Second Sunday of Advent Year A
Isaiah 11:1–10
Psalm 72:1–2, 7–8, 12–13, 17
Romans 15:4–9
Matthew 3:1–12
Advent is the season of expectation. The liturgy calls us to open our hearts to a new way of seeing the world so that God’s kingdom will find room in our lives. The challenge is that we are all “in the same soup.” We tend to limit our expectations, shaping them for our own benefit or allowing the world around us to be the source of what we desire.
John the Baptist appears on the scene at the beginning of the proclamation of the Gospel, challenging his hearers to understand the kingdom first through responding to a call of conversion. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
This call is not merely to turn away from sin, though that is a necessary part. The expression used by John comes from the root “metanoia,” meaning a change of heart and mind. “Think differently.”
Among the first to approach John are Pharisees and Sadducees. John’s response to them is direct: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.” John the Baptist himself expects the day of the Lord as a day of wrath, God’s action rooting out sin and complacency.
The Pharisees are a group of laypersons – not of the priestly tribes – who seek to put the law into practice. As we encounter them in the Gospels, they are limited by their inability to see that others beyond their group are also capable of a relationship with God, even though they are “outside the law” as interpreted by the Pharisees.
The Sadducees are a group of priests, connected with the worship at the temple, and cooperating with the Roman authorities who hold power so that they may continue the delicate balance that allows for Jews to live and worship differently than the pagans who rule them.
Members of these groups, and others who are not mentioned in the Gospels, are “doing their best” to interpret the law and to conform their lives to what they hold that God expects of them. The problem, as John and later Jesus suggest, is that they have created a relationship with God that does not open beyond a narrow vision.
We live in a world that has great promise and, at the same time, is setting the stage for disasters of our own making that are beyond imagining. The divisions that are fomented in families and among people who think differently about many matters can become self-fulfilling predictions of violence and harm. The Gospel call that rings out today as clearly as in the days of John is to “produce good fruit as evidence of our repentance.”
When our thoughts lead us to presumption of our own innocence and justification of our own narrow views, we can be sure that John would see us as he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees. Our way of life must have evidence that it is inspired by God’s way of thinking and not our own.
St. Paul prays: “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
His advice to us, that also rings true in the chaos of the modern world, provides a key that allows the Gospel to bear fruit: “Welcome one another, then, as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
Isaiah’s vision is still unfulfilled, but when we set our sights on what it promises, we are full of hope. “On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.”
Our will and our desire for shaping the world must conform to God’s will, which keeps the kingdom open to all. When our way of organizing our lives and of demanding a certain approach from others gets in the way of our witness to the Gospel, we are far from the kingdom. May we broaden our expectations and be ready for the coming of the day of the Lord.