Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, cycle A

John 1:29 - 34

Have you ever asked “Why am I a Catholic Christian?” Most of us would say, we were born into a Catholic family. But every one of us probably knows many people who were born into Catholic families who have left the Church, who don’t consider themselves Catholics anymore. Some believe in nothing; some have joined the Assembly of God across the river, which has a sizable population of former Catholics; and some have drifted into other religions, other denominations. So being born into a Catholic family doesn’t cut it. Some of us would say that it’s because being a Catholic is the best way to come into a relationship with Jesus -- but that assumes we want such a relationship, which in turn means that somewhere along the line we decided that was better than not having a relationship; we experienced the testimony of someone else. I grew up in a Catholic family. My mom and dad were serious Catholics. I think we all expect our mothers to be religious, but my dad was as well, and that's been shown to be a predictor of whether the children will remain in the church. He went to confession; he sometimes went to Mass on weekdays in addition to Sundays. He was a knight of Columbus; and he knew why he believed and could tell us kids why. His testimony and a major effect on me. When I look back on my life, I can see how every now and then someone would testify, and I would be influenced.

Somewhere between grade school and college most of us go through a transition between our childhood faith and an adult faith. This is a very dangerous time, because many never make the transition, or lose their faith. At that time they especially need testimony. When I went to college I remember one professor who was kind of famous because he had been one of the scientists who worked on the development of the atom bomb. He was brilliant and knew physics backward and forward. And he went to mass daily. And during my internship one of my teachers was a cardiologist -- and we all knew where to grab him for a consultation -- outside the hospital chapel after morning mass. These people testified to the importance of their Catholic faith..

So if you put all the accounts of Jesus’ baptism together with this post-baptismal account in the gospel of John, the sequence is like this: First, God himself testifies -- This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” then Satan testifies, in a way, by trying to tempt Jesus away from his mission; and finally, John testifies to his divinity as well as his role in our salvation.

Each one of us is a Christian because of someone else’s testimony. It may have been a parent or grandparent, a teacher or a priest. It may have been a good friend. But had they not testified, we would not be Christians. And if no one testifies, there will soon be no Church.

It’s interesting that John tells us twice, “I did not know him, but…” And we all say, “What do you mean? He’s your cousin. '' But John did not know him as the Lamb of God, as the Son of God, until the event of his baptism and times afterward. And even when John was in prison, he wasn't sure; he told his disciples to go and ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” John identifies why we do not testify -- we are not certain. But John still testified. Because if no one testifies, there will be no church.

So we need to ask, how are we testifying? Testifying means that we make known to others that Jesus means something in my life. For Catholics we find Jesus in the Church, his body extended through time and space. I think a lot of us fall back on the idea that if we live good lives, if we are generous, if we help our neighbor, we are testifying. But to testify means that the person to whom we testify knows that Jesus is the reason for our actions and that we find Him best in our Church. If he does not know this, he won’t turn to Jesus, he won’t have a chance to enter into that relationship which is his only hope of fulfilling his humanity, of reaching his true goal in eternity.

We need to tell people that we actually believe what Jesus teaches; that Jesus is the reason for the good we do. It’s definitely hard in our culture. It’s hard to say, “God Bless You” instead of “goodbye” when we leave a friend. It’s hard to make the sign of the cross and say grace before you eat in public. It's hard to offer to pray with someone who is ill or in trouble. But we need to show that our faith is behind our actions, because if no one testifies, there will be no church.

Last Friday we celebrated the feast of Saint Anthony of the Desert, who lived about 300 years after the birth of Christ. Anthony was a rich young man who heard the words “If you would be perfect, go sell all your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come and follow me.” Anthony did that and went out in the desert by himself. But his testimony was so effective that soon he was surrounded by others who wanted to imitate him and learn from him.

And that’s what testimony is all about. We have to live in a way that people will see us and want to imitate us -- especially important for our children, our close friends, our spouses. And we have to do it so that others see that it is our faith that moves us, and our faith comes from our Catholic identity. And it’s never easy, but the more we realize that we are here to testify, the more we practice testifying, the easier it will become and the more fruitful it will be. Because if no one testifies, then there will be no church.

