6th December 2009 : Advent 2 : Year C
9:30am Camillo
Malachi 3:1-14 : Philippians 1:1-11 : Luke 3:1-6
Last night I wrote in an email to a friend that I quite like John the Baptiser even though he’s such a joyless b… And I do. It’s true.
What is it, I ask myself, that I like about this guy whom scripture portrays as pretty frightening, uncompromising, straight-down-the-line? who pulls no punches, tells it how he sees it, is not afraid of authority figures and is prepared to mix it with the roughest, toughest, ugliest, meanest brutes in the business?
Well, I suppose that’s my answer. A man who apparently is able to do things that I kind of wish I could. John possesses some truly admirable qualities.
But it’s not these qualities that recommend him to Jesus or us or anyone else. In modern day pathological language we might suspect that John had a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome because he’s so focussed, unyielding and utterly humourless.
But again, that’s not the point. John appears on the pages of the gospel stories for one basic reason – to announce that Messiah is on his way.
John is the forerunner. The icebreaker. The forward blocker who crashes through the defence in order to let the fleet-footed dude with the ball make it to the finish line. He’s the warm-up act. He’s bad cop to Jesus’ good cop, softening up the sinful villains so that Jesus’ by contrast soppy message of love and peace can find its way into the hearts and being of the desperate and despairing.
Or not.
I know from my own stubbornness that it’s just not that easy. At the end of the day, no matter how much of a battering John the baptiser dishes out, I – and we – still have a choice. We can choose to seek God and be with God. Or not.
But beyond that, John has little influence. In fact, it’s not entirely clear whether or how many people really understood the message he bellowed in the wilderness. Remember these are superstitious people in superstitious times. They willingly ascribe to John a power and a status that he apparently does not claim for himself. Those whom he baptises quite likely seek the dunking only because they’re afraid of being dumped on from a very great height.
This is not the kind of free-will approach that the Living God seeks. It is not the behaviour that God approves of.
We get this clearly enough in the piece from the prophet Malachi. Speaking through the prophet, the Living God tells us plainly that all the we need to do is turn back to God. Turning and returning. This is what the baptiser’s word repent means.
It has nothing much to do with saying sorry for doing naughty things. But it DOES have EVERYTHING to do with changing our minds about God, about changing our attitude. It’s a task that is a lot harder to accomplish.
Saying sorry is easy. Anyone can do that. But saying sorry doesn’t actually make any spiritual demands on a person. We can say sorry as many times as we like, and even be totally sincere, but we can – and usually do – stand outside and away from the real demands of repentance.
Repentance – changing our minds and attitudes – demands something of our BEING. Change – this kind of change – is a spiritual matter. It involves something at the core of our being. And it’s not something anyone can fake.
9:30am Camillo
Malachi 3:1-14 : Philippians 1:1-11 : Luke 3:1-6
Last night I wrote in an email to a friend that I quite like John the Baptiser even though he’s such a joyless b… And I do. It’s true.
What is it, I ask myself, that I like about this guy whom scripture portrays as pretty frightening, uncompromising, straight-down-the-line? who pulls no punches, tells it how he sees it, is not afraid of authority figures and is prepared to mix it with the roughest, toughest, ugliest, meanest brutes in the business?
Well, I suppose that’s my answer. A man who apparently is able to do things that I kind of wish I could. John possesses some truly admirable qualities.
But it’s not these qualities that recommend him to Jesus or us or anyone else. In modern day pathological language we might suspect that John had a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome because he’s so focussed, unyielding and utterly humourless.
But again, that’s not the point. John appears on the pages of the gospel stories for one basic reason – to announce that Messiah is on his way.
John is the forerunner. The icebreaker. The forward blocker who crashes through the defence in order to let the fleet-footed dude with the ball make it to the finish line. He’s the warm-up act. He’s bad cop to Jesus’ good cop, softening up the sinful villains so that Jesus’ by contrast soppy message of love and peace can find its way into the hearts and being of the desperate and despairing.
