2nd Sunday of Advent (C) – December 8, 2024

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126:1-6; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6

Heroic Choices

Our choices matter. In “big” moments, in “small” moments; in moments that don’t seem to be a big deal, in moments that seem to involve the fate of the world—our choices matter.

One day in the 1950’s, a woman was coming home from work; she took the bus like she did every day. In her city, the first tens rows were reserved for white passengers only. She wasn’t white, so she sat in the 11th row. As the bus filled up, the driver told everyone sitting in 11th rows and behind to move further back. Rosa Parks, on the bus, there in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955—Rosa Parks had a choice to make.

One summer day in 2016, a group of friends decided to go kayaking. They put in the Arkansas River down in northwest Wichita. Because of the heavy rains, the river was swollen. And when they got to a bridge, the hit a drop-off they didn’t expect. A few of the less experienced people had their kayaks tip, and they fell in. One of the girls was in serious trouble, close to drowning. And so there, on July 9, 2016, one person there, a seminarian, my classmate—Brian Bergkamp had a choice to make.

On winter day in 1985, my mom and dad showed up at a small parish in Atchison, Kansas. They both had their whole lives in front of them, both of them could go out and do whatever they want. Neither one of them was being forced to get married. Neither one was being forced to make vows of fidelity. They came of age in the 1970’s—the age of sexual revolution. But on that day, on their wedding day, February 15, 1985, they had a choice to make.

Choices matter. Our choices matter. Rosa Parks was just going about her daily life, daily routine. This probably wasn’t the first time she had been asked to move further back on the bus. But on that day—on that day, the choice she made had resounding effects. She didn’t move. She was arrested for (and I quote), “Refusing the orders of a bus driver.” But her decision triggered a 381 day bus strike in Montgomery, Alabama. It became national news. It eventually pulled in a 26 year old black preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. And thus began the civil rights movement. Rosa’s choice not to move that day sparked something.

When Brian Bergkamp saw that girl drowning, he went in after her. And even though he saved her life, got her out of danger, he didn’t make it out of the river alive. His choice to go in after her that day would save her life, but lead to his death.

When my parents walked down that aisle, they made a choice. And not just a choice to get married, but a choice to be faithful to one another, to love and to honor each other, all the days of their life. They said “no” to every other person out there, they said “no” to just living their life. That “yes” and so many others since concretely affects all of you here today. Choices matter.

Do We Believe Our Choices Matter?

Here’s the thing, though: we all know our choices matter. But we also live in a time where we are being told our choices don’t actually matter. And I know that sounds strange! But hear me out. I mentioned last week—something that shocked some of you. I mentioned that when it comes to living our faith, only 15% of people are concerned about heaven. Only 15% of people say that “heaven” or “eternal life” is important to them when living the faith. 15%! Why is that?

Well, one big reason is that there is this belief out there (and we’ve talked about this before)—but there is this belief out there—when people think about our faith, the idea is, “Just be a good person, just be nice. Everyone goes to heaven. Just be a good person.” This the other thing my sister-in-law found in her research: people think faith is just a way to help us be a good person. And pretty much everyone is going to heaven. Not Hitler, not serial killers—but you and me, we’re all good people, so we’re all going to heaven.

And that sounds nice. We think, “Well, God is a God of love. God is all good. He loves me and he is good. So that God wouldn’t send me to hell. God loves too much to condemn us good people to hell.” And I know why that sounds appealing! But God doesn’t send anyone to hell. God respects our choices, God respects our freedom. And some people, by their choices, by their free choices, are choosing hell, choosing not-God. Let me say that again: God doesn’t send us to hell, we choose it. How? Why? Because our choices matter.

I’m going to say something that is that most “duh” thing you have ever heard in your life. Ready? In order for a choice to be a choice, you have to truly be able to choose. Duh! In order for a choice to be a choice, you have to truly be able to choose. And yet this is the point! God must let us choose Him, which means we must also be able to choose not-Him. If we don’t really have a free choice, then we are robots; there’s no meaning to anything; it’s just a dream, an illusion—we’re all in the Matrix. If in the end, everyone goes to heaven—God is going to overrule the choices that people have made and everyone goes to heaven—think: then this, life, our lives, are pretty much just a bad dream. Our choices don’t matter.

