This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 27, 2022 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“CHANGES”
(Homily
texts: Isaiah 2: 1 – 5, Romans 13: 11 – 14
& Matthew 24: 36 – 44)
With
the beginning of the new Church Year, bringing with it a change into the season
of Advent, a time when we are called to awaken (reawaken) our senses, to expect
changes as God breaks into our world, our three appointed readings for this
morning, each one of them, outlines a change.
Let’s
explore each one.
We
should begin with Matthew’s record of Jesus’ pronouncement having to do with
God’s eventual breaking into the world, bringing with it enormous change. “Two
women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and the other left,” He
says. “Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left.”
These two statements indicate an earth-shattering change, when people are
engaged in everyday pursuits, only to be separated one from another as God’s
call intervenes.
It
would be prudent for us to put a context around this passage, for it begins
with the Lord’s statement, saying, “But concerning that day and hour, no one
knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Then,
a bit later on, we are told that the context is the coming of the Son of Man.
The
context then, is a description of God’s final purposes for the world as we know
it now. Indeed, biblical scholars have described this passage as a “Little
Apocalypse”, an apocalypse being an “unveiling” (its original meaning) by which
some of God’s intent is revealed to us.[1] The
events described here lie sometime in the future, in God’s time and in God’s
way of acting. We can’t be entirely sure about the details.
Now,
let’s turn our attention to Isaiah’s vision, received from God in the eighth
century BC. Isaiah describes a vision of a future time of peace, when God’s
presence (represented by the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem) will be the focal
point for all the peoples and nations of the world. Whatever divisions had
existed before God’s sovereignty over all things was made know, now, all these
former things have passed away, and God is now in all and above all things.
Such a state, like God’s intent for His final purposes, lies sometime in the
future.
What
are we to do in the everyday world we live in? St. Paul gives us some good
advice. We can summarize it this way: “Once you have come to Christ, your
behavior must change. You must put away the things you used to do, for now you
belong to Christ, you are no longer yours, but Christ’s”. I think that’s a fair
way to summarize Paul’s call to a radical conversion.
A
radical conversion. Conversion means change. It means, when we think about
coming to faith in God through Christ, a radical change from the inside of our
ourselves to the outside. It means a total surrender to God’s will and God’s
way. In essence, coming to faith forces us to realize that such a new way of
being is something we cannot achieve on our own power, we are in need of the
Holy Spirit’s power to bring about such a change. What we are talking about here
is a radically different way of being, something that goes far beyond and far
deeper than accepting a set of principles, or ideas. For, in truth, the Son of
Man (Jesus) will come at the fulfillment of all things. But he also comes to
us, day in and day out, requiring us to be prepared to greet Him and to allow
Him an entrance into our hearts, minds and souls.
This
Advent season puts before us a question: “Are we ready for the changes that
God’s radical call places before us?”
AMEN.
[1] There are parallel passages in Mark and in Luke, but they are shorter than Matthew’s account.
