Second Sunday of Advent

From "The Deacon's Bench" blog. A homily for the Second Sunday of Advent.

This past Wednesday, the music world lost a giant: jazz legend Dave Brubeck. He died the day before his 92nd birthday. If you read his obituary in the New York Times, you learned that he was the first jazz artist to sell a million records; that he was only the second one, after Louis Armstrong, to make the cover of TIME magazine; and that his recordings and performances were treasured by millions around the world.

What you would not have learned about, though, was his faith. Somehow, the newspapers left that out. The fact is: late in life, Dave Brubeck became a Catholic. He didn’t like to call himself a convert, since you have to have something to convert FROM, and he had no real belief for much of his life. But at a particular moment in his life, this man who gave so many so much to hear, heard something himself. And it changed everything.

It began a little over 30 years ago, when Brubeck was commissioned to write a Mass. Not just any Mass. A jazz Mass, using all the musical tools he had mastered. Though his background was Protestant, he thought it would be an interesting challenge. He worked on it for a few months and after it was completed, and had its first performance, a priest told him how much he loved the music. But the priest said that he was puzzled because it didn’t include the Our Father.

Brubeck didn’t realize the oversight, but said he’d already completed the composition and didn’t want to disrupt the musical flow by writing something new. So he decided to just let it go. But a few days later, while on vacation with his family, Brubeck awoke in the middle of the night, astonished. Music was swimming in his head. The entire Our Father had come to him in a dream, complete with orchestra and chorus. He climbed out of bed, made his way to a desk, and wrote it all out. As he told an interviewer years later:

“Because of this event I decided that I might as well join the Catholic Church because someone somewhere was pulling me toward that end.” He was baptized in 1980.

Advent reminds us: we are all being “pulled toward that end,” all of us are being drawn to God. We are being called—called to follow, called to change. Called, like Dave Brubeck, to hear something new.

John the Baptist today gives us a powerful example.

“The word of God came to John in the desert,” Luke wrote. “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…”

Like Dave Brubeck, John heard. He listened. And he couldn’t keep it to himself. He shared it with the world.

This is a gospel, in part, about keeping our ears and hearts open to the word of God, and then responding.

Dave Brubeck heard music. So, in his way, did John the Baptist.

A popular song this time of year asks us, “Do you hear what I hear?” This second Sunday of Advent, we might ask ourselves: what are we hearing? There’s so much battling for our attention—I don’t need to list it for you. Just turn on the computer or visit the shopping mall.

But some of it is within ourselves. The noise of our own self-interest, the clamor of our sin. Sometimes we can’t hear because we are so busy listening to ourselves.

Advent says: hush. Listen. Do you hear what I hear? The word of God is coming to us. The word that is His gospel – and the Word that is His Son.

Which is why this season is so important: we need to make ourselves ready to receive what God is offering. John cries out, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Make low the high mountains of our pride. Straighten the crooked roads of ego and selfishness. Fill the valleys of our despair or fear.

The call of Advent is a call to conversion. It proclaims the path to a different way of living. It points us toward a star, and a manger—and beyond that, to the cross.

But it points, ultimately, to our salvation, and to a hope that will never die.

Dave Brubeck gave his unique jazz Mass a name. He called it: “To Hope.” This time of year, in between office parties and family reunions, we might think of that as a toast –to health, to happiness, to prosperity, to hope. But it is also a verb. “To hope” is the Christian way of living.

In the vocabulary of this season, it is all that and more. It is a direction. Advent calls us to follow that direction. Look for the signs. Listen. The word of God is pointing the way:

To life.

To salvation.

And yes: to hope.