But we know our choices matter! And yet, when it comes to the most important thing in life, our faith—we are subtly being told (or perhaps you were explicitly told this, or maybe you even tell your kids this)—we are being told, “Oh, it doesn’t really matter. Everyone goes to heaven. Just be a good person” (and by good person, we just mean don’t be a total jerk, don’t be a serial killer). But do you see?! In this vision of reality, there is no meaning to our choices! And this is another one of the big reasons why our HOPE is being SABOTAGED. Remember last week we talked about how our hope is sabotaged by all of the distractions and by us not really hoping for great things? Here’s another reason: we live with this idea that our decisions don’t really matter. Why? Because no matter what we do, as long as we’re not Hitler or a serial killer, we’re pretty much a good person—everyone goes to heaven. And yet that is a mentality of saying that our choices don’t mean anything. Which means? Our life doesn’t mean anything. And that is an incredibly depressing, hopeless, dark view of life.

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? That’s a great depiction of life where your choices don’t matter. Peter works in this office where nothing he does matters. In a hilarious scene, there are these consultants hired to help with downsizing, and they’re like, “We’re trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work.” And so Peter talks about how he shows up late, spaces out at his desk, and then he says, “In a given week, I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.” And then he eventually says, “It’s that I just don’t care.” This is it! Here this guy is, going to work, living life every day—and he recognizes that nothing he does matters. And what’s his attitude, his mood? Depressed, lethargic, hopeless. 

This is what I’m getting at: when our choices don’t matter, hopelessness reigns. And when we are told that, “Well, pretty much everyone goes to heaven”—as comforting as that sounds, or as much as it sounds like we’re trying to say that God loves us—what we’re really saying is that nothing matters, your choices don’t matter, life doesn’t matter; this is just one weird dream until God takes us all to heaven.

Choosing Not-God Is Easier Than We Think

But—I hate to sounds like the preacher of doom and gloom—but that’s just not the case. At all. Heaven is real, and hell is real. And counterintuitively, this is actually a really good thing, a thing that gives us hope, because it gives our lives meaning and purpose, because our lives, our choices matter.

We don’t like thinking about this though, why? Because this means that some of the choices we make—well, some of the choices we make are wrong. Objectively wrong. Gravely wrong. And we have to take responsibility for them. That is what we don’t like. We don’t like to admit that some of the choices we make or have made or continue to make—we don’t like saying, “That was the wrong choice.” In other words, we make the choice against God. We don’t always choose God, we choose not-God.

Even though we don’t know who is in hell, we know that hell is real. And we know that hell isn’t just something that really, really, really bad people choose. Jesus himself—Jesus talks about hell more than any other person in the entire Bible. Jesus—Jesus says, “Narrow is the road that leads to life. And wide is the road that leads to destruction. And many are on that road” (c.f., Matthew 7:13-14). God doesn’t “send” people to hell; we choose it. And it might be easier to choose that road than we think. The Bible itself tells us some conditions for being saved. Things like baptism, things like receiving the Eucharist, things like faith. But one of them—Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

THIS is the question: Do I do God’s will? Not, “Am I not Hitler or a serial killer?” No. Do I do God’s will? Do I follow God’s commandments? Do I do God’s will? Here’s the crazy thing: you can get to hell by choosing hell, but you can also get to hell by not choosing God. Our natural inclination is to selfishness, to do what we want. C.S. Lewis said, “The theme song of heaven is ‘Thy will be done.’ And the theme song of hell is ‘My will be done.’” Hell isn’t just for really, really, really bad people. Hell is for anyone who would sing that Frank Sinatra song, “I did it my way.” (Heard that at a funeral once. Saddest experience of my life. It’s like, “I choose not God.”) And so that’s the question. Not, “Do I think I’m a good person?” No. Judgement is for God alone: don’t judge others, but also, don’t judge yourself. The question is, “Do I do God’s will?” Our choices matter.

