Inaccuracies about the "Two Comings of Jesus" Framework

For at least several decades, there has been a well-circulated depiction of the Church's season of Advent as having two clear and distinct parts and, more challenging for priests and parishes, that the focuses of those two parts are to be kept separate. "The first 3 weeks of Advent are all about our anticipating the Second Coming of Jesus, and then only in the final week do we switch over and think about remember His birth in Bethlehem." So yeah, I wanted to preach on my reflection that this is, yes, built on some things that are true, but can be taken to extremes by some thinkers and liturgists, and is also impractical and kind of weird. (C'mon, how many 2nd Coming hymns do you know? Catholic hymns too, not Left Behind music.) 

The one thing I forgot to mention in this recording is that in the Mass readings previous to 1970 all of the scriptures are focused on getting ready for meeting Jesus in this life, and yet nobody thinks that Pre-Vatican II Advent wasn't focused on Baby Jesus on Bethlehem. 

Anyway, here's the homily. 

Last Two Sundays' Homilies

Here's two weeks worth of Sunday homilies. I've switch away from Internet Archive and its embedded players, at least for now. Sorry about that; maybe I can find a format with more controls like skips and playback speed. (Let me know if you've got suggestions.) I'm going to start going backward now and repairing or re-hosting previous audio on here.

Homily for 11/10/24, 32nd Sunday, Year B: Letter to the Hebrews and Temple Worship

Homily for 11/17/24, 33rd Sunday, Year B: Gems in Eucharistic Prayer IV

"Would That All The People Were Prophets" and Prop 434

Sunday's homily. First part about the readings and the second part about the multiple propositions on the Nebraska ballot this November.

The Servant Songs Anchor the Gospel

It can be confusing for people when they hear that 1) the Jews were expecting their Messiah to be a second King David, a glorious, nation-saving warrior, and so they looked for those things in Jesus, but also that 2) this captured-and-crucified Jesus is the Messiah, the long-promised savior, fulfilling all the Old Testament prophecies. These two ideas together seem to say that either the Jews didn't read their own books, or that the early Church had to fudge on what the Scriptures said and wrench the prophecies to fit Jesus' very-non-warlord career and the fact that he died. 

And yes, there is tension between these two Old Testament images of a "savior messiah." And, yes, the Resurrection does serve as kind of God's final stamp that Jesus and the Church got the scriptural blueprint right. But really, the images of "great king who saves Israel and reigns gloriously" and of "suffering servant who saves us by bearing our punishments" are both in the texts and were ultimately true. The common perception in 1st century Judea seem to be simply that those were two separate personages: the hero-king and the exemplar-martyr. And frankly, that's not crazy, since the four Servant Songs of Isaiah never say the Servant is a king or the messiah. Many seem to have seen the Servant as "Israel, who has suffered so much," though that does leave the "suffered for us" part from Isaiah 53 unclear. 

From the first days of the Church though, they read it the other way: Jesus came to live the Servant role the whole way—"not rebelling, not turning back"—as Israel never quite could. He suffered, and his sufferings made us whole. But, as those Servant Songs (and Psalms 16, 30, and 116) all assured, God would not abandon the Servant to the grave; He would uphold and rescue the him and the Servant would reign gloriously forever. It wasn't that the earliest Christians were stretching the prophecies, in fact they took them even more literally. It was just that no one before the Resurrection could conceive that "freed my soul from death" and "will not leave me in Sheol, nor let me see decay" could be read as more than a metaphor for "protected me and saved me." Nor could one imagine "will rule on high forever" meant more than "a long reign, with sons to carry on the dynasty for ages." Well, at least till Easter Sunday. 

Jesus and Neusner: Just An Insightful Rabbi, or More?

This might not be the smoothest of deliveries, but it had more structure and hopefully avoid a potential place of confusion. To be clear: I love Jacob Neusner and I think A Rabbi Speaks With Jesus is a true monument and milestone in Jewish-Christian dialogue. And ultimately, his critiques make sense and it's reasonable that Neusner doesn't find Jesus compelling. Which is just fine... because the Christian argument was never where Jesus as a rabbi can convince you to rethink things. It's whether God raising Jesus from the dead is enough reason to trust what Jesus is telling you to rethink.

OCIA (RCIA?) Classes' Drop Page. Not Homilies

Hi there. As the title says, these aren't homilies. These are the audio files of the 75-to-90-minute adult education classes I lead on Monday nights. They used to call this stuff "RCIA" but now they're call it OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults); it's the parish-level class for people either looking to become Catholic or at least checking out the Catholic Faith. Also, plenty of current Catholics attend as well as a kind of review for what we didn't pay attention to in classes when growing up.😅

These are here right now while I try to figure out how to get them up on the parish website or something better. But until then, this is my drop spot.

This page will grow as weeks go on; no need to hop to a different one. All class audio will just be on this one page. Cheers!

UPDATE: Due to the weird issues with Internet Archive in October 2024, I migrated the audio of the classes over to Google Drive and was able to add the Word docs which accompany them, so ultimately it was an upgrade. I'd love to figure out how to embed buttons, but for now, just Click Here.

You shouldn't need a password beyond that but if you do, try:  rzhf3qz

Eucharisitic Amazement

This took a lot of workshopping (and probably two befuddled congregations) to try to figure out how the turn the phrasing of the key distinction. For the last one, presented here, I went with a little less on the poetry/paradox phrasing and pushed harder on the extra words to explain. I think we got close to almost-intelligible in the end. 

Around the 12:45 mark I went off on different "moments of Jesus", and I wish I would've also put in the Last Supper, which is such a draw for people, with its fellowship and the time with Christ. And also should have mentioned Jesus with all the redeemed in heaven, that great reunification that we long for, with Him and with our loved ones.