A Dark Deed in the Season of Light. What can we do?

Maybe we turn to God when we have nowhere else to look. Perhaps in the wake of the slaughter that happened in that grade school yesterday, we need to turn to the light of the season. 

Maybe it's worth a try.  It is just this question – “What can we do?” that is asked of John the Baptist in the Gospel in many churches tomorrow, “Gaudete” Sunday the Sunday in Advent when we are called to, of all unthinkable things, rejoice.

Here is John the Baptist, outside of the towns and cities where Roman soldiers and Roman tax collectors control the Jewish people, forcing their allegiance to Rome to be first in their lives, ahead of their Yahweh.  Frustration and despair was the spice in their food, the salt in their tears.  So when they heard John’s promise of a person coming to save them, in their enthusiasm, they asked, “What can we do?”

To the soldier, John said, “don’t let your use of power abuse the people.”

To the tax collector, John said, “don’t let your greed take more than is required”.

To the crowd (that would be all of us not already included in the above) he said, “If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none.”

That last one, it seems to me, is the one that really hits us.  Does it hit you, too? 

Imagine that you hear about this brilliant speaker, who everybody is talking about.  She does Ted talks, sits with Oprah, is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize…and he’s coming to speak at a city a day’s drive away.  You call your friends, your kids, your parents, and you pile in a van and drive through a snowstorm, and even though it seemed like no one else was crazy enough to be on the road, when you get to the convention center you see that the place is full.  Thousands of people have somehow got here.  You find your seats, shake off your coats, and add to the murmuring din of the crowd waiting, waiting, waiting for the speaker to come on stage.  Perhaps the storm has kept her from making it?  Perhaps all of you were somehow wrong, or this was a hoax, and you would not hear him after all? 

Just as the warmth of the bodies begins to make you squirm in your seat, the murmuring diminishes, and you see her come onto the stage.   Walking to the large, formal podium in the center, he looks at the crowd…at each of you, it seems, and now you are really here, right here. 

She begins.

“If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none. “

And just as you are drawn into the calming cadence of his voice, she turns and walks stage right, down the steps, and out of the hall.

Your hearts are pounding in your chests.  You look quizzically at each other... for clues that are not there.  You’re confused.

You hear a whirring and shoooshing noise from the stage and a curtain comes down, with a smiley face, a huge one, yellow and black, and the words, “I hope you enjoy it.”

Here we have it, friends.  Here is the good news that we‘re given on the Sunday of rejoicing after the shocking events just days before.  Here’s what we’re greeted with on Hanukkah. 

All through Advent we’ve been told of disasters and horrors to come.  Apocalypse is the backdrop of the massage – “don’t be distracted.  Stick with the game plan.”

The Serenity Prayer calls us to open three gifts.  Go ahead.  Open them now.  Don’t wait ‘til Christmas.

The serenity to accept the things we cannot change

The courage to change the things we can

The wisdom to know the difference.

We can change a lot.  Give a lot away to those who need what we don’t, really.  The joy comes from doing  just this.  

Gaudete.  Rejoice.