Baptism of the Lord, 2020

Matthew 3:13 - 17

After 2000 years we still don’t completely understand baptism.  For example, a Catholic and a Baptist were arguing one day. The Baptist said, “You Catholics aren’t really baptized, because they only pour a little water on the top of your head. .”  The Catholic said, “If I went down into the water up to my waist, would that count?” “No” said the Baptist. “How about if I went up to my neck?” “Still wouldn’t count.” How about if I went into the water so deep that only the top of my head was sticking out?”  “Wouldn’t be a real baptism”. “So you admit that baptism only counts if you get the top of the head wet?”

Baptism is the first of the sacraments, and like all sacraments, we don’t fully understand it because it’s a mystery.  We can never quite answer all the questions it raises. And that goes back to the beginning, when John said to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?”  And Jesus replied, “allow it for now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Most of us have heard the notion that Baptism results in the removal of all sin, original and personal, and of course Jesus had neither.  Some of us have heard the idea that baptism causes a change in our very being, a change we describe as being born again; the old me is gone, the new me, sinless, is now here. But Jesus does not become a new being with baptism. And I don’t think Jesus was baptized just to go through the motions.   Think about this. When Jesus is baptized, a voice from the clouds calls out, “This is my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

The Father is not pleased with Jesus because He is Jesus; the Father has loved the Son from eternity, and can’t love him more.  And Jesus hasn’t done anything yet; we have no record of him preaching or healing or doing much of anything before his baptism. No, the Father is pleased because Jesus, true God but also true man, has freely chosen to follow the path God has set out for him.  Jesus is not a robot; as a human being with a free will, Jesus could have said, “I’d rather not suffer on a cross and really and truly die.” But in the moment of baptism, Jesus accepts the Father’s plan for him. And as Henri Nouwen said, that plan was to be taken, blessed, broken and given.  Jesus allows himself to be taken by the Father, to be set upon a path to do His will; Jesus in that moment of baptism says, “Not my will but yours be done.” And he is then blessed. Blessed is related to the word “benediction” which is Latin for “saying good things”. When Jesus submits to God’s plan, God recognizes him as beloved son.  It isn’t clear from the gospel whether only Jesus heard this or the people around him as well, but Jesus is confirmed in the knowledge that he is beloved, that he is Son, that he pleases God -- even though he has done nothing but resolve to allow God to set his path.  

And Jesus is broken.  The Gospels only hint at the fact that Jesus’ life had its share of bad things.  People try to kill him; he is misunderstood; he has nowhere to lay his head; he is ridiculed and scorned by the authorities; his best friends disappear when they are most needed.  And of course he is turned over to the authorities and beaten and put to death. His status as beloved of God does not spare him from pain and suffering and even death.  

And of course he is given.  The very nature of putting yourself in God’s hands means that God will give you away.  And Jesus was given, and is still given today. He is first of all given in the Eucharist, to feed his people.  He is given in the scriptures; and he is given in his body, the Church, in those very gifts which God puts into each of his people for the building up of the Church.

So one of the reasons Jesus is baptized is because in that moment he surrenders his body, his mind, his whole being to the Father.  

And that reminds us, of course, that our baptisms have something in common with that of Jesus.  Because when you and I are baptized, we also hear in our hearts “You are my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”  When we choose to be baptized, when our parents choose baptism for us, we first of all become God’s beloved son or daughter, before we’ve done anything.  We choose, imperfectly, of course, to allow God to direct our lives rather than ourselves. We are blessed because God himself speaks of his pleasure in us, that we have allowed him to take us out of the world for his purposes.  And we know that like Jesus, we too can expect to be broken. Since being broken is part of God’s plan for us, we begin to understand how a martyr could go to his death singing; we see how great saints could laugh at death, like Thomas More, who asked the executioner to spare his beard, because it had done nothing wrong; or Saint Lawrence, who told his executioners to turn him over on the griddle, because he was done on one side.  When we are being broken, we draw so close to Jesus, like the good thief. And we are given. The nature of being a Christian is to be a gift, to be part of God’s fatherly looking after his people; and our baptism initiates that as well.

And finally, we see another reason why the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life.  Every time we celebrate Mass, we enact the taking, the blessing, the breaking and the giving of Jesus Christ and in receiving his body and blood, we affirm our part in the mysterious plan of God that began with our baptism.  

Feast of the Epiphany, 2020

Matthew 2:1 - 12

For many families, ours included, the Christmas season is a time when we go out of our way to be with those we love. In our house by the time the season is over we will have been to several parties given by our children or ourselves; we will have had house guests every day for about three weeks; and we will have our days disrupted in other ways. And when everyone is gathered together our thoughts will go to those who can’t be with us as well. And yet, in this age of the internet, why could we not have simply gone to our computers and set up a skype conference or something like that. We could still see and hear each other, and we would not have to put ourselves out to be in each other’s presence.

