HOMILY FOR 2ND SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR A

This is one of Aesop’s best known fables: A Wolf meets a Lamb straying from the flock. The wolf decides not to pounce on the Lamb right away but first to give the Lamb a reason why he, the Wolf, should eat him. So he says to the Lamb: “Hi, it was you who insulted me last year.”

“Actually,” replies the Lamb in a mournful voice, “I was not born then.”
Then says the Wolf, “But you feed in my pasture.”
“No, sir,” replies the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.”
“Besides,” says the Wolf, “You drink at my well.”
“No,” exclaims the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me.” At that the Wolf seized him and ate him, saying, “Well! I won't stay without supper, even if you refute every one of my accusations.”

Aesop is not the only one who sees human relationships in terms of wolves and lambs. The philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, said about the human condition that “man is wolf to man.” An African Igbo proverb says that “A fish grows big by eating other fish.” Observing the human community and human relationships, one gets the impression that there are two kinds of people, the oppressors and the oppressed. The dividing line between the two groups runs through gender, ethnicity and race, social class and religious affiliation. Invariably one group appears to be the wolf and the other the lamb. Isaiah in the 1^st reading today is aware of this state of affairs among humans. He speaks of the human community in terms of wolves and lambs, leopards and kids, lions and calves, bears and cows. He sees that the wolf eats the lamb, the leopard the goat kid, the lion eats the calf and the bear the cow. Isaiah’s interest, however, is not simply in the way things are or have always been but in the way things can be. Isaiah is a man of vision. And here he recounts his vision of the day of the Lord, “the days to come” when God will manifest his glory on all humankind.

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6)

“Impossible,” some people will say on reading this. “He is dreaming. The wolf can never live in peace with the lamb because it is in the nature of the wolf to eat the lamb.” But that is exactly the point. Just as it is impossible, naturally speaking, for the wolf to live in peace with the lamb, so it is impossible for us to live the life of harmonious coexistence in the new world order as envisioned by Isaiah and all the prophets. A radical transformation of our human nature is required. We need a completely new heart. This radical transformation of human nature is possible only by God’s grace.

Grace transforms nature. God’s grace transforms human nature so radically that one needs to experience it to believe it. Grace working in nature accomplishes so much more than we could ever imagine. This is what Isaiah goes on to describe:

The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (11:7)

The flesh-eating lion and bear now eat grass like the cow. They lose their hunger for flesh, their thirst for blood. Transformed by grace, it is only then that the wolf can live in peace with the lamb. Only then can the ferocious animals learn to accept their weaker colleagues as equals who have an equal right to life and well-being. And only then can the weaker animals learn to trust the ferocious ones and forgive and forget all the violence they had been made to suffer in the past.

Note that Isaiah is not talking here of “tolerating” or putting up with” the other. The peace of this new world order is not merely an absence of war or friction. No. It is a peace of harmonious live-and-let-live based on justice and the mutual recognition that everyone has got the right not only to life but also to the good life. It is only when the lion and the wolf give up their “natural privileges” and begin to eat grass like the cow that one can truly say that “all animals are equal.” As long as some animals lay claim to being “more equal” than others there can be no justice and no peace.

In our personal and business life do we consciously or unconsciously operate on the principle that for us to win someone else has to lose? The vision of the new world order to which the prophets invite us today is founded on the principle that we can all be winners. The story of the Wolf and the Lamb as told by Aesop and Hobbes is not the full story. The full story of the Wolf and the Lamb, as Isaiah tells us today, will end with “and the lived happily ever after.” We pray for the coming of this new world order, the kingdom of God.

We have tended to romanticize much of the Bible or draw our mental images from Cecil B DeMille and the movies or through children’s Bibles. But imagine going to the center of town or walking the path down by the lake and seeing a man standing on a park bench, his hair unkempt and wild, his clothing made of itchy camel’s hair tied together with a long piece of leather, who is eating the insects of the area or dripping the honey from bee’s nests from his mouth. He yells at everyone passing by: Get ready.  It’s coming. Make yourselves clean. Repent for your sins. Let me dunk you in the water and clean you.  How many of us would react favorably to such a scene today?