Repentance for the Forgiveness of Sins

In today’s Gospel, the way that John the Baptist helps people to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, the coming of Jesus is by offering them a “baptism for the repentance of sins.” We are preparing for the coming of Jesus, not as a little baby, but at the end of our lives, at the end of time. And what do we stand up and profess every week? “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” You won’t judge yourself. Jesus will judge. And although he is very merciful, he is also just. And he will respect your choices. Why? Because your choices matter. And while that’s a hard thing, and maybe even a fearful thing, it is also a hopeful thing. Why? Because it means that your life and your decisions, your choices matter. You matter.

And so our big task, a task that this season of Advent calls us to—the Church places the figure of John the Baptist before us, the one who prepares us for Jesus’ coming, why? In order to call us to repentance. To repent for the choices we have made not to do God’s will. To repent for choosing not-God. To repent for ways that we choose that wide road leading to destruction.

How do we do this? Normally, this is what happens in the sacrament of Confession. And I know that Confession can be a tough one for people. Some people avoid it because they don’t remember how to go. But here’s the thing: as long as you have sins, I’ll handle the rest. Easy.

The bigger thing, though, is to know why Confession shouldn’t just be a once a year thing. And the reason is that for some of us, we commit what are called mortal sins. In the first letter of John chapter 5, he talks about how some sin is “deadly”; we use the word “mortal.” And the Church teaches us that we commit a mortal sin when three conditions are present: something is gravely wrong, we know it’s gravely wrong, and we do it anyway. When we do this, we cut ourselves off from from God, the life of grace “dies” (deadly sin, mortal sin) within us. And because of this, we need to receive the sacrament of confession in order to be restored to that life. If we have a grave sin, we can’t receive the Eucharist, the life of Jesus Christ why? Because we have cut ourselves off from life, we’ve chosen death, chosen not-God, not to do his will. Again, the mentality is, “Yeah we all make mistakes, but we’re all good people. So everyone should receive the Eucharist if they feel good.” But no! If we have one of these sins on our soul, we should not receive the Eucharist until we are restored to life through Confession.

Some of the most common things—when we are talking about grave sins, choices we make that are us choosing not-God, ways that we choose “my will be done” instead of “thy will be done”—some common sins that we should confess before receiving the Eucharist are things like missing Mass on a Sunday or Holy Day of Obligation. When we deliberately miss Mass, we need to get to Confessions. Abusing alcohol or using illegal drugs. Receiving the Eucharist when you shouldn’t have, while in a state of mortal sin. Looking are pornography, masturbating. Sex with someone you are not sacramentally married to, or living together before marriage. Using contraception or birth control or condoms or getting sterilized as a married couple instead of practicing Natural Family Planning. Serious gossip or doing harm to another’s reputation. Another one is not having your marriage blessed in the church: being civilly married to someone, or getting divorced and remarried civilly—and not getting married by a priest in the Church. Again, there are plenty of others (like murder or robbery). But these are the common ones. All of these—all of these are things that cut us off from communion with God. All of these mean that you can’t receive the Eucharist. Dying with these sins on our soul—that’s how we choose hell, that’s how we choose not-God. All of these are things you want—that you need to make right with God.

Hope Restored

Again, I know this can sound like a bummer, but this is good news. Why? Because it means that our choices matter. But yes, it is also a challenge because our choices matter. Heaven is real, but hell is also real. And most importantly, Jesus does love you, he is all good, he is merciful. And so “don’t be afraid.” If you need to go to Confession, go! Jesus is ready to forgive any sin. If you need to work on your marriage situation, give me a call or come by the office; I would love to help. For a lot of us, we just need to get to Confession: we need to receive forgiveness. We are carrying past choices that have put us on the wrong path. And some of us probably need to go more often—we should go any and every time we have a grave sin. Why? Because it renews communion with God, it restores our relationship with him. It takes us off the path leading to destructions and puts us back on the path leading to life. Confession is offered to us, this is the love of Jesus being offered to us. Why would we stay away? This choice, the choice to receive or reject God’s loving mercy—this is the choice that each one of us has to make. And to receive it is a choice that will leave us full of Hope.