Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 4:21-30

Why did they get so mad at him?  Why did his friends and neighbors, the people he grew up with, the people who at first were amazed at the gracious words which fell from his lips – why did they suddenly turn on him – not just reprimanding him, not just expelling him from the synagogue, but making an attempt to kill him?  What just happened?

If you were Jewish, in Jesus' time, you had a deep-seated prejudice against people who weren't Jews, even people who were very much like Jews, such as the Samaritans.  We learn through other sources that the Jews were divided even among themselves;  we know about the Pharisees and Sadducee mentioned in the scriptures.  But there were many other divisions.  There were the zealots, those who remembered Judah Maccabee and the almost successful campaign for their freedom.  They remembered the mass suicide at Masada, when the surviving Jews, holed up on a mountain, killed their wives and children, and then themselves, rather than surrender.  The zealots were few in number, but they wanted to go to war with the Romans, and shake off their rule or die trying.  There were the Essenes, possibly people who might have influenced John the Baptist.  They felt that in order to be Jewish you had to completely separate yourself from the world.  They were more separatist than the Pharisees.  They lived in the desert in a sort of monastic community.  There were the Jews who lived throughout the empire, the ones who worshiped in synagogues and used a Greek translation of sacred scripture.  They were looked down on by the Hebrew speaking Jews in Judah, who considered them less than pure.  And the Greek-speaking Jews looked at the Jews in Jerusalem, and considered them backward and insular.  But all these divisions aside, all of them believed that even the lowest Jew was better than the greatest gentile.  After all, the Jews were God's special people, and right there in scripture, you could read what God intended to do to the gentiles, and it wasn't pretty.

So here comes Jesus, who delivers an insult which is almost blasphemous.  He mentions two miracles, done by two great  prophets, two miracles which bypassed the Jews who could have used them, and healed gentiles.  The congregation had been thinking that with Jesus, their kinsman, the kid who grew up in their town, who claimed to be acting for God – certainly he would do even more spectacular things in their midst than he had been doing in other Jewish towns.  And Jesus lets them know that their sense of privilege, as Jews, as his friends and neighbors, entitles them to nothing at all.  It isn't because he is the carpenter's son that they try to kill him; it's because in their hearing, he seems to have blasphemed, he seems to have challenged their view that they are God's special people.  Insulting them is the same as insulting God.  

But Jesus will do this again and again, to jewish communities, to groups of pharisees and scribes.  It will be the subject of more than one parable – the classic being the story of the pharisee and the publican.  And his miraculous cures are freely given, but there is no logic as to why he cures this one and not that one, except that in the gospel stories, it seems that all his miracles are done to make a point.  Jesus is compassionate, Jesus has pity on people; but those are not the main reasons he heals.  

The people in Jesus' home town see Jesus as a sort of walking hospital but they don't see him with eyes of faith, they don't see the underlying reality here, the reality that made the blind man and the Samaritan woman and peter and countless others acknowledge him as lord, even as the son of God.  They are blinded by the fact that he is the carpenter's son.

Christians have different attitudes towards miracles.  Some of us are willing to admit that they happen, and that they did happen in the past, but we have various reasons why we never seem to witness them today.  Some of us feel that it is a matter of faith, and we feel guilty because we don't have enough faith to get God to cure us or our loved one.  Some of us feel that the miracles of Jesus did what they were supposed to – get the church started – and now there is no reason for miracles, because the church has been established..  And there are Christians who insist that miracles are all around us, all we have to do is claim them, or pray for them in the name of Jesus.  And if we are right with God, we can expect miracles.  There are even books out there that teach us how to get miracles.  

But Jesus worked miracles to show people that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, to demonstrate that he had God's power.  And that conditioned every miracle he worked.  If the miracle could not teach his disciples something, or reveal something to the crowds who followed him, then it wasn't something he did.  Jesus is the God of nature, and as nature's God, disturbs the natural order as little as possible.  Or, perhaps another way to put it is to say that what is natural is the greatest miracle of all.

