First Reading – Isaiah 2:1-5 ©
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
121(122):1-2, 4-5, 6-9 ©
Second Reading – Romans 13:11-14 ©
Gospel Acclamation – Palms 84:8
The Gospel According to Matthew 24:37
- 44 ©
(NJB)
Listen!
Isaiah proclaims that the law of God is meant to be for all people, and that the law is meant to be a blessing that will lead the people to peace. When Isaiah says that the temple of God will rise higher than the hills, he is not issuing a doctrine of supremacy; rather, he is articulating the his faith in the ethical precepts of Judaism, and the notion that in time all people will come to the law as a universal principle of truth and goodness and abandon the capriciousness of their national and tribal rulers, deities and demi-gods.
This is the law as Jesus said it while standing explicitly in the tradition of Isaiah:
Love God with all your strength and all your heart, and all your mind; love your neighbor as yourself…this is the whole of law.
Remember.
When the law or its prophets makes reference to Zion it is not referencing a physical place. Zion is a metaphor that stands for the center of our being. Zion represents the heart of each of us individually, and the whole of us collectively. Zion is the heart of hearts; in its deepest chamber is the holy of holies, the place where we encounter the divine, and it is there that the creator of the universe has written the immutable law: to love your neighbor even as you love yourself…this is the way.
It is there, in the living temple of the living God that the invisible hand has inscribed the indelible command, to love one another as God loves you, and that we return God’s love through the service we give to our neighbors, our friends and family and to the stranger in our midst, fulfilling the hope of the psalmist who sings of the desire to return to a place of simplicity, peace and rest.
Be mindful.
It is only through the other that God presents God’s self to us, God is present in the heart of every human being.
Know this
Insofar as we uphold the rule that our salvation is complete and the savior’s work is done, that we dwell in the place where the fear of death is gone, it is then and only then that pain and suffering lose their power over us. It is then that the poison of sin is drawn out by the grace of love and the wound itself healed by faith…which means trust in the ever compassionate providence of the divine.
When we have fulfilled this rule for ourselves, in our own communities we will have no need for anyone to come with power and authority to adjudicate between us, because there will be no conflict, and we will have no need of a judge.
When this rule is followed there is peace among the people of God, both in the here and now and in eternity to come…when all people in all places at all times shall be as one.
Consider the wisdom of the psalmist who says to each of us, to each and every one of us:
You
were conceived in the womb of salvation
You were conceived in the womb of salvation; you do not have to seek that which has already found you...you came to be in and through and by the word of God, of God who breathed life into you and called you into being, of God who knew you before the foundations of the world, who knew all of your deeds, your triumphs and calamities, who loved you and said that you were good..
When you consider again the words of the psalmist forget all the talk of securing cities, ramparts and thrones. God has nothing to do with these things…they are stuff that human beings dream of.
The eternal God does not belong to one people, one nation, one world or one galaxy; God’s being is co-extensive with the universe, and there is no place where God is not. The infinite and eternal God is beyond our comprehension, and yet God is with us and within us, both immanent and transcendent; God is the being through whom and in whom each and every one of us comes into existence.
Stay awake!
Reflect on the teaching of the apostle; it is always dark somewhere in the world, and somewhere in the world there is light. It is easy to hide in plain sight, while it is difficult to work for the good and keep it private. Whether in private or in public, we mut endeavor to fulfill the expectations we have set for ourselves regarding our relationship to the divine, and do so in the knowledge know that God’s love for us, for even the worst of us, endures forever.
Act as if everything you do will be known by all, because it will in the end, in that place beyond time, when God is all in all; then there will be nothing hidden and all secrets will have been revealed.
Forget all about the talk of God’s glory; the creator of the universe is not a nationalist, and promoting that image of God is to promote a god of fear; it is a false image of a lesser being. Rather, promote the God of love, Isaiah’s God, beyond all tribalism, all national borders, all boundaries and the limitations of time and space.
Reject the image of God as king, dread lord and tyrant. Promote the God of humility, justice and mercy, just as Jesus walked the way and taught us to be; live decently and free from the addiction of our desires…which only lead to suffering.
Know this!
