Vine & Fig

Today’s Gospel instills a bit of fear in as we hear about a story of people going about their daily lives: Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know which day your God will come.” Terrified? Feeling threatened by what feels like the wrath of God if we do not do everything right in order to be a perfect Christian then we will be the person taken? I think, far too often, that this is the way that we understand this reading. I don’t know about you, but this reading makes me feel hopeless and overwhelmed. Can I ever be prepared for God? What do I need to put on my to-do list so I am not the person left in the field or at the mill?

I would like to offer that God’s breaking into our lives is actually good. God is challenging us to reexamine our own lives in light of the other readings we have listened to today. Sometimes, God needs to break into our lives and interrupt our routine to get our attention. Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM suggests that God often interrupts our lives when we are not controlling every aspect of our days. This often occurs during moments of silence, of great love and appreciation, and in suffering. I can think of life changing instances in my own life when I let down my guard long enough for God to reach out to me…and that I felt free enough to respond and to be aware that God was present the entire time…that I just needed to be present to God. Therefore, the questions for us this Advent might be “how are we ready for God?” or “how is God present to us and how are we present to God?”

Today’s readings offer two suggestions for us as we live into the presence of God. Psalm 122 encourages us to

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
May those who love you prosper!
May peace be within your walls,
prosperity in your buildings.”

How do we achieve this peace? How do we achieve this peace in a world that appears to be broken? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like we are living in a constant state of turmoil. In my city last weekend, an 11-year-old was murdered while at a friend’s birthday party. We turn on the news only to hear about another bombing or mass shooting or see images of malnourished children. And, in our own churches and faith traditions, we struggle with the role of women or live in horror as our LGBTQ+ community is shunned.

Do we just give up? Isaiah’s prophetic words remind us that we cannot give up…that we must work for peace. His words require works of justice and remind me of Paul VI’s saying, “If you want peace, work for justice.” Isaiah talks about a world in which:

He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.

Isn’t this a way for us to hope for peace and prosperity for all we love? Isaiah’s call to transformation forces us to reframe our original question. Now, we must ask, “how are we working towards peace?” In a world filled with discrimination, war, and upheaval, I wonder how we are called to destroy swords and spears. What or who are we categorizing as today’s “swords and spears?” Are they people who continually insist that others, simply by nature of their nationality, race, sexual orientation or gender identity, or physical ability are considered to be “less than” and should, therefore, be cast aside?  Are they people who claim that people should be prevented from entering the United States because they are Muslim or Haitian or Mexican? Are they people who believe that they have the power to deny others the right to love?

A decade ago, I found myself moving to Minnesota to work with Somali refugees. I knew nothing about Somalia or what caused them to flee twenty years earlier. I also landed in a town that was resentful to their very presence. The first woman I worked with was only a few years younger than me. She had travelled to the US alone and was living with three other single Somali women while finishing her high school education. We immediately bonded and set out learning how to navigate our new city together. As I learned more about her culture and life, the initial fears I had about working with Somalis dissipated. A few months after we began working together, she called me in tears. I rushed to her house as she told me that “it’s true what they say about me…basha…” I had no idea what she was trying to tell me as I frantically flipped through my dictionary. I felt panicked as I couldn’t find the word so I asked her to clarify. She cried even harder and said, “It’s true…I love her.” I understood and felt pangs of panic. How could I comfort her when I still (kind of) believed that LGBTQ+ people did not belong in churches and when I kept my distance from themlest someone accuse me of being gay. I am sure that I mumbled something that I hoped would pass for support while I hurried out of our meeting. I was horrified. It was not until almost a year later, after a powerful “God moment,” that I began to work through my own prejudices and fears that prevented me from being my authentic self.

Even though we are people who are too often marginalized for some of the reasons listed above, we must still do the hard work of transformation and letting God break through into our lives. We must be free enough to let God pull us into relationship with one another so that we can, together, work for peace in our churches, our communities, our cities, and in our world. 

The Advent season reminds us that it is not enough to hope for peace in our cities, in our communities, in our churches, and in our world. We must be willing to work for that goal. We must be willing to let God break into our lives and pull us into relationship with others so that we can, together, move beyond our own fear, complacency, and hatred so that we can invite others to live in the continual presence of God. To do so, we must remember the many times in our own lives that we needed to be awakened so that we, too, could let go of our own fears and prejudices. We must realize that we need each other to build relationships, bridge differences, and dream of a more whole world that “throws off the works of darkness” so that we live in the light and hope of Jesus.

May we create space this Advent season to sit, pray, and ponder the presence of God in our own lives and in our world.