None of us goes through life without at least once or twice wishing for a miracle; we pray for the healing of a loved one; we pray that God will save the life of a little child, or a dear friend; or heal a parent of a crippling injury.  And we wonder why he does not answer.  And then we remember the story of Jesus in his home town.  I think God's greatest gift to us is our freedom, and God desires that we use that freedom to respond to his love.  But we don't have to.  And if we are truly free,  then what we do must have consequences, or else our freedom is just a sham.  And that's the problem with miracles.  They can happen, i believe that.  But a miracle, something that disturbs the natural order, has the potential to diminish the freedom we are given, and ironically, that's the problem.  

So what should we do?  We remember that Jesus died for us out of love, and we have confidence that everything that happens fits into his loving plan.  And we can ask for miracles, but remember that they are pure gift, and if a prayer seems not to be answered, it doesn't mean our faith is weak, or we aren't loved by God.  It only means that God has something greater in store, something we will learn is so much more than what we had thought one time would have been our greatest desire.  

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

John 2:1 - 11

I had an uncle who noticed things.  He was a farmer and I guess that helped; you need to be aware of changes in prices of wheat and livestock; you need to have a sense of what the weather is going to do; you have to be sensitive to animal behavior because animals can get sick.  But he noticed people as well.  He had a sixth sense about you; he wouldn’t ask how you were feeling, he’d say, “You're feeling bad today, aren't you?” and he’d be right.  He belonged to a local farmer’s coop and was famous for pointing out things no one else had noticed.  Some people just notice things.  And I think Mary was like that. 

Weddings in those days took several days and during a wedding, everything came to a halt for a big party.  In the little villages of Galilee, there might be a wedding every few years, and the whole town expected that no expense would be spared.  And you didn’t run out of wine -- that would lead to social death, and a subject of gossip for a long time.  And that’s what Mary noticed.  Not Jesus, not the apostles, not any of the wedding guests.  Mary noticed.

And Mary did something about it.  She has known Jesus for all his life, all thirty years.  We know almost nothing about those years -- except that people didn’t expect much -- when he began his preaching ministry, they reacted with disbelief: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” they said.  I doubt that Jesus worked any miracles in those first thirty years.  And I wonder about Mary.  Obviously, she remembered the events surrounding his birth, and when he got lost in Jerusalem.  Like any mother, I'm sure she thought Jesus was special.  But I don’t think she expected a miracle.  She just took the problem to Jesus.  That’s kind of an example for us as well.  Some of us, myself included, tend to ask God for specific things in our prayer.  We like to help him out so he doesn’t have to guess what we need.  But Mary shows us how to pray - “Son”, she says, “They have no wine.” Maybe that’s how we should pray -- dump the problem in God’s lap and wait for him to respond the way he wants to.  After all, that would by definition be the best for us.

Even after I’ve heard this story over and over, it’s still a shock when Jesus turns to her and says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?  My hour has not yet come.”  People have tried to soften Jesus’ words -- in some translations, Woman is translated as “Lady” which seems more respectful, perhaps.  Or as some tell us, “Woman” was actually a respectful way to address a lady in those days.  But none of us can imagine addressing our mothers in this way, and that’s true in other languages.  Unless we are really mad, we call her Mom, or at least “Mother”.  So I think Jesus, who is like us in all things but sin, really meant what he said -- “Don’t bother me, This isn’t the place for me to begin my ministry.” 

But Mary persists.  Mother Teresa once asked a businessman for a contribution to her work.  He replied that things were tough and maybe another time.  When he finished his day he walked into his waiting room and saw her sitting there.  She looked at him and said, “This is another time.”  She got the contribution.  Mary does not give up.  She figures that the embarrassment to the young couple was much worse than Jesus beginning his ministry at a time he chose.  And so she gets the help together and tells them, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Now I’m pretty sure that she didn’t say it once. She pushed and prodded and kept it up till they gave up and went over to Jesus.  I can see the servants standing there saying “What do you want us to do?”  And Mary is off to one side smiling.  

