St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

12/24/2017 Fourth Sunday of Advent

According to a recent Pew Foundation survey, over 23% of Americans identify as atheists, agnostics or say they have no religious affiliation.

Many other Americans who identify as Christian don’t go to church.

They might tell you, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.”

Many Christians who do go to church might have a religious practice that is more like the religion of Imperial Rome, than traditional Christian faith.

 

The ancient Romans were religious, but not spiritual. 

Roman religion was practical and seen as necessary to protect the social order.

It was based on the principal, “I give to the gods so the gods will give something to me.”

It was a matter of tit for tat, and if a god didn’t fulfill their end of the deal, the pagan had no obligation to fulfill his or her promise.

Religion was following the correct rituals, saying the right words in prayer, and making sacrifices exactly as prescribed by tradition.

Your prayer had to have the correct verbal formula in order to tap into the desired powers of the god who was being invoked.

There was nothing in pagan religion like the faith St. Paul mentions at the end of his letter to the Romans.

He offers glory to the one “who can strengthen you…according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages” but now made manifest through Jesus.

This “mystery that strengthens” is salvation that comes from faith; from trusting God to save us through the obedience of his only-begotten Son in his human flesh, not through any sacrifices, words or works of our own.

 

Romans saw religion as essential to maintaining order in society.

The faith of Jews and Christians depict a God who is beyond human manipulation, a God who undermines any social order that springs from fallen humanity.

We hear this in Mary’s Magnificat: “God casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; he fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.”

 

The Christian faith is not about saying the right words or performing the right acts in order to curry God’s favor or protection.

We already have both of these: the psalmist says, “You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” And “he commands his angels…to guard you wherever you go…” (Ps. 86:15; 91:12)

No, the Christian faith is an invitation to trust this God who places himself at risk by being righteous in a world filled with iniquity.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures is a story about men and women who are asked to trust God and do what He says – often at great personal risk.

Consequently Christianity is not about safety and security in the worldly sense, the way pagan religion is.

It is about finding safety and security in God and his will for us – that will which almost always feels like a huge risk because it is. 

To do good in a fallen world, a world in which Satan dwells and has influence, is to open ourselves to criticism, conflict, injustice, misunderstanding.

Just like what Jesus experienced.

He promises us in John 15:20, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

 

So Mary, who is the new Eve, a fresh start in God’s human creation, is given the same choice as Adam and Eve: to trust God, or not.

She is invited to become pregnant before she has moved in with her husband, who will surely assume that she has committed adultery.

Joseph chooses to risk the whispers and outright slander of his neighbors and to take Mary into his home.

To be a disciple of Jesus, like Mary, the first disciple and model of disciples, is to take a life and death risk.

Real Christian faith upends our life.

Pagan faith, coming from the world, is compatible with the world.

Christian faith, coming from God, whose ways are not our ways, always involves risk.

A disciple takes up a cross, and I think that cross is simply doing God’s will - because to do God’s will is to risk the hatred of the world.

To do God’s will rather than my own feels like death.

But it is through the risks we take that God continues to save the world from itself.

 

These risks are present daily, whether it’s putting money we might want in the collection basket, or praying aloud with a friend who needs it, or correcting a friend and risking being called a hypocrite.

Really trusting God in a fallen world is frightening at times, unsettling, and counter-intuitive.

This is faith, not religiosity, and certainly not paganism. 

Christian faith requires a particular spirituality.

One that embraces the cross and death, believing God triumphs in that embrace.

It is not security as the world sees or seeks security. 

It is a security that comes from faith that a kingdom not of this world slipped through a crack in enemy lines in a girl who considered herself a slave in God’s household.

A kingdom that began with the words, “May it be done to me”, and with her faith that nothing will be impossible for God.