Second Sunday of Advent

Lectionary: 4​

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.

Christmas, with its foundation in the annual solstice and Earth's circumnavigation of the Sun, belongs to everyone on the planet. Without the cycle of winter, spring, summer, and fall there would be no life on the Earth, and no one to sing God's praises. No Adam and Eve would have sinned and no Christ would appear to save us.

As all nations and economies, connected by rapid transportation and instant communication, become increasingly interdependent, Christmas appears as a worldwide holiday. Since many people have never heard of Jesus Christ, the yuletide offers the opportunity to re-baptize the solstice with the Gospel of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection.

Today's second reading, from Saint Paul's Letter to the Romans, speaks to the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in the early Church. Jews had a long history of difficult dealings with gentiles; they had suffered greatly when Alexander the Great and his Greek army tried to create a unified empire from Greece to India, including the near-east and north Africa. The Seleucid empire that governed Israel and tried to subdue Egypt had repurposed the temple in Jerusalem to pagan worship. Those Catholics who still resent the minor adjustments to our prayers that were made in 2010 might appreciate the distress of the Jews at the Abomination of Desolation that was imposed upon their most sacred site.

So the Gospel, sweeping through the Jewish world and blithely welcoming gentiles to enter full communion through (painless) baptism, created a genetically troubled congregation. Certain parties remembered the agony of circumcision, others dismissed the ordeal as meaningless. The newly baptized gentiles also saw little point to the Jewish dietary rules, while Jewish Christians might choke on a piece of pork.

So Saint Paul addresses the issue with prayer,

May the God of endurance and encouragement

grant you to think in harmony with one another,

in keeping with Christ Jesus...

The United States, more than most nations, boasts of its immigrant heritage, and its readiness to include and incorporate people of all nations, languages and religions as citizens. If they are willing to pay taxes and serve in the military they and their children have a place. But even here, and even in Christian congregations, there can be tension as some of the old guard fear and resent newcomers. People who migrate within the country, state or city also experience unwelcome.

People want to feel safe in church, and they want to do it without the effort of greeting strangers.  But that cheap safety is an illusion; it lacks resilience and shatters easily. Church is the place to meet strangers, not to shun them. 

Christmas is a story of refugees who flee their dangerous homelands to sleep in mangers and find safety in the anonymity of Egypt. Christmas is about welcoming immigrants from all parts of the Earth, or it means nothing.

Saint Paul reminded ancient Romans and today's Christians -- people he never met -- "with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."