Homilies,  Year C

Third Sunday of Advent – 2021

Whenever I hear today’s gospel the first image that comes into my mind is a particular cartoon of Leunig.  It is of one of his typical figures seated at a chess board which is against a window opening out to the night sky.  The figure’s chess partner is indeed the night sky, the unknown, the mystery, God himself.  “What then must we do?” – the question repeated three times in today’s gospel – seems to be such an apt title to the cartoon.

“What then must we do?”  It is the question with which we are confronted so often in our life which feels many times like a chess game with an unknown future.  What move are we to make next?  What move will be dealt us?  How do we manoeuvre our way through the complexity all around us into some course which has purpose and resolve?  How do we discern what is the best step to take next?  And what is the next best step we should take in life?

The question “what must we do?” is a perennial question in our life.  It is also one of the most important questions in our Christian life, in our life of discipleship.  Today it is suggested as the question which indeed must guide our waiting for the Lord’s coming just as it did for the people of John the Baptist’s time.  As we wait, as we live in an attitude of expectancy, it is the question which must be uppermost in our minds and hearts.  “What then must we do?” Holding this question means that our waiting, then, is not merely passive; there is an urgent activity about it.  We need to be constantly alert to what is the best move, the best action, in and through which the Kingdom might be given play in our world.  This is the paradox of the Kingdom of God:  on the one hand, it is sovereign, beyond us, totally free.  On the other hand, it does not become birthed in our midst despite us, but precisely in and through our choices and our actions.  What are the choices and actions which might most fully enable the birthing of the Kingdom into our world? 

Today’s gospel reminds us that the Kingdom of God is birthed in our world when justice transforms injustice, when reconciliation transforms alienation, when atonement transforms arrogance, when mutuality transforms competitiveness, when forgiveness transforms resentment.

Because this question, “What then must we do?”  is uppermost in our waiting, we cannot ignore the many issues facing us at this time, complex though they may be.  The question, “What must we do then?” is not just personal, it is also communal, according to today’s gospel.  Therefore, the social issues with which we have to face – questions of the implications of the COVID pandemic, questions of religious freedom, questions of political integrity, questions of migrations, questions of climate change – are not peripheral for us in our waiting. They are the very pieces on our chessboard.  What move are we to make with all these pieces such that the Kingdom of God is birthed more fully in our world? For the choices and actions of our society are equally as instrumental in the Kingdom’s birthing as our personal ones. The Advent person is not locked up in his or her own private world, but alert to all the signs of the Kingdom’s coming around them. The Advent person, the person truly waiting for the coming of their Lord, recognises in these issues possibilities or otherwise for the Kingdom?” It is this which underscore our passionate interest in social affairs. Both our personal and our communal actions are instrumental in the Kingdom’s coming.  Our preparation for Christmas, our time of waiting, must lead us to examine both. 

Life often feels like a game of chess with an unknown future, but the future of God’s Kingdom belongs to those who dare to play.

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