God is the creator of the entire universe, it is from God that everything flows; all of the rivers and streams, all of the oceans and seas, all planets, all stars and all galaxies…with everything and everyone who dwells, dwelt or will dwell in them.
Consider these truths when you read the scriptures so that you may understand that it was not God who ended the captivity of Jacob, the Israelites did…this is not hubris, it is truth. It is far greater hubris to think that God loves a special people, a single tribe above all others, than to think that the Israelites escaped bondage under their own power.
Know this!
God is never angry or indignant with the people, and yet God will not rescue anyone from the misery of this world; that is for us to do for ourselves, but more importantly it is for us to do for each other.
Consider the Gospel reading for today and know that the future history of the world has not been written; it exists in potentiality and remains so until the crest of time curls into its actuality.
Any suppositions that you may find in scripture concerning our future on Earth is merely guesswork. Now, some guesses are more informed than others; we can speak in terms of possibility and probability, of patterns and trends but we cannot know anything about the days and nights to come; nothing is fixed and change is the only constant…everything is uncertain except for the understanding that God’s will shall prevail in the end.
There are thousands of ways in which the plans we have laid, or the hopes that we cherish can come undone: lightning will strike, a tornado will blow, a meteor fall, a volcano explode. A person in the fullness of life may trip and fall, hit their head and die, leaving all their deeds and all their hopes and dreams behind them, it can happen without warning…it happens like this everyday.
God has promised to bring an end to suffering, injustice, hunger, illness and we can believe in this promise, but only with the understanding that these promises are not of this world; they concern the world to come, a world in which human beings are not subject to the vicissitudes of the material condition or the hungers of the flesh…these promises express a hope that does not belong to the worlds of time and space; I cannot speak of that world, I will not pretend to because I have never seen it…no one has. Our belief in a loving God, our hope in the words of the prophets, our trust in the Gospel, these are what allow us to believe that the world of God’s promise is real, but anyone who pretends to know for certain is overstating their case, or simply lying…they are either con-men or the conned and they are not to be trusted with anything.
This is what we have been taught, and we should keep strictly to it:
We can live our present lives as if the actuality of God’s promises were real, we can believe it even though we cannot see it; this is the secret of the way. If we care for one another we do not have to wait for the end of time; we can experience something of God’s promise in the here and now. In those moments, which may be transitory, the spirit of God is alive within us…God is always with us, but in those moments when we are working with God to bring about that better world, then God is with us in a special way, it is then through the synchronicity of our beating hearts that we experience the mystery of the sacred and the unity of the divine.
First Reading – Isaiah 2:1-5 ©
The Lord Gathers All Nations Together
Into the Eternal Peace of God's Kingdom
The
vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In
the days to come the mountain of the Temple of the Lord shall tower above the
mountains and be lifted higher than the hills.
All
the nations will stream to it, peoples without number will come to it; and they
will say:
‘Come,
let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that
he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths; since the Law will
go out from Zion, and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’
He
will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples; these
will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles.
Nation
will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.
O
House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 121(122):1-2,
4-5, 6-9 ©
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
I
rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
And
now our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
It
is there that the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord.
For
Israel’s law it is,
there to praise the Lord’s name.
There
were set the thrones of judgement
of the house of David.
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
For
the peace of Jerusalem pray:
‘Peace be to your homes!
May
peace reign in your walls,
in your palaces, peace!’
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
For
love of my brethren and friends
I say: ‘Peace upon you!’
For
love of the house of the Lord
I will ask for your good.
I rejoiced when I heard them say:
‘Let us go to God’s house.’
Second Reading – Romans 13:11-14 ©
Our Salvation is Near
You
know ‘the time’ has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer
than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be
daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of
the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as
people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness,
and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel Acclamation – Palms 84:8
Alleluia, alleluia!
Let
us see, O Lord, your mercy and give us your saving help.
Alleluia!
The Gospel According to Matthew 24:37
- 44 ©
The Son of Man is Coming
at an Hour You Do Not Expect
Jesus
said to his disciples, ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of
Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking,
taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and
they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like
this when the Son of Man comes. Then of two men in the fields one is taken, one
left; of two women at the millstone grinding, one is taken, one left.
‘So
stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may
be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the
night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have
allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must
stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’
The First Sunday of Advent (Year A)
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