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is at hand. God’s life and love, his company, a presence of mercy and justice that you can taste in the Eucharist, is at hand. It is both now and not yet.

Cry out we must for the not yet part!

What is yet to be done? Who is not yet a partner? Who is going away instead of coming back? Is it you?

Fear not, every valley, every really scary dip, like the one Alice Rigler had as she suffered a stroke while working on the float, every valley will be filled. Don’t worry, God has a way of making every hill low. Our bills, Our fulfilling our responsibilities will be possible with the company of God. As God treats us mercifully, so we serve mercifully and remain in hope.

How will God find us should He come this day? This week? Ready?

St. John says prepare the way of the Lord. God is bringing us back.

Our God who began this work in us will bring it to completion.