Jesus tells them to fill the jugs with water.  This is not as simple as it seems.  Each holds a lot of water.  If you’ve been to the grocery store you’ve seen those Arizona tea containers -- that’s about a gallon.  The servants, in addition to everything else they are doing, have to go back and forth to the town’s well to get about 150 of those jugs full of water and emptied into the six stone water jars.  That’s a lot of work.  In fact, I wonder if Jesus gave them this task to shut them up -- after all, his hour had not yet come.  But I imagine Mary is still pushing -- “Do whatever he tells you to do!”  And in the end the servants do just that.  

Finally Jesus gives up.  At this point the miracle occurs and his hour, his march to his passion and death, begins.  Now we could comment on the abundance of good wine, and how it’s a symbol of the kingdom Jesus is ushering in, a kingdom where there will be nothing lacking, where there will be more than enough for everyone to satisfy every need, every longing.  We could talk about the significance of the number of jars -- six, how there were six days during which God created the world, and he rested on the seventh.  

But maybe the lesson for today is to be like Mary -- to notice when there is something lacking - in our lives, in the lives of our loved ones -- and to bring that need to God.  And then to wait in expectation, doing whatever he tells us, what he tells us through our Church, through our conscience, through the circumstances of our lives.  And to persist in our prayer.  And to trust.  Because we know that the best wine will be coming.  

Baptism of the Lord, cycle C

Luke 3:15 - 16, 21 - 22

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a live concert by a rock or country band.  It’s the same music you could hear on a recording, but people keep demanding live music, in venues where everyone stands shoulder to shoulder and moves with the music.  I think the main reason is that in those kinds of events, there are moments when you feel at one with everyone else, moments when the barriers fall, and you have a glimpse of a different way of being.  There's Something in us that longs to be one with the rest of humanity, just as there is something that wants to throw up barriers between my group and your group. Humans are weird.  

The Gospels were written in the forms we have today about 60 to 100 years after the Birth of Christ.  Some estimates are even later.  Mathew and Luke tell the same baptism story as Mark, with their own embellishments.  John refers to observing the voice from heaven but the actual baptism isn’t recorded.  In any event, Matthew gives a hint as t6o what will trouble the Church down through the ages.  He has John saying, “It is you who should baptize me” and Jesus replying “Let it be so for now.  It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”  Sister Dorothy back in grade school used this passage to tell us that Jesus didn’t really need to be baptized but was just giving all of us sinners a good example.  As you can tell, that was burned into my brain, leaving me puzzled for the next 70 years.

I’m not the only one.  Many great theologians puzzled over this. It’s hard to view Jesus acting deceptively.  Some decided that John’s baptism had nothing to do with sin or repentance, but instead was an act of solidarity with the ancestors who had crossed the Jordan river into the promised land.  And Catholic theologians, at least, do insist that the baptism of John was not a sacrament, like the baptism instituted by Jesus through his Church.  

But maybe we could look at the baptism of Jesus in a different way.  Picture the scene -- John has just called the crowd a brood of vipers, and we know there were tax collectors and various other sinners in that vast gathering, not to mention pagan soldiers.  Remember when John was asked “What are we to do?” and he gave answers to tax collectors and soldiers specifically. And there were Pharisees.  So there was Jesus, in the middle of a crowd -- a crowd of sinners.  

And the people were entering into the Jordan river -- the same river  where Elijah the prophet ended his ministry and Elisha, his successor, assumed his.  The same river where Naaman the Syrian had been washed clean of his leprosy.  The same river where the people of God crossed into the land given  to them by God, where they became a nation.  

The first public act of Jesus was to indicate his solidarity with humanity -- all of humanity, past, present and future; Jews, gentiles; sinners and those who thought themselves sinless.  

This is the moment when Jesus steps into God’s work on earth.  It’s when he takes on the common human experience of living in a broken world, a world which is bound to disappoint.  He’ll join us in longing for justice and righteousness and the world that could be.  

