Advent is a time to look forward – to have expectations. Our expectations are of all sorts. We can look forward to gifts – to shopping, to giving and receiving presents. Or our expectations can take us to the sights, sounds and smells of the holidays – the tree all decorated, good food and drink. And then we have our religious expectations – looking forward to our religious celebrations and hymns, to hearing again the story of the birth of Christ.
But I must tell you this season of Advent is given us to call all our expectations into question. Advent wants to awaken us – awaken us to the realization that our expectations are far too genteel and respectable. It wants to awaken us to recognize that our expectations are far too meager.
This season we will hear again all the gospel stories surrounding the birth of Christ. Well known scenes will be repeated: the Annunciation to Mary by the angel Gabriel – Joseph’s confusion and dream telling him to marry Mary – the star, the magi, the manger, shepherds guarding their flocks, the slaughter of the innocents.
But using the voices of prophets like Isaiah and John the Baptist – as in today’s readings – Advent will yell to us: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Advent wants us to change – to repent – to undergo a depth transformation of mind, heart and spirit. “Repent” means to hear differently – to imagine differently – to expect differently. Only then will we be able to see and enter the kingdom of heaven. Repent – change and then you’ll be able to see God’s kingdom right in front of you. Then you’ll be able to enter into God’s own world and way. And it is God’s own world and way that Advent wants us to enter – not the nice, tidy religious realm we imagine God fitting into. Advent wants to upset – overturn and tear down our tame – manicured images of God. Once that happens, then will we see, sense and enter into God’s unexpected, unimagined presence in life.
Let me give an example of the kind of transformation Advent wants to work in us – how we are to hear, imagine and expect differently. A well known and beloved scene for us is the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel says to Mary: “Hail, full of grace!” Mary responds: “As you have spoken, so be it done to me. I am the Lord’s servant.” Now comes the Advent difference – our hearing and imagining differently. See a girl in her teens suspected of a capital crime – adultery. That is Mary’s real situation. Then in this – her real, lived situation – hear again the words: “Hail, full of grace!” “…so be it done to me. I am the Lord’s servant.” We might also hear the words of this criminally pregnant woman to her cousin, Elizabeth: “My soul proclaims God’s goodness and greatness.”
Mary’s Yes – her Fiat – makes her “full of grace” truly – but also a woman to be held in contempt and disdain – a woman to be avoided. Her expectations of God are changing. Following God’s lead does not necessarily lead to applause and approval. Yet she is and remains “full of grace” – proclaiming God’s goodness and greatness.
We are to hear God differently – imagine God differently – expect from God differently. Such would Advent have us learn and do. Perhaps we need to learn to listen to the Word of God – not so politely and not so piously. Perhaps our genteel and pious approaches to God and God’s Word only get in the way. Perhaps they only serve to feed a presumed familiarity with what is really being said that actually decreases our ability to find God’s presence and action in our lives. Our piety and respectability might give us a nice, respectable God – but will we have a living God who only wants to baptize us with his own Spirit and with fire? Certainly we will not have the living God who can move a pregnant, unmarried teenage girl from fear to joy and praise.
I want to conclude with a parable told by an Indian Jesuit, Anthony De Mello. It’s a parable of repentance.
A group of tourists sits in a bus traveling through gorgeously beautiful country. There are lakes and mountains, green fields and rivers. But the shades of the bus are drawn down. The travelers haven’t the slightest idea of what lies beyond the windows of the bus. And all the time of their journey is spent squabbling with one another over who will have the seat of honor in the bus. And so they remain till journey’s end.
A sad story. The prophets – John the Baptist – Advent – all yell at us: Repent! Change the story! Get rid of the shades on your bus! Remove the shades from your lives! Then you will come to real life and to God’s real presence – God’s unexpected, unimagined presence in your life. Change! Make straight God’s way into your life!
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
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