Every year around this time, I remind those patiently listening to my homilies at weekend Masses that while Advent can and should be a quiet time, blessed with hope in patient waiting for Christ born among us yet again, we also have to work at getting into the right mindset, attuned to what is needed today as watch and wait. On the Third Sunday of Advent (December 10), I pointed particularly to the second reading, from St. Paul’s I Thessalonians, Chapter 5. I said that Paul offers us a valuable even if unexpected Advent lesson. I wish to share it again here, in brief — given the crises overwhelming us, particularly the ongoing violence of Russia’s aggression against the Ukraine and the terrible fighting between Israel and Hamas that rages on and on.
In the latter part of I Thessalonians 5, Paul urges us to step back, to deepen and enrich our sense of community, change our own attitude toward the world, and leave the rest to the Spirit – subtle, quiet, and patient advice in a dark age where swift actions and hard words too often win the day.
Paul's first instruction is about community, responsibility, and accountability:
"We appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all." (I Thessalonians 5.12-15)
Paul does not use explicitly hierarchical language here, rather pointing to ways of acting: honor those who labor for us, who have charge of us, who, in sum, serve the community. Likewise, the admonitions that follow exclude no one: whoever is idle, fainthearted, weak, leaders included, is to be bothered and prodded into action. But always respect leaders who serve us in small and large ways, materially and spiritually. Do not be cynical and assess leadership only in terms of power dynamics. We need to get into the habit of creating an environment where good is always being done, even when some among us are destructive in word or deed. The failure that is doing nothing may be traceable to ill-will or not-caring, but Paul points to the weaknesses that arise when we do nothing: being too comfortable, being afraid to act, being weak. Envisioning and calling into being a campus — Harvard, let’s say — that is a community of shared service and mutual accountability takes a lot of time, but there is no better way to be open to one another and to the reality of God. But then Paul surprises us again:
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (5.16-18)
This advice may seem annoying and unrealistic. There is always so much not to be thankful for, so much not to rejoice over, and so much to be done, that “praying always” seems only an impossible ideal that is also annoyingly irrelevant in the "real world". But the emphasis on this cultivated, habitual counterintuitive behavior geet to the heart of the matter: always, without ceasing, in all circumstances give thanks, trace all things back to God; pray, making openness to the divine a dimension of ordinary life; rejoice, in a greater more stubborn hope that refuses to allow evil the last word.
It may be very hard at first to imagine how these three “always” commands of Paul might play out, much less matter, on a campus such as Harvard. We have no time for such things, we must act now! Being cheery, being pious, being merely happy, would hardly be virtues effective on campus. But a radical self-cultivation that resists ordinary ways of assessing daily life and that sees grace at work in every situation can matter deeply, making us persons of faith, hope, and love. Such people change a campus by their presence day after day, year after year, whatever work they do on campus.
The two points I have made thus far are not calls for direct action, or pointed critiques of some misinformed and ill-willed people around us, nor do they speak directly to the plagues of antisemitism and Islamophobia poisoning us right now. But still, we need to look to the larger picture, the longer-term way of things. Then we can be ready to change things, ready to heed the third section of Paul’s advice:
"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything, hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil." (5.19-22)
This is a practiced and embraced vulnerability to the Spirit of God, who arouses the fundamental changes — divine differences — that can happen. If in ordinary life we adhere to Paul’s earlier words — “See to it that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all” — then we can afford to be honorably quiet and finally hear the real prophetic voices in our community, seeming whispers that resonate despite the loud noises around us. We can begin to listen to the true prophets, whether they be harsh or gentle, demanding change or demanding patience, waiting for a time, or acting right now. Let the Spirit be free and unhindered, not in empty spaces, but in the communities we are forming day after day, amid sisters and brothers of all kinds who give thanks, who pray, who are not ashamed to walk in the light, even in darkest places. Amen.
Thus the gist of my homily on this past Sunday. Can all this work on a campus — and on the Harvard campus? I’d like to think St. Paul is asking us to give it a try — seeing how unproductive much of the fiery, impatient anger around us has turned out to be. We are not ready to be righteous even for righteous causes, until we heal our community and change our own ways of being. We need to begin slowly: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.
