Fourth Sunday of Advent
How big do you think is heaven? I think of heaven as limitless, unbounded, unfathomable. In fact, everything that we imagine about God and eternity is unimaginably big and boundless. God has no beginning and no end. So is eternity. The created universe too is an endless expanse. Creation is magnanimous. So what about the small? Is there room for ‘small?’ After all, if we put human life in perspective, we are like a speck of dust. In fact, we are so small that if tomorrow any of us dies, nothing will change. Life will go on. What about the small?
Today’s first reading begins with the words, “You Bethlehem-Ephrathah too ‘small’ to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth one who is to be ruler in Israel….” Even as we are accustomed to the magnanimity of God and eternity we realize that small things are important to God. Small things are precious to God. Our God is a God of small things.
1. Let me begin this reflection with today’s gospel reading. The Angel Gabriel came to little home in the small town of Nazareth. In that small town, the angel came to a very young woman named Mary. In those days girls and women were accounted for very little. But God became small in a woman’s womb. Imagine this - the one for whom and through whom all created things came to be, is now confined himself in a small womb of the smallest of society. Of all the ways in which God could have come to us, God chose a simple, humble, and tiny baby to be present to us. Perhaps, Mary understood the God of small things. May be we should gather this from Mary’s visitation of Elizabeth. If I was Mary, after the annunciation, I would be heading straight to the Pope. Mary, on the contrary heads to another woman, her cousin, whose barrenness kept her small all her life. Mary would continue her entire life pondering and contemplating the God of small things. She never boasted of her son, paraded him, manipulated his status and dignity to her advantage, tried to control him or the outcome of the decisions he made. As we prepare for Christmas, may we not get carried away with the big, the spectacular and the glamourous. May we not take our eyes of the smaller, humbler, poorer and ordinary realities of life.
2. Jesus too was the God of small things. He was born as an immigrant, in a small town of Bethlehem. At a very early age, his family became refugees in Egypt. His family returned to the small town of Nazareth from where they hailed. It was said of this town, “What good can come out of Nazareth?” Jesus began his ministry being baptized at the hands of the last of the Jewish prophets. During his ministry he hung out with the smallest people in society - the sinners, tax-collectors, and prostitutes. He noticed small people like Zacchaeus, the publican praying humbly before God, and the woman who put two small coins in the treasury. He stood by the small people in society - the woman caught in adultery, the ostracized lepers, the blind man whom everybody asked to be silent, the children who were shooed away from him, and the repentant thief who hung from the cross next to him. Most of all, he died as the smallest, lowliest, humblest and most helpless people of all. Blessed are you and I if we can understand the greatness of smallness.
3. I am not sure about how your perceive your role in the world. I know how I think of myself. I am youngest child. I know the meaning of being small. Even today when I go home, I feel that my opinions do not count, my maturity is underrated and my contribution is overlooked. I am very loved, alright, but sometimes I feel very small. I am grateful for this feeling. It makes me identify with small people, the children, the underdogs, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised, the sinners, the subtle, the unobvious. Feeling small makes me ask for help, to look up to people, trust God more than my own abilities and work harder at things that I would otherwise do. Feeling small helps me understand Christ, his message and way he went about in the world. There are many times in life when we might feel small. Death makes us feel small and helpless; failure makes us feel small and incompetent, poverty makes us small feel insignificant; any kind of abuse makes us feel small and worthless; prejudice makes us feel small and unequal. Today, if any one here feel small, please know that God is a God of small things! Christmas teaches us that!
This eucharist tells us the God is a God of small things. God comes to us in a small piece of bread and a little wine. The God who created the universe now dwells in a small human heart. Let us worship the God of small things.
- Fr. Satish Joseph