Advent II

The Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12

We live in an age of destruction. Plagues, droughts, floods, toxic air and water, wars, inflation, massacres, famines, earthquakes, pandemics, heat waves, wildfires, recessions, deforestation, dust storms, and despotism – catastrophe crashing into catastrophe, each one amplifying the next.

Beginning to cope with disaster and human tragedy is a process of trying to turn chaos into order. In Genesis we see the mighty wind of the Spirit sweep over the waters of chaos and an ordered creation began on the first day. We live in an age of destruction, which means we live in an age of building. Apocalypses are endings that shake us to our foundations but are the opportunity for new beginnings.

After years of destructive hurricanes have disrupted Puerto Rico’s food supply, new visions of local agriculture are taking root.

In the final days of February as the Russian Army advanced toward Kyiv, Ukrainian forces blew up the Irpin bridge to stop the invasion. With its ripped open metal lattice work, buckled and curled edges, the bridge has become a beacon for architects and urban planners to develop proposals for how the city should be rebuilt.

On the evening of 2 September 2018, due to a power surge in a poorly maintained building, the entire nineteenth century neoclassical National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro was ablaze. A holocaust of a nation’s memory. A colonialist museum is now being re-imagined with the voices of 20 indigenous peoples.

The hidden danger in a world shaken by ongoing catastrophes might be that destruction becomes ordinary. Let’s face it, mass shootings have become normalized in our society. We may learn to cope from day to day but what is needed to go beyond mere survival, mere maintenance, a return to the status quo?

On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,and from his roots a bud shall blossom.

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse. But stumps are dead! The Davidic royal family line is dead. Babylon is the rising power on history’s stage. This empire will engulf Israel, destroy Jerusalem and its Temple and deport its monarchy. Exile. God’s promise to David seems like a tin bargain that can be crumpled in hand.

What did Isaiah offer his people and now offers us as we face catastrophe after catastrophe? It is what Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, and Ukrainians have – imagination. Imagination is the ability to dream. And Isaiah is one of the greatest dreamers in all the sacred scriptures. His poetic prophecies speak over an age that moved from of glory to destruction and exile to rebuilding. Six hundred years later when the Romans destroyed the city and temple a second time, the Jewish community re-imagined and contemporary rabbinic Judaism was born. After the Holocaust many Jews are again rethinking Judaism and God’s covenant.

Enter the animals. The pairings are extraordinary! Wolf and lamb, leopard and kid, calf and lion, cow and bear, lion and ox, child and cobra. What do you perceive about the pairings? Are they not predator and prey? Prey and predator at peace with each other, conversing, eating a common meal. Peace, harmony, moving beyond catastrophe to new beginnings will never occur if we first cannot imagine and dream it. That is why, poets, artists, authors and musicians are so important to humanity and the Church. They imagine and dream.

Is the lack of imagination what is stopping our nation from dealing with our slavery and racist past – and present, with mass shootings, the opioid crisis and our dealings with indigenous peoples?

Is the lack of imagination what is stopping our world from dealing with climate change, the inequality between the first the third world nations, with refugees and immigrants at our borders?

Is the lack of imagination what is stopping our church from dealing with empty churches; a clergy sexual scandal; a continued decline in vocations to orders, vowed religious life and sacramental marriage; a mass exodus of people, particularly the young, the continued non-acceptance of women and LGBTQ people; and the empty carcasses of schools, churches, convents and rectories marking the landscape?

Are we called by Jesus and the Spirit to simply maintain old structures, the status quo, and the ‘we’ve always done it this way’ attitude? Who are the dreamers, the poets and authors among us in the Church? Are they given pride of place in our councils?

We live in an age of destruction, which means we live in an age of building, which means we need to be open to imagination. Advent is about imagination. Isaiah offers us not only his dreams but invites us to dream and imagine futures. Can you and I imagine a shoot sprouting from the dying stump of the church? Or are we going to continue putting our heads in the sand.

Prime your imagination. Read poetry. Read novels. Read the prophecies of Isaiah.

Ponder. Let your mind wander. Daydream. These are spiritual acts, not a waste of time.

It is said that dreams are the forgotten language of God. Reclaim dreams. They are God’s vision for us.

Without imagination what will the church become? We have warnings all around us: Saint Anthony’s Church on Grand Street, Our Lady, Help of Christians towering over the South End, Saint John’s Church with its silent gaping mouths in the roof and windows.

Our hope?

With or without us, God will accomplish a new creation. But God through Isaiah invites us to dream and participate in this new creation and Church. Will we have the courage and imagination to do so? Imagination will not return us to the past; will not reopen Saint John, Saint Anthony or Help of Christians. Advent imagination is about a new Church moving into an unknown future with God; our first sign post? – the movement of the Spirit and the visions of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.

We live in an age of destruction, which means we live in an age of building, which means we need to be open to imagination.

_{*Phrases and ideas taken from Apocalypse. Now What? By Matthew Thompson, New York Times Magazine, 13 October 2022.}