And this is the moment when You and I are invited to see that in these muddy waters, carried forward down through time in our baptismal fonts, something happens that transforms us, that unites us with the God become man who allows John to wash him as well.  

Saint Paul tells us that there is one baptism -- and when we participate in it, we are there with all those others who have been baptized --many of whom in ordinary life we probably would have nothing to do with.  But we are invited to see that we are not alone, that God is with us, that what appears ordinary, random, unexciting, is actually touched with divinity.  And that is not because of anything we have done, but because God loves us and in Jesus, calls us his beloved son or daughter.  And it goes without saying, that if I’m a beloved son or daughter, then so are you, and I had better take a closer look -- because there is something of the divine in you as there is in me.  Sometimes it seems like the whole message of Christianity is that because Jesus takes on our nature, all the barriers, the tribalism, the rivalry, the class wars, the race thing -- all that divides us is meant to be broken down.  And of course Jesus prayed, “That all may be one, Father, as I am in you and you are in me, that all may be one in us.”  To the extent that we open ourselves to this mystery, baptism, which unites us with Jesus and the rest of the baptized,  is where salvation starts.  

Epiphany 2021

Matthew 2:1 - 12

It’s the feast of the Epiphany.  In a way it’s kind of  bittersweet.  We built up anticipation during advent; we celebrated the days of Christmas -- all eight of them; and from a strictly human point of view, this is the day it’s all over for another year.  There will be other feasts, maybe greater than christmas.  We’ll have the Easter Triduum and Pentecost and the Fourth of July and Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I mix them all together because they all have some emotional impact.  But nothing like Christmas.  But I invite you to look at the Epiphany as a challenge.  

The magi, based on their studies of the stars and their knowledge of the scriptures, make a long journey toi find the Christ Child.  I’m reading between the lines, of course, but magi were astronomers or astrologers, same thing in those days.  They used math and various instruments to chart the courses of the stars in the sky.  This knowledge was helpful in predicting when to plant crops, when to harvest; there's even evidence that they had some grasp of multi-year cycles of weather.  Of Course they used this information to predict the future and pick good days to go to war, or to crown a king.  So some science, some superstition.  And the magi must have been familiar with some of the Jewish Scriptures because the people Herod consulted, the local experts, weren’t surprised by the question he asked them.  Bethlehem was where to expect the Messiah -- that’s right out of the prophet Micah’s writings.  And having convinced themselves, they brought good news to Herod and his court -- the King of the Jews, long anticipated, was about to manifest himself.  But good news has enemies.  It’s hard to accept, I know.  The enemies of the good news in this case were the people Herod consulted.  They were able to answer his questions.  They knew from their studies where the Messiah would be born, and had a pretty good idea when.  One of the reasons Jesus attracted a huge following was because everyone was expecting the Messiah was coming.  Some people thought it was John the Baptist.  There were several other contenders in those days -- wandering teachers, like Jesus, who claimed divine revelation.  Some led insurrections, others took their followers out into the desert.  But the enemies of the good news were those who were deeply invested in the status quo -- the priesthood, the scribes, the Pharisees.  

Herod, who could probably have cared less up till then, is shaken by the presence of the magi.  He sees that there is something going on here that is out of his control.  They ask about the King of the Jews, and Herod pretends to be interested in worshiping him as well.  But we know that he plots to kill the child, even if it means killing all the males under the age of two in the vicinity of Bethlehem.  Announcing good news to people makes enemies.  If you don’t believe me, try proselytizing your friends or relatives one of these days.  They probably won’t plot to put you to death, but you will face ridicule, anger, and various other unpleasant reactions.  I guarantee it.  And we Catholics who have the good news, try hard to keep it to ourselves, because we know announcing the good news makes enemies.  

