What Should We Do? Rejoice!

The liturgical readings for the third Sunday of Advent are Zephaniah 3: 14-18a, Philippians 4: 4-7, and Luke 3:10-18. You can view the readings here http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121612.cfm .

How long must we wait before the entire church, including the hierarchy, treats LGBT people as equals?  That question has been put to me many times in my years working here at New Ways Ministry.  It is usually asked in a despairing tone, with no expectation that a positive answer will be offered.

The readings from today’s liturgy, however, do offer a positive answer to that question of how long we must wait.  The answer is we don’t have to wait.  The reign of God is already here.  It’s up to us to recognize and live that reign of justice and equality, and one way to do that is simply to rejoice!

Rejoicing is what today’s readings urge us to do.  Today, the third Sunday of Advent, is called Gaudete (Latin for “Rejoice”) Sunday.  Why should we rejoice, especially when we see so much injustice surrounding us?  Because, as Christians we believe that God is already with us in the struggle for justice.  In the first reading, the prophet Zephaniah says:

“Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged!
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
he will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.”

And in the second reading, St. Paul exhorts us:

“Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all. . .”

We are faced here with one of the great Christian paradoxes:  we are awaiting God, yet God is already with us.  The appearance that God is not already with us makes it tempting for us to despair.  The fact, revealed by faith, that God is indeed with us causes us to rejoice.

Rejoicing can help our spirits.  It can remind us of God’s presence with us even when empirical facts seem to proclaim an absence.  Rejoicing helps us to believe: it strengthens our faith that God’s reign has come.  And with our faith strengthened, we can start doing the works of mercy and justice that will actually make our faith in the reign of God more manifest to others and to ourselves.

In the Gospel, the followers of John the Baptist, who has been preparing people for the reign of God, ask him “What should we do?”  John tells his followers (and us) that we need to start acting out the reign of God:  act justly, live mercifully, do the things that you expect to see when God’s reign is in effect.    In effect he is telling them the same message from the much-quoted saying of Gandhi:  “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

For those involved in the work of justice and equality for LGBT people, today’s readings challenge us in two ways.  First, we must not give into despair, but, instead, rejoice.  God is already with us!  Others in the church may not yet see it, but we know that it is true.   The glass is half-full.  Already wonderful things are happening in the church that reflect God’s reign of justice for LGBT people.

Second, to hasten God’s reign and make it more evident, we need to live as if that reign already existed.  So many of you already do that: you act with justice and equality towards LGBT people and you continue to struggle for their rights.  Those are the kinds of actions that make our church and society more welcoming places.  Those are the kinds of actions that are more powerful than any homophobic nay-sayers.  Those are the kinds of actions that make God present in the world and call for even greater rejoicing!

–Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

 

Embracing the Superabundance of Love

The readings for the first Sunday of Advent are Jeremiah 33:14-16, 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2, and Luke 21:25-28, 34-36. You can view the readings here.

As Advent begins, Catholics worldwide prepare themselves for Christ’s entrance into creation. In the already/not yet nature of Christianity, these weeks both anticipate Christ’s coming anew and celebrate  the Incarnation that brought us a historical Jesus. Each week we hear encouraging messages of hope, joy, and peace.

For LGBT advocates within the Church, we begin this Advent  on a particularly positive note with recent victories for marriage equality and as we witness a growing trend of acceptance, affirmation, and welcome amongst Catholics at large.

In this hope-filled Advent context, this Sunday’s readings seem jarring in their use of  harsh apocalyptic images to refer to the coming of God’s kingdom, which is elsewhere shown as peaceful and just. Catholic LGBT advocates also know of the harshness of a hierarchy doubling down in its oppressive anti-equality work as we struggle to ensure each person and every family are legally protected, at a bare minimum.

Luke’s gospel (Lk 21:25-28) has Jesus identifying nations in dismay, roaring seas, death from fright, and the powers of the heavens as signs of this new era when God’s justice will reign. Jesus’ further exhortation to be ready for what will surprise us and to remain strong during the trials seems a tall order. Jesus’ words can seem terrifying for the Christian — exactly the opposite of what we desire to aid us at Advent’s hopeful beginning.

Thankfully, the second reading from First Thessalonians contextualizes how preparedness, vigilance, and prayer demanded by Jesus may be lived out. Paul writes to the emerging community in Thessalonica in this pastoral letter, the earliest book of the New Testament and thus in close proximity to earliest Christian belief.

Couched amid apocalyptic passages, the reading today comes from Paul’s blessing for the community. We hear two parts proclaimed. The first desires an increase in love and the second calls for a strong Christian witness by the early Christians (1 Thes 3:12-4:2):

“Brothers and sisters:
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love
for one another and for all,
just as we have for you,
so as to strengthen your hearts,
to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones. Amen.

“Finally, brothers and sisters,
we earnestly ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that,
as you received from us
how you should conduct yourselves to please God
and as you are conducting yourselves
you do so even more.
For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

We in the 21^st century Church find ourselves desperately requiring this same blessing that the Thessalonians received. Paul does not merely pray that they may love, but directly addresses Christ in his prayer. To quote the New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Paul “asks for a superabundance of love directed within and beyond the community” where the apostles lead by their humble witness.

In this, Paul demands the Church’s ministers lead by examples of love, and we can hope that the bishops and other church leaders will do the same. Given present affairs, we cannot wait on them to be loving witnesses to Christ — this superabundance of love must come from the laity and supportive religious and clergy. In this preparatory period of Advent, when we begin life with Christ again, it is this superabundance that might be a powerful focal point.

Superabundance isn’t a sufficient amount; it isn’t even more than necessary. Superabundance is gratuitous. It is overflowing. It is uncompromised, unrestrained, and perhaps unwieldy.

A superabundance means all, without exception, find their places in community and all, without exception, find more love than would suffice for even the most suffering people. It means that LGBT persons with their loved ones, their children and their families, their friends and their allies are not merely accepted, but eagerly invited to participate in a life with Christ anew.

I challenge myself this Advent to extend beyond just working out of love for structural changes and legal victories. These are essential, but only loving an ordinary amount comes from a love that two millennia of Christianity has tamed far too greatly.

This Advent, while we ready the way for Christ, let us re-embrace the superabundance of love found amid the earliest Christians, unconcerned with doctrinaire thinking and always concerned with how the community enacted its faith-filled witness.

Then we can be Christians that will stand before Jesus when God’s kingdom nears, confident that in loving superabundantly each person we lived well.

-Bob Shine, New Ways Ministry