But John the Baptist must have had some charisma – something which did draw people to him, and not just the other crazies.  In fact, today we learn that he drew the Pharisees and Sadducees to him. Were they there because they wanted to see what everyone was talking about? Were they drawn there by John’s words? Did they want to have a good laugh? John seems to recognize them immediately for what they were and what their motives were: “You brood of vipers.” You snakes! he calls them. And then John gets right to the core of the problem he has with the Pharisees and Sadducees.

They were people of privilege who applauded social justice, helping others, but only insofar as it applied to them. They are not really repenting of their sins, and this shows because they do no good works. They only think of themselves.  They think they have God on their side just because they are Jews. They boast that they have Abraham as their father. But God will demand something more, says John.

God wants you to be like the seed that grows into wheat and feeds others. He does not want you to be like the chaff of the wheat, the unusable part of the wheat which is thrown away or burned. John’s message was about justice, about social change. He challenged the people of Israel to get down to the root causes of problems, to uproot unfruitful trees.

Then why did John call the Pharisees and Sadducees “a brood of vipers?”  Why? Well, because they had become complacent. They thought that just because they belonged to the chosen people, just because they were the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, they belonged to the covenanted people, so they thought they were OK. They don’t have to do anything. But John said, “You too must change your lives. You can’t be complacent.”

And that’s the message given to us, but we often don’t want to hear it. We are too complacent. We are too ready to just go along with the way things are. We are not wanting, really, to change our lives in the way that God suggests in these readings today.

Then John tells us why we have to be prepared, why we have to repent, why we have to get ourselves ready, bathe and be baptized. There is company coming! And he is going to be mighty and great. He will do more than baptize you and cleanse you with water – he will energize you and bring you the spirit, and he will gather to himself all those who have born fruit, who have become food for others. This is what we are waiting for – this is what Advent is about.

Many of us have caller ID on our phones so that we can decide whether or not we want to talk to someone and answer the phone.  Well in Advent, God is calling on our Caller ID. But it may take more than pushing a button to answer him or let him come in. Are you ready for him? That was John’s message.

And if you answer that phone, what will you hear?  As John told the Pharisees – they are nothing in themselves. This is good news. I am not the center of the universe.  I don’t have to control everything around me.  I can rest in God’s everlasting arms and listen to his voice, and then act as well as I can to help others. Such a gift he gives when you answer his call.

But perhaps you think you cannot answer the call right now. Perhaps life simply has too many problems, problems, problems. Maybe God is calling, but we are afraid to answer.

In that case, your Advent eyes will have to rest their weariness for a while and wait. Advent is also a time for waiting. But it is on the way, God’s delicate care for you and for us all. You will see.

As we learn in the first reading :a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Certainly the most dramatic ways in which we must change our lives are in those two areas: giving up violence and working to reverse the situations of injustice that are so present in our world. St. Paul reminds us of another thing that we have to try to do: “Accept one another.” He said, “Work on your relationships with one another.” We must do that within our parish family, our individual families, and then the whole human family. Accept one another. Love one another. Work on our relationships. That’s how the reign of God can break forth.

Isaiah concludes the passage of today by saying, “On that day, the root of Jesse” — the one who comes from Jesse, that is, Jesus — “will be raised as a signal for the nation. The people from everywhere will come in search of him thus making his dwelling place glorious.” Jesus came to be a sign to all the nations of what could happen. To bring peace into our world. “And a little child shall lead them” Isaiah says.

And now Jesus has passed that mission on to us. You see, if we take seriously today’s message and change our lives, we can become that signal, that sign to all the nations of how peace can happen. If we take seriously our mission and change our lives, peace will break forth in our world.

Meanwhile, the changes that are called for in Advent are fundamental and far-reaching; they are structural. In this new church year, we are challenged to work for a better society, different from the one we now have.

John’s compares his baptism of repentance with Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. We have received Christ’s spirit and fire, but in Advent we look at it again. We take the time to look at ourselves and ask questions.  Is the fire within us a conflagration, or does it look more like a pilot light? What can we do during Advent to gather some kindling for your fire?

Let us through our actions feed the fire, and not be burned up by the fire like the chaff that is left behind. Having recognized that God is calling us on our caller ID, let us answer our phones and listen to the voice of Jesus.

By Rt.Rev.Prof.Kasomo Daniel

The Bishop of The Society of St. Peter and Paul (SSPP)