Fourth Sunday of Advent
The Beacons of Light initiative of the Archdiocese has been a needed but complex and challenging process. Personally, having been right in the midst of the process as a parish priest, its impact on what lies ahead is frightening. Considering the humongous task ahead, honestly, I feel very, very small. I wonder if you have felt similarly – where an experience or a life situation makes you feel small.
Today’s first reading beginning 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….” Perhaps it is because I am crying out to God in my insufficiency, I became very aware of the God of small things. Our God is a God of small things.
Incarnation – Small Things Matter
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. As we heard in today’s gospel reading, after the annunciation, Mary made not fanfare of the news. Rather, she quietly went to visit her aged cousin Elizabeth. Perhaps, Mary understood the God of small things. 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 control the outcome of the decisions he made. Even at the cross she merely stood weeping.
Practical Implication: 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.
Jesus – The God of small things
Jesus was born as a little baby in a small town of Bethlehem. At a very early age, his family became refugees in Egypt. Refugees are small people. 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.
Practical Implication: Blessed are you and I if we can understand the greatness of smallness.
Lessons from the God of Small Things
As I look at my life, I know the meaning of being small. I am youngest child. I was loved greatly, but I rarely mattered. In the seminary too, I was not among the ones who mattered. Even today, in light of everything that is happening around me, I feel small.
I am grateful for this feeling of smallness. 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.
Practical Implication: 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 feels small, please know that God is a God of small things! Christmas teaches us that God is a God of small things.
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