I was ordained nine years ago. My first assignment was at Saint Barnabas in Northfield, Ohio. I had a wonderful friend there who was like a grandfather to me. He has since passed away. He used to take me to breakfast many times at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant. It was his big thing to do. You know you can’t walk through the Cracker Barrel Store without buying something at the beginning, right? I was like Father Jeremy back then. I was just running around like crazy and doing way too much! I keep telling Father Jeremy, “You have to have some boundaries! You have to say no to some things!” When you are newly ordained, you are just so excited to be a part of everything! I still am. Hopefully, I have learned a little bit more balance over the years.
As a joke, this man Richard gave me a sign. I want to use the sign for the homily this morning. I hang the sign on my office door. The sign says, “There will be no crises this week. My schedule is full!” Wouldn’t we all like to have that sign on our door? There is no crises today my schedule is full! Sometimes, I think that is how we tend to approach life. You know what I mean. We say, “This is what I planned to do today, and nothing better get in the way of it!” Anytime there is an interruption, it really throws us off, right? We think, “I didn’t do anything that I was supposed to do today.” Yet God often comes to us in the form of a crises. God often comes to us in ways that we do not expect, plan, think of His birth. Mary was nine months pregnant. She was riding a donkey all the way to Bethlehem. Then when she gets to Bethlehem, there is no room at any of the inns. Joseph finally finds one inn, and the innkeeper says, “Well I have no room, but I have a manger.” He was someone that allowed this crises into his life, and because of that, Christ was born in a manger.
The reality is, Advent for us is a time of being open. A time of welcoming. In The Second Reading today, Paul was writing to the Romans, and he says, “Brothers and sisters, whatever was written previously in my instruction that by endurance and by the encouragement of scriptures we might have hope.” He goes on to encourage them. He says that we must welcome one another as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God. He is talking to both the Jews and the Gentiles. He is saying we have to welcome one another just as we are! Think about the tension right now. I thought after the election everything would be fine. Once the election was over, we would know who our President is. However, now the tension is still there. The dividedness is still there. The reality is, we all need to come together, whether Democrat or Republican, whether a Conservative or Liberal. Whoever we are, we all need to come together as one! That is ultimately what Jesus came into the world to do, to save us, and bring us together as one family. He often comes in messy ways. He often comes in ways that we do not expect.
One of my favorite things that one of our seminary teachers used to always say to us is that “every interruption is an invitation.” If we were working and studying in our dormitory and somebody knocked on our door, we were supposed to drop what we were doing and talk to them. Every interruption is an opportunity or an invitation to grace. We always seem to be so busy. One thing I hope that is never said about me is that I was too busy. No matter how busy we are, I hope people don’t think that that is our identity. You know that the last thing that will be said about me is, “Oh, Father Michael, he was busy!”
I want you to think about this Advent and every time you get interrupted, that it is an invitation. The reality is, no matter how busy we think we are, our schedules better never be too full for Christ. We can say no to everyone else, and everything else. There is a lot going on. We have to say no to a lot of things, right? Hope-fully, when Christ comes, we say yes. There will be times during this Advent season where He is calling you to do something. Maybe He is calling you to pray. Maybe He is calling you to a retreat. Or He may be calling you to some other special Advent event. We have Handel’s Messiah today. We have our Advent Reflections on Tuesday nights. Our schedules are full, but we better always have some openness for Christ to come into our lives.
I just encourage you to think about that this Advent Season. Do you have that sense of welcoming? Do you have the sense of being open to the crisis that may come into your life? Or are you like me? Do you have a sign above your door that says, “There will be no crisis this week. My schedule is full!”? I hang this above my door because it is a joke. The reality is as priests, we have to deal with crises all the time. Hopefully our schedule is never too full for God to enter into our lives. Think about that this Advent. Advent is ultimately supposed to be a retreat for you. Find a way to slow down. Find a way to open up your schedule for the crises that may come. Find a way to allow yourselves to be open to the interruptions that are really invitations to God’s grace. Don’t ever allow your schedule to be too full to welcome God into your life!