Advent Year A
November 27, 2022
Isaiah 2:1-5
R: Psalm 122: 1-2ff
Romans 13d:11-14
Matthew 24:37-44
Happy New Year!
New Liturgical Year. Year of Grace. Year of Salvation.
“You know the Time.” What time is it? It’s Prime time!
Wake from slumber, arise from sleep! Prime time!
Time: Made holy by the Incarnation
Gospel of Matthew, Year A.:
Connections: The hopes of Israel to Jesus, death and resurrect
The Kingdom of Heaven
Discipleship.
What is our Hope for the United States of America? What is our hope for the world? What is our hope for your family, for yourself, for Our Lady of perpetual Help parish?
The four weeks of Advent are about anticipation of the fulfillment of our Hope. But what is your hope living in the United States of America in the year – the time- of 2022-2023?
Some of us are looking forward to weddings and sacramental celebrations. Some of us are looking forward to new beginnings or endings this year. Some of us have small hopes and some of us have big hopes. Advent is about anticipation of the fulfillment of our hope.
But while you are going about the things of your daily life, you will look up and discover that someone who was with you, is gone.
Advent is about anticipation of the fulfillment of a prophetic hope that trumps the systems of sin, sickness, and death.
Let’s talk politics.
The Israel at the time of Jesus was under the military, political, religious economic and cultural domination of the Roman Empire.
Jesus was a young Jewish man of color struggling with how to be faithful to the One God, under the occupation of people who believed in many gods – who believed that even the emperor in Rome was son of god. Like Ukrainians today, struggling with the will and the way of President Putin.
Religion was politics and politics was religion. The choices and decisions of Maria’s Son, where not just judgements of life or death, but judgements of salvation or damnation, and not just for him, but also for his nation.
The good news of St. Matt tells us that disciples of Jesus, knowing the time, stay awake. How many disciples stayed awake for Black Friday sales?
Jesus was a young man fully awake knowing the time, attentive to the Spirit of God and connected to the prophetic hope of his people. And the hope of his people was in the land, the law, the temple, and the One God.
[hand over eyes]
She-ma yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One
Disciples of Jesus who are fully awake, know the time, attentive to the Holy Spirit and connected to the prophetic hope of their people are prepared for the day of salvation and the hour of judgement.
The time of COVID-19 is one of those days of salvation and hours of judgement, personal and national.
January 6, 2021 is one of those days of salvation and hours of judgement, personal and national.
June 24, 2022 is one of those days of salvation and hours of Judgement, personal and national.
November 8th is one of those days of salvation and hours of judgement, personal and national therefore disciples of Jesus, wake from your slumber; rise from your sleep!
Friday the 13th April 2029 will be one of those days of salvation and hours of Judgement, personal and national.
It is written:
“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” June 21,1788.
If, this is the prophetic hope of We the People, a hope that has been amended 27 times, how is a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth crucified and resurrected, to remain awake?
Living in the prime time of 2023, how is she to remain awake in the struggle to be faithful to the one God, while under the occupation of sociopathic corporations and PAC’s that believe in no god but themselves?
For Disciples whose decisions are not just judgements of life or death, but judgements of salvation or damnation, not just for her, but also for her country, how will she wake from her slumber and rise from her sleep?
The Gospel of St. Matthew is the good news answer of Matthew to his community then, and our community now.
Disciples, it’s prime time! Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!