A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity Church ,
Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, December
18, 2011.
(Homily texts: Romans 16: 25 – 27 & Luke 1: 26 - 38)
“In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.” (Luke 1: 26)
I suppose that just about every one of us could recite that verse, either completely accurately, or with a summation of the major facts that it conveys.
But when is the last time we’ve really thought about the facts of what happened when Gabriel made his announcement to Mary? I say this because – oftentimes – I think that Holy Scripture tends to “flatten out” when we read it….that is to say, the events and the people who were caught up in them tend to become like characters in a book, people who may have lived a long time ago in a faraway place.
But
put yourself in Mary’s position, and think about what happened to her when
Gabriel appeared and told her about God’s plans for her life.
Of
course, the first thing we might notice about what Gabriel had to say is that
it changed Mary’s life forever! (And, of
course, Gabriel’s announcement also changed our life forever, as well.)
Now
perhaps we ought to look at this event more closely.
In
particular, let’s recall that Gabriel was “sent from God”. That is to say, it is God who took the
initiative in sending Gabriel, just as it was God who took the initiative to
send Jesus Christ.
Let’s
focus in on God’s part in the drama, as God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the “Son of
the Most High”, comes among us.
The
important thing to notice is that God has revealed Himself here. Without God’s self-revelation of Himself, we
are left without a clear reference point in knowing what to believe about who
God is, what God is like, and how we are to relate to Him.
That
was the problem with the pagan gods and goddesses of the Canaanite peoples who
lived in the land before God’s people came into the Promised Land….they have a
multitude of deities from which to choose, and so the spiritual game became one
of trying to either please one god or another, or to play one god off against
another.
What
was true for human beings over 3,000 years ago remains true today: Without God’s own revelation of Himself, we
are left to our own devices. Once we trust
our own imaginations, we will create gods to suit our own liking.
The
evidence of that is easy to see today:
We are living in a world which has become a pagan place by many
standards. There is no shortage of idols
which can be set up to gather our attention and to demand our service. Wealth, status, possessions, money,
relationships, all of these and many more become the deities which we create
for ourselves. These idols demand our
service, our time, our resources, and our attention.
The
idols of today are far more sophisticated than the ancient Canaanite ones…they
are no longer made of a block of wood, a piece of stone, or pottery.
But
they are no less dangerous. In fact, the
level of danger to our souls rises in direct relationship to the attractiveness
of the idol. For one thing, the more
attractive they seem to be, the less we can see the danger of serving them.
So,
we need God’s self-revelation, that sort of revelation that St. Paul alludes to
in our epistle reading for today. Let’s
notice how he puts that summation as he says, “Now to him who is able to
strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ,
according to the revelation of the
mystery which was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known
to all nations….” (italic mine, of course).
Paul
affirms that God has revealed Himself through the preaching of Jesus Christ,
and that this is the revelation of the mystery of God, which is now disclosed,
and is made known to all nations.
To
sum up then, let’s make some observations about God’s revelation of Himself:
1. God’s revelation is necessary in order to prevent idolatry.
2. Human beings are spiritual creatures. This is an aspect of what it means to be “created
in the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1: 26). Being created in the divine image and
likeness enables us to be spiritual beings, able to conceive of and relate to
God.
3. Without God’s revelation, human beings will
create idols with which to fill the spiritual need which exists within us.
4. God’s revelation of Himself will always be
consistent with some aspect of an earlier revelation of Himself. For example, in today’s gospel text, Gabriel
tells Mary that the son who will be born of her is to be named Jesus, a name
which means “God saves”. So here,
Gabriel affirms that God will save His people through the sending of the person
of Jesus. Just as God had saved His people
in ancient times in various ways (Noah’s passing through the flood, the
Israelites passing through the waters of the Red Sea, e.g.), God now saves His
people in the sending of Jesus.
5. God’s revelation prevents an amorphous
“spirituality”. Many persons today claim
to be “spiritual”, but not “religious”.
There is a danger to be seen here:
undefined spirituality can be just about anything, and can take on just
about any shape (which is usually defined by the individual him/herself). But religion demands that we “tie together
again” (the basic meaning of the word) to truths of God as we have received
them in the person, work, teachings, life, death, resurrection, ascension and
coming again of Jesus Christ, in the pages of Holy Scripture, and in the
received teachings of the Church. Here
is “religion” the way it is supposed to be (and in its best sense): God-given and God-centered.