After the Magi found the Christ Child through their own hard work, through their willingness to travel in an era when you risked a lot, and of course through the intervention of God himself who led them from Jerusalem to Bethlehem right to the place where Jesus was, they were filled with joy, it was the climax of all their efforts.  And, being warned in a dream, they went back home by another route.  And that’s the last we hear about them in the scriptures.  Legends from those times tell us the magi went out proselytizing and paving the way for later Christian missionaries.  That makes sense, I think. The magi had to be changed by their contact with the Christ Child, and when they returned to their home countries, they must have talked about what they had witnessed, including the revelation that this was the Messiah expected by the Jews.  And I suspect that some people believed them, some did not, and some just ignored them -- kind of like today.  And that’s the third point.  It’s very hard to accept our responsibility to stand up for the truth.

The story of the magi is the first hint that the Messiah of the Jews is also the Messiah to the whole world.  You and I have been given our faith because early Christian Jews went out and announced the good news to pagans and gentiles.  And we have a responsibility to pass our faith on to others, especially our children.  So as we begin a new year and think about the magi’s visit to the Christ Child, let’s make a resolution to bring the good news to the people we meet every day.  Let's resolve to learn more about our faith, to love our faith more deeply, so much so that we have to talk about it.  Let us be changed by the Christ Child, as the Magi were. 

Christmas Day 2021

 Luke 2:15 - 20

There are still shepherds. As a teenager in Montana I worked in a grocery store. There were shepherds tending flocks of sheep up in the hills on land belonging to the government. There’s a lot more of that in Montana than in Massachusetts. Shepherds would now and then come to the grocery store to stock up on supplies. I doubt they’ve changed much since Jesus; time; they smelled bad, they wore ragged clothes, they didn’t say much more than they had to; they were mostly people who couldn’t speak much English -- the ones around my home town were from the Basque region of Spain.

In Jesus’ time as in ours shepherds lived on the edge of society, literally as well as figuratively. Because they had to watch the sheep 24 hrs a day 7 days a week, they did not take part in the religious life of the community. For the same reason they did little socializing; and even out on the hills where they worked, they had little contact with each other. Even today in the middle east shepherds only get together at night so they can take turns watching each other’s sheep. Now you can imagine this kind of life doesn’t suit everyone and you’d be right. Studies have shown that people who spend their lives being shepherds are antisocial, introverted, and many have mental disorders.

So why did God send his angels to announce the birth of the Messiah to shepherds? Maybe Jesus would have been more successful if the angels had appeared to the High Priest or the rulers of threJewish People. That’s a question that many people have tried to answer down through the ages.

When you look at many events in Jesus' life, you can find prophecies in the Old Testament that point to them. There’s nothing in the bible predicting that shepherds would be the first to know about the Messiah, unlike the prophecy that Jesus would be born of a virgin, or kings would come from the east bearing gifts. So it seems peculiar that shepherds were first.

The shepherds weren’t very religious, at least in any conventional sense. They weren’t chosen for their holiness -- and they reacted to the angels with fear and trembling, so much so that the angel had to tell them not to fear.

The conventional answer is that God wanted to show the world that he was on the side of the lowly, the outcast, the poor, all of which described the shepherds. And that’s probably a good answer.

But there are two other possibilities that God chose the shepherds to be the heralds of the birth of his Son.

First, God knows, as you and I know, that if he had made the announcement to the leaders of the people, they would have tried to find a way to use the knowledge to gain power or riches. The same with the religious authorities -- they would find a way to exploit the situation. That’s not such a bad thing, by the way. We do that in our church all the time. We like to publicize those among us who serve the church in a special way -- hoping that it will bring others to do the same. But the danger to us as to the religious authorities at that time is that we lose sight of what we are celebrating and what it means to me personally. The shepherds are not in a position to exploit the information they have received; they are empty and God seems to like to manifest himself in those who are empty, those who have been crushed by life’s burdens. The ones who are empty are the ones who have the capacity to receive the message God wants to give them

But another is that the angels are there all along. Through a special grace the shepherds had a glimpse of true reality and that changed them so much that they became messengers -- the first apostles, as it were. You and I have had moments, I am sure, when we have caught a glimpse of the deeper reality that surrounds us. It might have been on a mountain top or at the seashore, or on a pilgrimage or a retreat. As one poet exclaimed, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God”.