Of course no one wants to skype when you can be in each other’s actual presence. We human beings are designed that way. And all of us know that even though we can’t explain it, being in the presence of someone beats phoning or skyping or communicating in any other way. In fact, it’s one of the last things to go in patients with dementia. They lose the ability to talk or feed themselves, but another person’s presence is often the one thing that will bring them peace, will calm them down when they are upset.

The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates God’s presence among us. The Magi learned from their studies that someone really important would be born in Bethlehem at a certain time and place. But when you read the whole story from Matthew, it turns out that they weren’t the only ones. The Jewish scholars had the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel to tell them the same thing, and thus they were able to answer Herod’s questions, which eventually ended in the slaughter of all the boys under two years of age in Bethlehem. The Magi went to great trouble to be in the presence of the Messiah, the promised one. And when they found the little boy and his parents in a decidedly lower class home, they did not go away disappointed; they rejoiced exceedingly. They saw the child with the eyes of faith. The Jewish scholars knew that the prophets had predicted that the Messiah would come at a certain time, and this was the time; and in a certain place, and Behtlehem was the place. But they are not moved to travel eight miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem; and if they had, they might have been disappointed in what they found; they did not see with the eyes of faith.

Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God from all eternity, at the same time the son of Mary who walked the roads of Palestine two thousand years ago, is made present in the form of bread and wine at this Mass and at every Mass through the words of consecration pronounced by our pastor? If you don’t, you are in good company. Only one third of those who identify as Catholics actually believe that. About seventy percent believe that the bread and wine are symbols, not reality. And yet Vatican II proclaimed that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. When I deal with elderly people in nursing homes, I’m surprised at how many of them are Catholic, but have long ceased to practice their faith. I’m sure you have as hard a time as I do when you wonder how a young man who once wanted to dedicate his life to Jesus and the Church can become a serial abuser. In 1960, latin Americans were 90% Catholic; today it’s closer to 65%. The statistics are depressing. And I wonder whether much of this can be blamed on the fact that we no longer appreciate the unique nature of the Eucharist, the very presence of Jesus Christ, God and man, in our midst.

Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, was on to something when he proposed his wager -- If we behaved as though revelation was true, and it turned out we were wrong, we’d just be dead. If we behave as though revelation is false, and it turns out we were wrong, we would be in hell for all eternity. I think we could say similar things about the Eucharist. If Jesus is really present in a unique way in the Eucharist, how are we demonstrating that in our words and actions? If it is possible to be in the physical presence of the Second Person of the Trinity who became man, died for our sins, and rose again to conquer death for us, what are we doing that shows we believe this? If we believe Jesus feeds us with his body and blood so that we have the grace to become other Christs, adopted children of Jesus’ Father, how carefully do we prepare to receive this great gift?

I know I’m preaching to the choir here. But I wonder, if you and I made a resolution to increase our devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament during the coming year, what might happen? Would some of our fallen away parishioners return to our fellowship? Would some of our children decide to become priests or religious? Would couples living together feel called to sacramental marriage? Would we ourselves experience a more vibrant faith, a faith that would give us strength to make a difference in our world?

God is everywhere; but Jesus, who is God made Man, is always truly present in our Eucharist, always here in our Church. Jesus stands before us in the Blessed Sacrament during formal adoration. Are we like the wise men who physically and at great personal expense came into his presence? Or like the Jewish scholars who knew what the Magi knew, but did not leave the comfort of their homes to visit the living God made man?

Christmas, 2019

Luke 2:15 - 20

My mother was a very bright woman. She had a marvelous sense of humor and on a good day could bring tears of laughter to the people around her. But she would have mood swings which were unpredictable, and when they swung low, she could lash out at everyone, including my poor dad. We learned that if we waited a bit and stayed below the radar, she would swing back up again and everything would return to some sense of normal. None of us, of course, had an idea of what her inner life was all about; to my sisters and I, she was just Mom.

A cousin in Montana just sent me a sort of autobiography my mother had written. This was in response to another cousin’s attempt to collect these from my mother and her nine siblings. So I was reading through this document, written in 1993, before the Alzheimer’s, after she had buried two husbands and was living in California with her third. And I was struck by the way certain life events stood out. How when she was in grade school, her shoes were damaged, and her mother made her wear an old pair of her brother’s to school. Until she got a new pair of her own, she made sure no one could see her feet. She remembered the tears in her father’s eyes when he told his children about their stillborn brother. She wrote about when she met my father -- she a just-graduated nurse and he a young man on the surgical unit after an appendectomy, and how it was love at first sight.

