First Sunday of Advent B.
November 27, 2011. Our Lady of Grace 5:15. 7:30,
9:30. Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2b-7. I Corinthians
1:3-9. Mark 13:33-37.
Once there was a little boy who had a dog who was always running
away from home. The boy would go out and search everywhere for the
dog. Then he would open the dog’s kennel and put out the dog’s food and
wait very patiently for the dog to come home.
After this happened many, many times, the little boy’s
parents said. “Jimmy, this is just too much trouble, if it happens one
more time we are going to bring Spot to the Humane Society. May be they
can find Spot a better home.”
Well, it did happen again. And Jimmy’s parents took
Spot to the Human Society so that the dog could be put up for adoption.
That night Jimmy went out to the kennel, opened the door and
put dog food in Spot’s dish. When he returned to the house, his mother
said to him: “Jimmy, we gave the dog away. It is all over. You don’t
have to open the kennel door or put out the food anymore.”
Jimmy said: “I know that you gave my dog away - and you
probably had a good reason. I will not argue with you because you are my
parents. But Spot is my dog. He will always be my dog. I want
Spot to know that whenever he is ready he is always welcome to come home.”
Why would God continue to watch and wait for us when we have
run away from home so many times? God created our first parents out
of love and gave them this wonderful world to be there home. But Adam and
Eve turned away from God and sinned. During hundreds of years of human
history men and women have turned away from God and tried to do things their
own way. The result has been wars, broken lives, broken promises and
human suffering of every kind. We are often like the dog that pulls to get off
the leash so that he can run freely and dangerously in the excitement and
hazards of life. My question is not about why we choose to live so
haphazardly and sinfully. My question is why does God keep coming
back? Why doesn’t God just leave us alone – to destroy ourselves,
our neighbors and our planet if that is what we choose to do?
Of course every parent knows the answer to my
question. Parents love children that are in trouble,
not because the children are good, but simply because they are their children.
In the prophet Isaiah God said, “Can a mother forget the baby at her
breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may
forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you
on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:15) Jesus told the story of the
ungrateful son who wasted his fathers hard earned money on careless living
until there was nothing left. When the son returned home the father
welcomed him, not because the son had been good, but simply because the sinful
young man was the father’s son.
In today’s gospel Jesus tells us to watch and wait for the
Day of Judgment. He says, “Be watchful. Be alert. You do
not know when the time will come… May the master not come and find you
sleeping. What I say to you I say to all: ‘Watch!” Judgment is a very
serious matter. God will hold us accountable for our lives at whatever
stage of life that death and judgment come to us. The good news is that
God never ceases to give us second chances. God wants us to thrive now and to
enjoy eternal life on the Day of Judgment. Like the little boy who
continues to put out dog food even when the dog insists on running away, God
continues to wait for us, trying to attract us to the only place where we will
be completely at home – in the heart of God. There is no lasting happiness
apart from God. We will never be truly at home until we find our home in
the heart of God.
God sent his son as a little child born in the manger in
If that doesn’t capture your attention, God sent his son to
be nailed to a cross and to die for us. Why would God do such a strange
and generous thing? Perhaps the total gift of God to us on the cross will
get our attention and we will come home to God in a deeper way, and we will begin
to live our life in new and powerful ways.
Our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah puts it all
together. “Behold, (Lord) you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have
become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have
all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind… Yet, O
Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are the potter; we are all
the work of your hands.”
We begin again this Advent time not because we are good, but
because God is good and God is our father. God will never stop putting
out the food, giving the invitation and pouring out his love for us.
Amazing Grace, how
sweet the sound,
That saved a
wretch like me....
I once was lost
but now am found,
Was blind, but
now, I see.
God so loved the world that he sent his son into the world
not to condemn the world but so that we might have life through him. For
the hope, new life and joy that Advent and Christmas bring we give God thanks
and praise.