So think about the shepherds; ponder these things in your hearts, as Mary did. How can we become empty so that God will speak more clearly to us, maybe through an angel, maybe directly? How can we become more sensitive to the marvelous reality around us that we almost never notice? Jesus coming has changed everything. God has taken on our humanity and offers us his divinity. Pray that we will have the grace to accept what he offers.

Feast of the Holy Family, 2021

Luke 2:41 - 52

When my sisters and I would get into trouble, my mother would rant that it was impossible for her to imitate the Blessed Mother; after all, she only had one kid and he was God. I have a feeling we were not the only kids who heard something like this from the mouths of our mothers. And indeed when we think of the Holy Family, who we celebrate today, I’m sure you have your favorite idyllic scene; mine is a Joseph showing the boy Jesus how to do something with wood, with Mary looking on approvingly.. We really don’t know much about Joseph, who disappears from the story after the scene we just heard described. We assume Joseph died sometime before Jesus’ death on the cross, because otherwise he wouldn’t have to worry about who would take care of Mary.

We know a little more about Mary. And from what we can learn from the scriptures, her life was not as portrayed in our paintings. Much has been made of her pregnancy occurring before her marriage and the scandal that might have caused -- or maybe there was no scandal. We talk about the hardship of being an exile from your country when the family emigrated to Egypt. But maybe that wasn’t so bad -- they might have traveled with a bunch of people and settled in a community of Jews who welcomed them with open arms. We hear about the prophecy of Simeon when Jesus was brought to the temple as an infant -- Mary might remember that in the distant future, but at the time it probably only raised her curiosity.

But there is another thread that some people see in what we read about Mary.

First, Gabriel, then Elizabeth, then the shepherds all lead Mary to believe that the future for her son is bright -- he’ll be the Messiah, he’ll inherit the throne of David, he’ll reign forever. But then they settle down in Nazareth, Nazareth where Joseph and Mary’s relatives live, where Jesus is probably related to half the town, at least. And then the next thing we hear is that when Mary and Joseph wander the streets of Jerusalem frantically looking for their lost son, he gives them lip when they find him. And this won’t be the first time.

Early in his ministry Jesus returns to Nazareth to preach to the hometown crowd. When he quotes Isaiah about himself, the whole congregation reacts with shock and anger -- “is this not Joseph’s son?” they exclaim? After driving Jesus out of town for what is obviously blasphemy, we never hear of Jesus going back. Where was his mother? Probably in the congregation, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps shocked by his words herself. And if you read any of the four gospels, we never hear that Jesus returns to Nazareth.

Then we see Jesus in Caparnaum, where Mary and Jesus’ relatives come to see him. Mark tells us that they think he’s gone mad and want to bring him home, but Luke doesn’t mention the reason. We do know that when Jesus is informed of their presence, he replies “My mother and brothers and sisters are they who hear the word of God and do it.” That had to sting a little.

We don’t hear about Mary traveling with Jesus -- Luke never mentions that. She disappears from the picture. Maybe its a good thing. She might have heard Jesus replying to the woman who blesses “the womb that bore you and the breasts that nourished you” -- Blessed, instead, he says, are those who hear the Word of God and obey it.” or “Whoever does not hate his father and mother… cannot be my disciple.” or “I did not come to bring peace, rather, a sword so that father will be set against son, mother against daughter.” And except for that moment at the foot of the cross when Jesus gives her over to the beloved disciple -- he didn’t ask her opinion, of course -- we don’t meet Mary again during Jesus' time on earth, even after the Resurrection. You would think that Luke would have told us about that.

The point is that for Luke, who wrote his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, it’s almost like Jesus rejects his mother and all the Nazareth relatives. What special privilege did Mary have after God used her to give birth to his son and raise him to adulthood? My mother suffered when I left home and I’m sure she suffered when I moved to the eastern side of the US, leaving her out west. I know Joan suffers a little when her kids leave after a visit. When you follow Mary through the eyes of Luke, I suspect she had a lot of grief.

