3rd Sunday of Advent (B) – December 17, 2023

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11; Luke 1:46-50, 53-54; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

Para Bellum

This Advent, we’ve been working through this series we’ve called Para Bellum. There is that ancient saying that goes, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If you want peace (si vis pacem) prepare for war (para bellum). Within each of us is this fundamental desire for fulfillment, and joy, and happiness—the desire for PEACE. But none of us were born yesterday, we know that this doesn’t happen by making Christmas cookies and listening to Mariah Carey on blast. It doesn’t happen like that! How, then? Well, as the ancient saying goes, there is a battle to be fought. And specifically, this battle is fought on three “fronts.”

The first is that battle waged on us by the Devil, the Enemy himself. What does he do? What is his strategy? Remember? Well, primary his is a game of deception. And again, not, “Elvis is alive and hiding in Mexico.” Deception. Deceptions aimed who God is—that He’s not a loving Father, that he’s holding out on you; deceptions aimed at our identity—“You’re fine, you don’t need anybody.” “You’re only worth something if you’re contributing to society”; and deceptions aimed at others—you can’t trust others, she probably said that because she’s a really terrible person, liberals are ruining the world.

And that would be enough, plenty for anyone to handle—but there’s more. The battle is waged on a second front called the Flesh. The Flesh is Scripture’s way of talking about those base, primal, animalistic drives for self-gratification (like food, pleasure, wealth, power, and honor)—but desires that run wild. You know how you can’t stick with that diet for your New Year’s resolution? Why is that? “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” that’s what Jesus tells us. And it gets worse! Those deceitful ideas from the Enemy—those deceitful ideas work most powerfully when they play on disordered desires, our disordered desires of the flesh. “Hey, I know alcohol was a problem for you in the past. But you’re passed that.” “Hey, I know that your church teaches you shouldn’t have sex before marriage—but everyone’s doing it. It’s not a big deal.” “Hey, gambling, pornography, smoking, workaholism—those are problems for other people. You? You’ve got this under control.”

So the Devil, the Flesh… The third “front” of the battle is what is called the World. “The World” is what happens when these deceitful ideas that play on disordered desires are normalized in society. Because when they’re normalized, we don’t tend to bat an eye. We swim in it. And so we don’t notice it. And so it wreaks havoc on our life.

What does this look like?

The example I use is the man from China. A friend of mine shared a story with me told to him by the pastor of a Chinese parish in Philadelphia, a story abut one his parishioners, who came from China, had been part of the underground church in China. At one point, when they were celebrating a clandestine Mass in this man’s home, the Mass was raided by the police. The priest and all of the people escaped—but because it was his home, he couldn’t escape. So they arrested him and they tortured him, because they wanted him to tell them where the priest was. And he refused. He thought to himself, “We had been so long without the Eucharist, how could I betray the priest and deprive my people of the Eucharist?” And so he endured terrible tortures. Finally, when he was released from prison, he was able to leave the country, came to Philadelphia, and was part of the Chinese Catholic community there. He opened a Chinese restaurant, which was very successful. And then he opened up two and three and four restaurants. And finally, he became very wealthy. And you know, he became so busy and so wealthy that he stopped going to Mass. What torture and the threat of martyrdom had not been able to accomplish in this man, our culture was able to do, and it didn’t even have to try. 

Fill in the blank for yourself. For some of us, it’s the snare of wealth and materialism, more and more stuff, so we prioritize work more and more. For others of us, it’s sports, whether watching sports or taking kids to sports: how many of us have missed Mass for sports? For others of us, it’s leisure and relaxing: how many of us have missed Mass because we were just too tired, or we were on vacation? Because that’s the point: yeah, for some of us we miss Mass for that, but we feel terrible. But for others, that’s where it starts; and a few weeks, months, and years go by, and it’s been weeks, months, and years since they’ve gone to Mass. This is the “World” at work. 

When Scripture talks about the world, sometimes it’s referring to the globe, sometimes it’s referring to humanity (“for God so love the world…”). But there is a third way the term “the world” is used. And it’s the idea of the World as a system of ideas, and values, and morals, and ways of operating, and social norms—ideas, values, morals, way of operating, and norms which have been skewed by the deceits of the Devil and the desires of the Flesh. Here’s the point: our life and our fidelity to Christ is often more jeopardized by the World than by threats of torture and death. (Again, this is why we find John the Baptist in the desert: it’s a prophetic act of judgement on the World and how it works. He’s saying, “Yeah, I’m not going to live that way!”)

