Homily by Fr.  Jojo Magadia, SJ, 22 Dec 2006, Church of the Gesω, Ateneo de Manila

… for Misa de Gallo Mass of 23 December 2006

A good definition is a statement that tells us the meaning of some thing. It gives us its essential nature. It tells us how it relates to the world and to people. It sets boundaries and points out the extent which it covers. A good definition must be scientifically precise. But often, the more effective and memorable definitions are more simple and yet direct to the point.

For example, what is a smile? A smile is a curve that can set a lot of things straight. Or what is a committee?   A committee is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary. Or what is a lecture? A lecture is the confusion of one man multiplied by the number of listeners. Or what is a miser? A miser is person who lives poor so that he can die rich. Or what is a diplomat? A diplomat is a person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. Or what is a bad politician? A bad politician is someone with two sides of the brain, a left side with nothing right and a right side with nothing left.

Some years ago, there was this listing of pithy definitions of winners and losers. Winners seek answers to problems, losers see problems in every answer. Winners are people who have plans,   losers are people who have excuses. Winners are those who see the difficult as possible, losers are those who see the possible as too difficult. Winners tend to say: "What can I do for you?," losers tend to say: "That is not my job." Winners make mistakes and say: "I was wrong," losers make mistakes and say, "It's not my fault." Winners say "This is good, but there must be something better"; losers say, "This is good because it's the way it's always been done." No single one of the definitions is really a good one, but there is a common theme that runs through them. I suggest that at the heart of all of this, a loser is someone who is stuck, and a winner is someone who is free.

In today's Gospel, we encounter Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, one of the secondary and supporting cast in the drama of the nativity. And the story of Zechariah is the story of a loser, someone who gets stuck. For so long, he and his wife Elizabeth pray and pray for a child. But no child comes, until eventually old age catches up with them, and they give up hope, and they dig into the reality that they would remain childless – a reality that is the source of great shame in the Jewish culture of that time. So when God intervenes in Zechariah's life, and sends the angel Gabriel to announce the birth of a son, Zechariah could not believe it. He doubts in his heart of hearts. He could not shake off the skepticism. He puts to question the will of God, and brushes aside the promise of the very gift, he and Elizabeth have been longing for all along. Zechariah is stuck because he puts God in a box. He has so gotten used to God turning him down, that when God becomes ready to grant him his prayer, he could not believe, he could not absorb, he could not accept.

Zechariah is like most of us. We work and we do our thing and we push ourselves. We take stock of what we can and cannot do. With regularity, we find the various formulae for success – on how to deal with our families, and how to work with our bosses, and how to take things in stride. We develop our habits and routines. Yes, we do make room for God in all this, but in a subtle way, we tend to push God to a little corner of our lives, a corner which we can identify, a corner we run to when we have to, a corner we get comfortable with, a corner where we can read the signs in our lives, and plan out our futures, and carry out our tasks, and it is nice and cozy and familiar. Before we know it, we will already have boxed God in, and we are, in reality, stuck, as Zechariah is stuck – so that when God, with unfathomable and unpredictable goodness moves away from that corner and brings us new gifts and new promises in ways we would never have been able to imagine, we are unable to recognize Him, and it becomes difficult to believe and accept.

We are scared because these unpredictable ways bring us face to face with a God that has a plan, yes, but a plan that we can only know of as it gradually unfolds. And we are asked to take risks, and to have faith. And each step, there always seems to be more challenges. The announcement of the birth of John the Baptist becomes a challenge to Zechariah, and the child born to Zechariah likewise becomes a challenge to the people of Israel, constantly provoking, inciting, prodding, pushing, taunting – precisely because he is missioned to prepare the way for the Son of God who, like his Father, is also always challenging and prodding and pushing.

And that's the way God moves in our lives, isn't it? Just when you think you're done, something else comes up. Just when you feel life is so beautiful, you find out you are dying. Just when everything seems to fall into place, that wild card is thrown in, and your family life is thrown into disarray, or a good friend betrays us, or a relationship turns sour, or our anger gets the better of us, or we find ourselves without a job. Just when you feel that you have found all the answers, the questions are changed. One moment, you feel good; the next moment, you feel a strange emptiness. One moment, you feel relieved that something is over; the next moment, you are back in hot water. There always seems to be something up the road. God constantly challenges and pushes, and tells us that we cannot always stash things away in a neat pile. God reminds us that Christmas is not just about the warm and cozy Belen, but also about the birth of a Messiah that takes on all of the human experience upon himself – a birth that is messy and painful and bloody and discomforting, a birth that is steeped in uncertainty and insecurity.

The reason that John provokes is that he is preparing the way for a Messiah who is likewise provocative, who challenges, who pushes – daring people, testing the limits of what they can do, driving them to the edge of possibilities. I read a comment made by a contemporary writer [ Commonweal magazine, Paul Baumann] who says: "Jesus is a compelling figure to the extent that he is a discomforting figure.... The minute you are comfortable with him, he demands something else, something more, something impossible." One instant you are relieved to be able to give Caesar what is Caesar's, the next moment, you are told to give up everything else that is of the world. One minute, you are told to honor your mother and father, then the next, you are invited to leave them behind. One moment, you are reminded that in the end, the judgment will come unrelentingly, but the next moment, you are also told that God forgives, not seven times, but seventy times seven times. And he says: "It is this prickliness, this demanding, almost imperious solicitude that makes Jesus such an inexhaustible presence."

Yet, even as Zechariah begins as a loser, he is shown in today's Gospel as a winner, one who is "unstucked," one who is freed from his imprisonment, one who is at first struck mute and speechless but now is able to speak and sing God's praises. Zechariah ends up as a winner when he realizes once more that ours is a God of surprises, that ours is a God of the unexpected, whom we can never put in a box and wrap up so neatly with fancy paper and ribbons, and Christmas is precisely the time when this comes across so clearly, when we see the almighty God lying so peacefully in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes and so vulnerable. Father Horacio de la Costa once said it so eloquently, that "Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise," when "down is up and up is down", when suddenly, "in the very heart of earth, is heaven," and "the stars and the angels look down on the God who made them and God looks up at the things He made." Zechariah becomes a winner, when he allows himself to be awed by the unfathomable will of God, and to believe once more that through all the good times and bad, there is a loving plan for him and for all the world, and how he must simply allow himself to be molded through all the twists and turns of life.

This Christmas season, we are invited to do just that – to sit back and be awed once more by this God of surprises, and let ourselves take part in his loving plan