Dai­ly Reflec­tion
Novem­ber 28, 2010

PRE-PRAYER­ING
This year we have four full weeks of Advent which for chil­dren might seem way too long. For those old­er and inter­est­ed, a longer Advent allows us a bit more time to con­sid­er just how deeply each of us needs to be vis­it­ed, embraced and rearranged. It is a four-week litur­gi­cal and per­son­al jour­ney inward so as to live more towards the outward.

We are invit­ed this first week to allow Jesus to be the holy pres­ence which will cen­ter our lives. As the Tem­ple and the city of Jerusalem cen­tered the life of the faith­ful Jew­ish peo­ple, Jesus has come to teach us about how to change war­ring into grow­ing. We admit we need some help in man­ag­ing our human lives. We pray for the Advent Grace to be more alert, awake and recep­tive to the invi­ta­tions and pres­ences of the Jesus who is always advent­ing in this world. Do we need a Sav­ior? Do we know how to exist with­out swords and spears? We pray for some rearranging.

REFLEC­TION

Some­thing new is being announced! About sev­en hun­dred years before the birth of Jesus, Isa­iah has a vision of a new place for the pres­ence of the Holy and one God. In our First Read­ing we hear an ora­cle about the holy moun­tain which will rise above all oth­ers and to which all nations will come to vis­it and learn the instruc­tions and the ways of the Lord.

The new pres­ence of the Lord in the new house will bring a new light into the world and by this light there will be no need for prepar­ing for wars. If all the nations con­tin­ue walk­ing up the hill towards the light, towards the tem­ple of Jerusalem, then they will walk togeth­er and live togeth­er with­in that light.

The moun­tain, the tem­ple, the city are all cen­ter to the lives of all the nations. God is tak­ing up res­i­dence in a new way and invit­ing the nations to a new way of liv­ing from that cen­ter. War­ring needs dis­tance and God has come to gath­er the peo­ples togeth­er to pre­vent the absolute neces­si­ty of relat­ing with oth­ers at “arms” length.

The chap­ter from Matthew’s Gospel from which our read­ing is tak­en begins with Jesus’ speak­ing of the down­fall of the Jerusalem tem­ple. The apos­tles ask Jesus when this will hap­pen. The tem­ple does come down at the hands of the Romans around the year sev­en­ty. It does seem that Jesus has prophet­ic sight, or he knew which way the polit­i­cal winds were going to blow. This is not the real issue here. Jesus is ask­ing for his apos­tles to stay alert rather than their being pre­pared by cer­tain knowl­edge. The rear­rang­ing has to do with the apos­tles’ need­ing to be more peo­ple of faith in Jesus as the per­son­al pres­ence of the covenant­i­ng God. If they and the ear­ly church for which Matthew is writ­ing can trust Jesus as they trust­ed the per­ma­nence of the tem­ple, then the exact time of the “final” com­ing will not remain important. 

Jesus uses the community’s aware­ness of Noah and what was going on dur­ing the times lead­ing up to the flood. The peo­ple then were liv­ing with their dis­or­ders and remained unaware of the call to them until it was too late. This is quite a dra­mat­ic his­tor­i­cal pic­ture for Matthew’s read­ers. Jesus did come, after all, through the pages of the Gospels, to get the atten­tion of the reader.

This first Sun­day of the Litur­gi­cal Year presents us with read­ings which ask us to make some “teach­ing-room” in our lives. Here at our Uni­ver­si­ty I have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit in on class­es, as well as many meet­ings with stu­dents and fac­ul­ty. I enjoy one par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence which nev­er fails to occur. The pre­sen­ter, speak­er or instruc­tor, will state a time, date and or place for an up-com­ing exam or event. With­out fail, with­in five min­utes, more than a few times ques­tions will be asked about what time, what day, where and even what exact­ly will be hap­pen­ing. I am assum­ing that the room is occu­pied with intel­li­gent folks, but intel­li­gence does not equal being alert, atten­tive and lis­ten­ing. Allow me to state once more that in any group over ten per­sons, such ques­tions will most cer­tain­ly arise and so do my mouth and cheeks in a big com­pas­sion­ate smile. Per­haps they don’t believe their ears, or maybe they are hop­ing the instruc­tor was just kidding.

The Apos­tles are sit­ting at the feet of their teacher and He is stat­ing clear­ly and with graph­ics that some­thing new is at hand, but because it is so new it can be missed eas­i­ly. What is new is also less secure. We do learn the new on the basis of the old, but the old is so com­fort­able and the new shoes can be quite uncom­fort­able. What is old is the tem­ple. What is old is God’s his­to­ry of lov­ing­ly car­ing for the Jew­ish nation. What is old is the famil­iar­i­ty with that history.

Jesus is ask­ing for a more per­son­al, indi­vid­ual response rather than a col­lec­tive nation­al rela­tion­ship. Instead of rely­ing on a trib­al his­to­ry, each fol­low­er of Jesus is called to learn about trust­ing their per­son­al futures. In the past there was the need for swords and spears; in the future there must be no more train­ing for per­son­al and fam­i­ly, and racial, and nation­al wars. The past is his­to­ry, the future is mys­tery. In the past there was the solid­i­ty of the tem­ple; in the future there will be the learn­ing time to trust the solid­i­ty of each person’s rela­tion­ship with Jesus.

“Now, when is this going to hap­pen, what day, where and just what exact­ly is going to be required?” Don’t ask! just keep watch­ing, keep learn­ing, keep wait­ing. After all it is the sea­son of Advent.

“The Lord will show­er his gifts and our land will yield its fruit.” Ps. 85, 13