We proceed with our Advent season with a beautiful reminder to us that we are God’s chosen people, chosen to do his will, his will which produces fruit and life that endures to everlasting beatitude in Paradise with him.
And so, from the first reading, we hear from the prophet Zephaniah. Yesterday we heard in the Book of Numbers about the prophet Balaam writing about twelve centuries before Christ. Fast forward about five hundred years, and we come to the prophet Zephaniah, this time a prophet taken from among the people of God, who’s preaching to King Josiah in the late seventh century before Christ.
This period is marked by deep moral and religious corruption, despite outward religious structures. Everything beautiful on the outside, but so much corruption, infestation, rebellion, pollution, and tyranny happening on the inside. In fact, this is the way the prophet Zephaniah begins today’s reading: “Thus says the Lord: Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted, to the tyrannical city. She hears no voice, accepts no correction. In the Lord she has not trusted, to her God she has not drawn near.”
And what’s striking about this reading is that from condemnation we have an immediate movement by God to restoration: “For then I will change and purify the lips of the peoples, that they all may call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one accord. Who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord, the remnant of Israel? I will remove from your midst the proud braggarts, and you shall no longer exalt yourself on my holy mountain. But I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly.”
My brothers and sisters, what about us? And in particular, I’m talking to us Catholics. Where are we at? Are we among the remnant of the Lord, poor, humble, and lowly in spirit? Or are we among the rebellious, the polluted, the dominators, the tyrants? Yes, even within the Church.
We get this feeling that the vicious are being allowed to prowl among the faithful to snatch souls out of the hands of our Lord, while the good, the upright, the courageous, the bold, the truthful are chastised. Where do we fall? Where are we in terms of our loyalties, our affiliations?
Our Lord speaks of two sons in today’s Gospel. The father went to the one son and said, “Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.” The son said in reply, “I will not.” But afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, “Yes, sir,” but he did not go. “Which of the two did his father’s will?”
So you see, it’s not enough to merely say we want to do God’s will. And even when the Lord’s will seems difficult, all the more meritorious when we submit ourselves and say, okay, okay. Let me listen to the voice of the Lord. Let me think more about others, about the poor. Let me make a sacrifice today. Let me do some penance. Let me do some fasting. Let me call up that person who gives me a hard time and extend a gesture of peace. Let me deepen my faith. Let me spend more time with the Lord. Let me go to confession and humble myself, and allow the Lord to remove the pride that lurks beneath every single one of my sins, sins that have been clinging on to me for so long a time.
All we need to do is ask the Lord for his grace and his mercy, and then cooperate with what he asks of us, even when it seems difficult.
My brothers and sisters, may the Lord this day continue to make of you a precious part of the remnant which exists in the Church today: the humble, the lowly, the loyal, the obedient, and those who are truly engaged in the work of conversion.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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