Welcome to the second week of our Advent message series, “Your Best Yes.” We are already in the thick of the most hectic time of the year. As I mentioned last week, the problem is it’s all good. The trees, the toys, the gifts, games, dinners, dances, parties, and plays are all good – but it doesn’t always all fit. The problem is it can be difficult knowing what to do and then what to do next, as well as what not to do at all.
There might not be any way to avoid the busyness of this season, but we do not have to be anxious, angry, and annoyed about it. In a way, the holiday season can be instructive because it is a microcosm of the whole of life. Life is this ever-changing menu of options, choices, and decisions. What we do with these options and choices determine the quality and direction of our life. What we need is a strategy.
Last week, I proposed one such strategy: discernment. Discernment is about judgment, but not just decision-making. It is more about sensitivity and even shrewdness when it comes to decision-making. Discerning not just the good from the bad, but the good from the greater good, and the greater good from the greatest good.
Discernment is also about understanding that we have a choice. I had to remind myself of that this past week. I am an introvert. As I tell people, introverts are not “party-poopers,” rather the “party poops the introvert.” I need my quiet time to recharge my batteries, so I count on that for my day off. I usually go visit my Mom. The problem is that she likes to go out. I don’t mind going out to lunch or dinner with her, but she likes to go to big public events. She wanted me to go with her to a Healing Mass Tuesday night. That kind of puts me “on duty,” people find out that I am a priest and they want to talk to me about whatever they have on their mind. It is not a day off for me. I don’t get to recharge my batteries. I was going to go, because it was Mom asking, and a Healing Mass is a good thing. But then I thought about what I talked about last weekend – with the busyness of Advent, for me the best “yes” was a “no”.
When we only act out of obligation, there is a chance that we are working against ourselves in self-defeating ways that are not in sync with who God made us to be. The best way to know when to say “Yes” and when to say “No” is to base our discernment in love. This message series is about just that, looking at how we can grow in love so to love God more, to love others more, and inspired by that love to make disciples through our very best yes.
Today, we are going to look at the first part, how to grow in love of God. Let’s look at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading. St. Luke writes “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, ….” Most of us do not know who these people were. The point is St. Luke wants us to know that his story is not a fable; it is grounded in history. He continues, “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” This John is of course St. John the Baptist.
John was the cousin of Jesus, and he was chosen by God to be a prophet. His message goes like this, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
John the Baptist’s message is a call to repentance. Sometimes we give repentance a negative connotation in our culture, but here is essentially what John meant. Repentance is about three things: a change in thinking which leads to a change of heart, which eventually leads to a change in behavior.
To repent means that at an intellectual level, I realize that I need to think differently because what I am doing is not working. Like any good parent, God wants to give direction to our lives, but one thing usually stands in His way, and that one thing is us. We stand in His way because we don’t slow down to listen to Him and learn from Him, to get to know Him in a personal way.
When it comes to repentance, we tend to be in one of several places. In one place, we can find ourselves praying this prayer, “God I want what I want. Please give me what I want.” We tell God what we want and never really slow down to ask if it is our best “yes.” We have our mind made up, but we haven’t stopped to consider what God says. If we are honest, we are actually reluctant to ask God because we already know that we are not on the same page with Him. The funny thing about this attitude is, and we have all done it, when things go wrong, we turn around and blame God: “How could you let this happen to me?” The fact is God was never part of the discussion.
A second place that we can find ourselves when it comes to repentance is where we want to follow God, but only kind of, only sort of. Our prayer goes like this, “God I want what you want, but not yet. I want what you want, but for now, give me what I want.”
Finally, real repentance and the goal of the whole Christian life is to come to a place of complete surrender. In that place, we can sincerely pray, “God, I want what you want. Please give me what you want. Help me to want what you want.”
Most of us are pretty familiar with St. John the Baptist and his role in the Christmas story because we hear it each year at Christmas. We hear his announcement to prepare the way, to repent. But we should not allow the familiarity of his message to diminish the impact of his message. John’s announcement concerns the Advent of grace and truth, the grace and truth that is the coming of Christ which changes everything.
This week your homework is to think about where are you on the spectrum of repentance? Do you still pray mostly to get what you want? Or do you want to do what God wants, but not yet? Or have you surrendered completely to God’s will?
This Christmas, let’s forget the anxiety and the anger. Instead, invite the grace and truth of Christ into your busyness. Choose to give God and give yourself the Christmas gift of your very best yes.