Sermon on Fourth Advent, Year B: How are we to house the Good News?
Paul proclaims in the conclusion from the Epistle to the Romans, that mysteries once secret have been disclosed so that we could have an obedience of faith.
What Paul had done in the epistle, and what Paul is always doing, is making known the Good News, the gospel, about Jesus Christ. And he is especially concerned with helping figure out what to do about the Good News. For we, the successors of the apostles have become the repository of that information, and are responsible for living it out in the world today.
We take the Lord with us wherever we go.
For the Lord is with us.
In the reading from Second Samuel, Nathan says it to David, who takes on a special duty to make the Lord real in the world. He intends to build a temple, a permanent home for the ark of the covenant. That house of cedar was to be symbolic of the home for God’s chosen people. Like any house, like any home, unless you are a hermit, you leave to go out into the world, to join people in their lives. In this time of pandemic it is prudent to be homebodies for awhile. But in normal times, we act in the world to show the love of God.
And we take the Lord with us wherever we go.
For the Lord is with us.
In the reading from the Gospel of Luke, Gabriel says that to Mary. She was blessed as a home for the Lord, bearing him until he was born the baby Jesus, which we memorialize on Christmas day. The womb is the home for the growing fetus, but eventually it must leave and become human, mature, and join people in their lives.
David’s house of God and Mary the bearer of God show us the way in our own life with God. Through prayer, reading, liturgy, we build a place in ourselves filled with God. Then we bring it out of ourselves and give it to others. In our homes with our families; in our churches with our parishioners; in our society with our neighbors.
Our lives with Christ are about always how we share God’s love. That’s not some secret message. It is what should be obvious to all, believers and non-believers alike.
Written for the parish of St. James & St. George 2020 December 20
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