Or not.
I know from my own stubbornness that it’s just not that easy. At the end of the day, no matter how much of a battering John the baptiser dishes out, I – and we – still have a choice. We can choose to seek God and be with God. Or not.
But beyond that, John has little influence. In fact, it’s not entirely clear whether or how many people really understood the message he bellowed in the wilderness. Remember these are superstitious people in superstitious times. They willingly ascribe to John a power and a status that he apparently does not claim for himself. Those whom he baptises quite likely seek the dunking only because they’re afraid of being dumped on from a very great height.
This is not the kind of free-will approach that the Living God seeks. It is not the behaviour that God approves of.
We get this clearly enough in the piece from the prophet Malachi. Speaking through the prophet, the Living God tells us plainly that all the we need to do is turn back to God. Turning and returning. This is what the baptiser’s word repent means.
It has nothing much to do with saying sorry for doing naughty things. But it DOES have EVERYTHING to do with changing our minds about God, about changing our attitude. It’s a task that is a lot harder to accomplish.
Saying sorry is easy. Anyone can do that. But saying sorry doesn’t actually make any spiritual demands on a person. We can say sorry as many times as we like, and even be totally sincere, but we can – and usually do – stand outside and away from the real demands of repentance.
Repentance – changing our minds and attitudes – demands something of our BEING. Change – this kind of change – is a spiritual matter. It involves something at the core of our being. And it’s not something anyone can fake.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t ever say sorry when we have behaved badly. We certainly should take responsibility for our actions and accept the consequences.
But unless we put repentance in the picture, we may well find that we are dooming ourselves to repeating the same obnoxious behaviours over and over again. This is not good.
The great thing, the joyous and glorious thing about repentance is that by definition it brings us (back) into relationship with the Living God. Just as mere sorry-saying makes no relational demands and we can continue to stand well outside any connection with God, so too – but conversely – repentance, changing our minds about God, actually draws us back into relationship with God.
So when John wades into the Jordan and yells at the crowd he’s not asking anyone to say sorry for anything. He’s inviting in no uncertain terms a changing of attitude and mind, a returning to relationship, a moving away totally from self-imposed isolation and exile.
And inevitably the question: what are the signs of this changed mind? We find one answer in the letter to the community of faith in Philippi. It’s an attitude of love and self-giving.
These are not things that come without having some sort of relationship with the Living God. Of course it’s an absurdity to speak of “some sort of relationship”. It’s not a matter of degree or quality, as if one person’s relationship with God is worth six points and someone else’s is only worth two. It’s a matter of either we have it or we don’t.
But like any loving partnership, none of us can take it for granted. We need to be and remain attentive to both the relationship and to God. It’s not because God will go off in a huff if we don’t pay enough attention. God won’t and doesn’t behave in that manner.
But if we are not attentive we run the real risk of becoming caught up, enmeshed in the woes of the world and our own. Suddenly we find ourselves within the disaster instead of standing with God in that place where we can actually offer service and love when it is needed.
Because one of the tragic aspects of life’s pain is that it draws us in and crushes us before we’re even aware of what’s happening. We so easily become part of the tragedy and time after time reproduce it in our own and others’ lives.
Changing our minds and attitudes so that we seek and value and attend to our relationship with God allows us to step away from this tragedy and see it for what it is – a depth of need that love can address.
Yeah, okay, this is somewhat tawdry philosophical and theological stuff. Until we remember that love is about deciding and choosing. And when we love we make the decision to seek others’ well-being. And to act in that way is exactly the same as the way the Living God acts.
So let me conclude with this: if we want to act as God acts – what better and more powerful a way to do so than by paying attention to God and learning from God and doing God’s work using the lessons we have learned?
But we can only do that if we turn back to God and change our minds and attitudes. This is John’s message today. It is the message of the prophet Malachi. It is the outworking of that message in Philippi among loving and self-giving followers of Jesus.
Long may it be the same in the Parish of the Holy Spirit, Camillo!
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