(Please read the scripture passage before reading the homily.)
I spent twelve years in ministry in Versailles, Ohio, home of the Versailles High School Tigers. This year they are in the State finals in football. Before every football game, the Color Guard of local Veterans hosts the flag-raising ceremony. The Guard lowers all flags but the U.S. national flag as we sing the National Anthem.
The National Flag flies at equal height with other national flags during peacetime, and above those of our enemies during wartime. In cities, the better homes are built far above the flood plain and the cheaper homes lie on or near the flood plain. The higher up one lives the safer, healthier and stronger position such a person has.
In days to come, however, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills”. In days to come, therefore, the Lord will be recognized as Lord of all. All nations, all national flags, all rich people, everyone in positions of power, will bow down before the Lord, for the Lord will be higher than the rest.
The Lord will judge between nations. When the Lord judges, he puts the proud below others and the lowly above the proud. The Lord will judge us as worthy of his love and take us to himself.
How can we advance the cause of Advent in our relationships, in our comings and goings in the immediate future and in the longer future? We could build our houses and relationship closer to the earth instead of higher than the sky. We could let the Lord to have the high ground and ourselves to take the lower. We could no longer march to war, either personal war or national war. We could learn of the Lord instead of pretending to know the Lord. “Come, let us walk in the ways of the Lord.”