Reflection for Sunday – December 1, 2024

Susan RollSunday Readings Homilies

Readings: Jeremiah 33: 14-16; Thessalonians 3:12–4:2;  Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36 
Preacher: Susan K. Roll

Cayuga Lake is one of the two longest of the Finger Lakes, aptly named because of its very long narrow profile, running roughly from north to south and pointed on each end, cutting down through central New York State.  At its southern end lies the city of Ithaca, surrounded by steep hills on three sides.  Cornell University and Collegetown occupy much of East Hill.  Spread out near the top of South Hill is the campus of Ithaca College.

I served as a campus minister for nine years at Ithaca College.  A number of times I was privileged to watch as an incoming storm moved southward, channeled by the east and west hills along the length of Cayuga Lake, over the city of Ithaca and up South Hill. 

Our interfaith chapel faced north toward the lake.  Its two-story-high, floor-to-ceiling sanctuary windows provided a panoramic view of the darkness that was slowly, inexorably, moving within the corridor formed by the lakeside hills, carrying the wind and the rain or the snow toward where I was sheltered in the chapel, above the old farm pond beneath the windows … coming, coming … until the storm crawled up the hill, enveloping the chapel with pounding rain or swirling snow, and always the darkness. 

Our Gospel for this First Sunday of Advent evokes briefly this sense of impending doom embodied in the oncoming storm.  The rising waters, together with “signs” manifested in the cosmic disarray envisioned in the scriptures of the past two weeks, shatter any sense of security on the earth:  “There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will die of fright…” 

This is not much different from the disaster epics we’ve been hearing in the readings for November, at the close of one liturgical year, and now spilling over with threatened catastrophe into the new year.  This week’s first and second readings each provide an angle of approach to give the threat of cataclysm and terror in the Gospel a solid and logical context. 

The passage from Jeremiah names the purpose of these fear-inducing phenomena – the coming of justice on the earth.  In 1 Thessalonians Paul exhorts his recently-planted faith community to “abound in love for one another,” and to strengthen their hearts and watch their conduct, in anticipation of – implicitly—the coming of justice.  This may well be heard as good news by those who hunger for justice, who have nothing invested in the current state of the world – those who, in the words of folk singer Richard Farina, have been “down so long it looks like up to me.”

Those of us who may have spent a lifetime working for social justice powered by our faith, whether out on the street or indoors, whether through churches, social service organizations or research, pursue a commitment to follow through on the hope generated by this faithful work.  But there are no guarantees.  Ultimately, as in all things, success is a gift.  The achievement of full justice is a gift.  The work may be accomplished through our heads and hands, but its end lies in God.  The first reading reminds us clearly, God is justice.  Ultimate justice.

If this truth doesn’t jump up at us now, it will when we read ahead in the opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke, to the words of Mary’s canticle, Luke 1: 46-56, patterned after the song of Hannah, 1 Samuel 2: 1-7.  Inequality will be leveled out, systems dismantled, evil and selfish actions punished, and the impoverished and oppressed raised to full human dignity.  Out of the storm, there will be justice.

Watching the mighty storm moving southward, along the lake and up the hill, surrounding, swirling, generating a powerful dynamism in the air – it was a prayerful moment.

And so, back on South Hill in Ithaca, I trudged, bent against the fierce wind, out to the parking lot.  I steered my little car gingerly along the snowy driveway and out the main gate… then experienced a very different moment of prayer as the car slowly, but unavoidably, turned sideways and slid down the hill….

Susan Roll
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