Father Rick Bolte's Homily

A: Second Sunday in Advent                                           2007-12-09

“You brood of Vipers!”  These words John the Baptist uses for the Sadducees and Pharisees [the translation here is probably better than the actual words in the original text].  John questions why they have come.  Are they just checking him out?  Are they there for show so that they can tell people they too went to John in the desert?  John calls for them to produce good fruit as evidence of their repentance.

Have we come to Advent to repent?  Or are we here because it’s part of the church calendar and it just happens every year?  What do we have to repent from?

Contrary to the impression we may have, God does not sit back in judgment deciding to whom he will come to and to whom he will not.  It is not based on how good we are.  That may sound like a contradiction to the message of repentance but it’s not.  God is not meeting out his presence according to our behavior.  God’s love is for everyone and God seeks to share his life with all the children he loves.  God gives his life especially to the sinner.

The only question is, “Are we open to receive Christ into our lives?”  It’s not about making ourselves worthy, we can’t.  But we can open ourselves to let God in.  This is the repentance John calls the people and us to.  We are called to prepare the way of the Lord.  What blocks God’s way into our lives?  If I were the devil, I would work toward the goal that is a reality in most of our lives.  I would work to make everyone so busy doing “good” things that they had no time for God.  We want to buy good presents for others, we want our homes to be festive and inviting, and we want to enjoy each other’s company at parties.  We like to dream and work toward those ideal and warm gatherings of family and friends.  Where the devil succeeds is in the assumption that we have to do these things.  Why we “have to” is a question we don’t ask except to presume we have to and it’s our responsibility.

Ten minutes in a day is really a small amount of time, yet how many of us spare it to spend alone with God?  But something like a mere ten minutes, not when we’re driving or doing anything else, can make a big difference on where Christ is in our lives the rest of the day.  Let us make this season of Advent a true time of repentance.  Let us repent of whatever obstructs the way of God into our lives.  Let us not be a “Brood of Vipers” who go through the motions for show.  Let us prepare the way for God into our hearts!