But there is a happy ending. We read in the first part of the Acts of the Apostles that Mary is there with the apostles and the 120 or so followers when the Holy Spirit again shows up. She, like you, like me, like all of us, finally meets her son in the community that makes up his mystical body, and in the Eucharist that is his body and blood.

So Mom, Mary didn’t have it as easy as you thought. But I think you know that now.

Third Sunday in Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:7 - 18

This is Guadete Sunday.  Guadete is a Latin word that means Rejoice.  That’s why we have rose colored vestments.  Rose doesn’t really mean “rejoice” -- that would be white, I think.  But rose means lightening up from purple.  Notice that the first two readings and the psalm are all about rejoicing.  Now if you are like me, being told to rejoice is probably not going to make me rejoice.  The writings tell us to rejoice because of what God has done for us, but even there, rejoice is a strong word for being grateful.  I guess some people are more emotional than others.  

But when we come to the gospel it’s a different story.  Just before this passage, John was calling people a brood of vipers, a whitewashed tomb, and probably other comments that didn’t get into the bible.  He tells them that they had no business depending on the fact that they were descendants of Abraham.  God could make rocks into descendants of Abraham.  He tells them that they better repent, and more importantly produce good fruit out of their repentance, because there isn’t time to waste; the ax is already starting to chop down the tree.  

Now you can picture John -- wearing skins, eating bugs, long hair, wild eyes, probably a little dirty -- and yet crowds had come out to hear him, and after he said all those things, they didn’t throw up their hands and go home -- they asked, “What shall we do?”

John, do you have a message for us, do you have some answers for our spirits?  Because we know something is wrong, we just don’t know what it is.  We follow the laws, we sacrifice in the temple, some of us pray -- but life doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  We are still pushed around by Romans and we still barely make enough to put food on the table; life is hard, what are your answers?  

And John, this wild prophet, gives them answers, surprising answers.  He tells the crowd to share their clothing and food with those who have less.  He tells the tax collectors to collect only what they are owed.  He tells the soldiers to be satisfied with their wages.  He doesn't tell anyone to join him in the desert, or take up some kind of spiritual practice.  In a sense he tells them, “Go back to your homes, go back to your lives, and pay attention to how you live them.  That’s where the kingdom is -- it’s in a life where you live intentionally, where you become holy by doing your duties as well as you can.  And in doing so, you make the world holier.  And that’s John’s message to you and I as well.

The kingdom of heaven isn’t something far off, something awaiting us in the next life.  The kingdom of heaven is among us, Jesus told us that.  It’s there ready to be realized in the everyday lives we lead.  

And John goes on to tell us that the one who is coming will bring the Holy Spirit and fire.  And he will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn the chaff and gather the wheat.  Maybe you think this means that he will gather the good people and send the bad people to hell, but I think another way to see this is to note that fire is something that purifies, and the Holy Spirit brings new life, and when we lead intentional lives where we strive to make our daily living holy, Jesus will assist us in that enterprise.  He’ll burn away what shouldn’t be there and build up what is good in us.  If we set out to make our daily lives holy, we’ll get plenty of help from our Lord, the one who is to come.  

And that message is probably what got John into trouble, and might get us into trouble as well.  Because John is saying -- you don’t need to overthrow the Romans and run your one country in order to be holy.  You don’t need to sacrifice things in the temple to be holy.  Everything you need to be holy and please God is right there in your ordinary day, and God is willing to help you achieve holiness here and now, because the kingdom of God is among you already. And that’s why Luke tells us that what John preached to the people is good news.

As we approach the feast of Christmas, it’s a good time to take stock of ourselves.  How are we making our ordinary lives holy?  What can I change about my ordinary life that I can bring to the cradle of Christ, the newborn king?  How can I show my family and friends that the kingdom of God is among us?