Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle B
It’s easy to build a house. It’s much harder to build a home.
David found that out a long time ago, as we heard in our first reading. He felt guilty that he should have so much around him, while the Ark of God lived in a tent. So he wanted to build a house for God. Make God nice and comfy. And maybe appease a bit of the guilt he felt. But God would have none of that. Through the messenger Nathan, God told David that God would make of David a house. That God’s place was not inside a building. That God’s place was inside a person. And David was troubled at Nathan’s message.
Fast forward to a small town in Galilee – in those times a troublesome place, where the vast majority of the people were very poor peasants, a place where people struggled for freedom. In that troubled place, a Messenger of God appeared to a young woman named Mary. Mary was ”greatly troubled” at Gabriel’s message. She must have been afraid, for the angel has to quickly reassure her, “do not be afraid.”
Mary was told that God’s place was inside a person. And Mary was asked to make a home for God within her. Mary didn’t get a road map clear into the future from the angel to tell her where that future would take her. She just trusted, and made room for God in her life. Made a home for God in her life.
All too often, you and I want to put God in a house. A Place. Where, when it is convenient, we can go visit God. Kind of like … here at St. Johns. And in and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. Despite all of the pressures of this season, the shopping, the family meal preparations, the toys from Santa, and so on, you have taken time to be here, in this place, right now. And we are glad you came!
But, the Gospels call us to go beyond such a simple, and convenient reality. God wants God’s home, God’s place, to be within you. All the time. Not just in a building once a week. Like Mary, God is asking your permission to come and live within you. To make God’s home within you. You are being asked, like Mary, to trust God.
You are being asked to let your heart and God’s heart come to beat to the same rhythm. For when your heart and God’s heart beat in rhythm, you will learn to love the world, this broken world, this world that needs so much to be loved. Even if this world is one that in the past turned on God and murdered him. Even if this world today is one that denies God’s existence, or strives to remove God from the world, or even worse, could care less one way or the other about God. When your heart and God’s heart beat in rhythm, you will learn to love the world, this broken world, this world that needs so much to be loved.
It’s easier to build a house, a ‘box’ where we can put God. Whether it is a box on land that we call a church, or a box on our calendar called Sunday, or Christmas, where we can visit comfortably, then move on. Its so much harder to build a home, a home for God within our very self, at the core of our being. God present within us at all times and in all places .
Mary didn’t make a house for God. Mary made a home for God in her life. Maybe you and I can make a home for God in our lives too.