3rd Sunday of Advent

December 17, 2006

INTRODUCTION – (Zeph 3:14-18a; Phil 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18) Our theme for today, as it often is, is summed up in the Psalm Refrain: “Cry out with joy and gladness, for among you is the great and holy one of Israel.” Our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah goes back about 700 years before Christ. The Assyrians were the dominant force in the Middle East and were an unusually warlike, brutal people. Their capital city was in northern Iraq near modern day Mosul. Our first reading comes from a time shortly after the Assyrians wiped out the northern part of Israel. They brought severe suffering upon the southern part of Israel too, the area around Jerusalem, but they did not conquer it. Jerusalem would still stand for another 130 years until the Babylonians conquered it. The Babylonian empire, as you might remember, was centered around Baghdad and it was after they destroyed the Assyrian empire that they moved on to conquer many other nations in the Middle East which included Judah and Jerusalem. (It sounds very much like what’s going on over there today, doesn’t it?) Meanwhile back to Zephaniah 700 years before Christ after the northern part of Israel had been devastated. Jerusalem was struggling to recover from the near destruction they had suffered, but they didn’t learn their lesson. Idolatry and immorality were rampant among the Jews. The king of Judah himself offered his own son as a human sacrifice to the pagan gods. Most of Zephaniah’s book records his efforts to correct abuses among God’s people. His book ends on a note of hope, however, as he addresses those who are faithful to God. He tells them to rejoice and assures them God will rejoice and sing too because of his love for them and for all the blessings that will be theirs. Can any of us begin to imagine what it would sound like to hear God singing?

    There is something we should be aware of when we hear the second reading too. St. Paul is sitting in prison somewhere when he wrote this, and prisons in those days were really bad. Today’s prisons would look like a luxury to rejoice always.

HOMILY – In the days when we had Mass in Latin, today was known as Gaudete Sunday. That means “Be Joyful.” The liturgy continues to communicate that theme of joy with rose colored vestments and readings telling us to rejoice.

    So on this Gaudete Sunday I thought you would enjoy a couple of laughs.

    First a riddle for you: Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? Answer: You do all the work, and the guy that wears that big fancy suit gets all the credit.

    A couple were always fascinated by old churches and wherever they traveled if they came near an old church they had to stop and look inside. Once in a small town church they saw an oddly shaped bell and asked the person cleaning the church what the strange bell was used for. They were told “That bell is reserved for calamities, like fires, floods, or a visit from the archbishop.”

    Lastly, if laughter really were the best medicine, hospitals would have found a way to charge us for it long ago.

    Laughter fades away, but there is something that lasts and sustains us all the more: joy. Joy goes deeper than just being funny. We heard the prophet in today’s first reading telling God’s people, during an especially difficult time in their history, to “sing for joy.” They should sing for joy not because things were wonderful, but because God was in their midst. And we heard Paul, in prison, tell the Philippians to rejoice always. The scriptures give us different ideas about joy than our culture does. Our society seems to tell us joy stems from what we have. The scriptures tell us our joy comes from what we have (for the Lord is in your midst as Zephaniah tells us) but it also comes from what we will have in some future time, something we can trust in because God is faithful to his promises.

    In the few minutes I have, let me name some of the things that keep us from having joy: * Feeling sorry for oneself. * Constantly putting other people down to make ourselves look smarter or better. * Putting ourselves down all the time. Because we’re human we all make mistakes or do wrong and there are healthy ways of dealing with guilty or shame, but constantly beating ourselves up is not one of them. * Holding on to anger and resentment. It only eats us up inside and does not produce joy. We have to forgive. * Thinking that having more things is going to make us happy. It satisfies us only momentarily. * And then there’s fear and worry. Paul says have no anxiety at all. That might sound impossible but there are so many things that cause us anxiety, which we can do nothing about and we have to leave in God’s hands.

    If self pity, guilt, unforgiveness, anger, resentment, fear, and worry work against our having joy, then what will lead to joy? We must decide to be joyful. Paul tells the Philippians “rejoice” as if it is something for them to choose to do rather than it being something that just happens to them. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Dr. Hans Selye, the scientist who developed and researched the concept of stress, would agree. He said: it’s generally not the things outside of us that create stress for us, but it’s the way we respond to these things. Next we need to be good and to do good. Otherwise we won’t feel good about ourselves. The people in today’s gospel ask the Baptist, “what should we do?” John gave them a few specific ideas. All we have to do is read the gospels or the 10 Commandments and we’ll get the idea that there’s more to a good life than just to say, “I believe!” Lastly, I think gratitude is the final key to unlock the way to joy. And again, being grateful is an intentional thing, it is an attitude we must develop. St. Paul said: “in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” A heart that is ungrateful is not happy. This is not all that could be said about joy, but it’s probably enough for us to think about today.

    My closing words for today are don’t make yourselves so anxious this season that you lose the joy that can be found only in knowing Jesus’ love. “The Lord, your God, is in your midst.”