The Epidemic of Anxiety

The World is not “neutral.” It’s destroying us. And before you say that this is a bit extreme, think. Think about about how riddled our lives are with anxiety and depression…full on despair. I’ve shared with you that study from Mitch Albom, “Why is living shorter, dying sooner a new trend?” In that article, Mitch wrote about the reason why the life expectancy in the United States continues to plummet. And it’s not because of war, or famine, or heart disease, no. It’s because of those three deaths of despair: drugs, alcohol, and suicide. We are 5% of earth’s population, we consume 80% of the world’s opioids. Cirrhosis of the liver is exploding, especially in people in the prime of their life, 25-35.

So what’s going on? It’s the World. It’s our system of ideas, and values, and morals; the ways of operating, our social norms—and they’re leading us to ruin. Go down the list! The country, the state, the town, the school, marriages, families, people—nothing is left untouched. We keep puttering along, business as usual. And what happens? Things get worse, and worse, and worse. Why? Because there is a real attack. And it’s waged by the World.

Do you remember the Devil’s game plan for your life? To get you to steal some cookies? To be rude to someone? To lose your patience? No. The end goal, the plan, is to ruin you, to destroy you. And if we look at the data, he’s doing alright. We have seen it. And it has personally and deeply affected us.

The Church

So what’s the play? What’s the solution? Well, this is precisely what Jesus arrives to do. Our first reading, we hear that very famous passage from Isaiah, a passage Jesus is going to read in the synagogue in Nazareth as he begins his public ministry—so Jesus says, “Hey! Yoo hoo! This is about me!” What does Jesus say? “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the LORD and a day of vindication by our God.” This is what Jesus comes to do.

But he doesn’t do it in some ethereal, voodoo mysticism, or whatever. Jesus does this in a very real, very concrete way. It’s called the Church, this community of people who have decided to be baptized, to enter into a different way of being human.

But that’s it. The solution isn’t “going to church”—although that’s part of it. The solution is being a member of the Church, of the community of believers who have rejected Satan, and all of his works, and all of his empty promises. It’s a community of people who actually care about each other, who know each other, who welcome anyone. It’s a community of people striving for holiness: people that don’t live as the World teaches them and then also go to Church on Sunday, no; people that have completely rethought and reorganized how they use their time, and their gifts, and their money; people that are striving to live a life set-apart from “the norm.”

Because the key is that it isn’t just coming to a building once a week because we have to. I had someone ask me just this week, “Why does the church today feel so fake? Why is it that everyone feels like you have to be ‘good’ to come? Why can’t we come to church worn out, tired, hurting? How do we get the church to a place that people want to come to because they are loved and not judged for being angry, or at rock bottom or addicted to something? How do we get the church to be a refuge and not a country club?” That’s powerful. Because what’s the desire there? For the Church to not just be like every other place in the world, but a place (like Jesus said) for the poor and the brokenhearted, a place of liberty from everything that hold us captive. This is the vision. This is what I want so much: that anyone could walk through our doors and experience a place unlike any other place in the world.

But it takes a change on our part. Many of us may feel deeply connected here, but have you reached out to someone new? When you see a new face, is your initial instinct to start asking about them behind their back and trying to figure out who this person is? Or, do you go introduce yourself and ask them who they are? If they’re new, do you tell them they can sit with you at coffee and donuts? Do you take the time to get to know them and their story?

When it comes to the battles we face agains the Devil, the Flesh, and the World—there are weapons given to us by Christ. But we have to choose to pick them up and use them. Against the Devil, we need prayer: silence, stillness, Scripture, and Sunday. Against the Flesh, we need asceticism: to deny ourselves. And against the World, we need the Church: a community of people who have entered into a different way of being human, people who are part of a community that live the new humanity of Christ.

This is the battle. If we want peace, if we want all of this that is promised, para bellum, prepare for war, prepare for battle. Change you ways of prayer, or asceticism, of living in this community. Because when we do, the peace that is offered at Christmas and every day—then we can receive this most precious of gifts.