There were a lot of other events that stood out in my mother’s mind; and it was obvious that they were things that must have affected her deeply. I could see a reason for her mood swings, for her sense of humor, for many things about her that I had always taken for granted. They were mere moments in her long life, but they were things that she must have reflected on in her heart, that had become part of her story.

We are coming to the end of the Christmas story. Although part of that story is told in the Gospel of Matthew, that part focuses on Joseph. The telling of the story in the Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, seems to be made up of things Mary would have remembered -- in fact, things that only she or she and Joseph could have remembered. Things like the annunciation, the visit to Elizabeth, the taking shelter in a stable, the birth of her baby, the appearance of the angels, the adoration of the shepherds, the presentation in the temple, ,,, and we imagine that some time many years from the actual events Mary recalls them for the writer of the Gospel. Surely there were many more things Mary could have told Saint Luke about Jesus; maybe she did. Down through the ages many people, including Mohammed, added things to the story of Jesus’ childhood. But Saint Luke wrote down those things that Mary would eventually reflect on in her heart, things that would have shaped this first, this perfect Christian, the one who first bore Jesus within her body and soul.

There have been many thinkers who came to the conclusion that the best explanation for why we are here is that there is a God, one God. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and indeed many others before and since the lifetime of Jesus’ mother were convinced of this. But the greatest of these thinkers concluded that God was without limits, that he had no form; that he was unchanging because to be capable of change would be to be limited; that he had always existed, that he was all powerful, that he was all good -- and it is not easy to love a God like that.

Human beings are designed to love. We have been loving each other since before history began. Genesis points to the ideal love between husband and wife, a love that would forshadow the love of Christ for his Church, and such a natural thing that most human beings attempt to enter that kind of relationship, even though the reality is always marred by original sin. But all of us long for love and long to be loved.

The memories of Mary are recorded by Saint Luke so that we too can reflect on them, so that those memories can shape us and make a difference in our own lives. The almighty God who has an infinite love for all of his creation, and indeed each of his human children knows that it is almost impossible for us to love a God without limits, a God we cannot see or hear or touch; so he became a baby, helpless, limited by time, born and destined to die, because it is easy for you and I to love a baby.

When we reflect on something with our hearts, we take it into ourselves, we allow it to change us, we keep going back to see if there is more there than we thought the first time we reflected. And on this Christmas morning Mary invites us to reflect again on the miracle of the incarnation, when God entered history as her newborn baby, so that we could love him and become one with him.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, cycle A

Matthew 1:18 - 24

When we read the gospel today and indeed all that the gospels tell us about Joseph, we can’t help but form an impression – obviously colored by the various pictures we've seen. Sometimes he is pictured as a grandfatherly figure with a long beard, someone who is no threat to Mary’s virginity; and sometimes he is pictured as a young, handsome man who works steadfastly in the carpentry shop, leads his wife and her child through the desert to Egypt, or stands silently behind Mary as she hears the prophecy of old Simeon that a sword would pierce her heat, or is upset with Jesus when they find him in the temple. Joseph’s lack of any speaking parts makes him seem bloodless, something other than human; and where does that leave us? What do we learn from Joseph?

I sometimes think we overlook the human being here. First of all Matthew tells us he and Mary are engaged. This meant that a wedding was in the planning; it meant that at some level the young couple were attracted to each other. Maybe it wasn’t the stuff of a Hallmark movie; people thought about marriage differently in those days. But the way it worked was that Joseph was preparing a home for them to live in, and the ladies of the town were helping Mary get things ready for that day. And I suspect both of them were eager to please each other, and when they got together, supervised, of course, the two of them would talk about the future. We Catholics emphasize Mary’s virginity, but in those days being a mother was the pinnacle of a woman’s success, not virginity, and Mary, like all young ladies, was looking forward to that. And then one day, Joseph is shocked because Mary is with child. If he didn’t love her, he could simply accuse her of adultery, but because he loved her, it was with a broken heart that he planned to divorce her -- meaning that he was willing to let friends and neighbors believe Mary was carrying his child, but he no longer wanted to spend his life with her. Did he feel relief when the angel told him this was the child of the Most High, who was destined to save his people? I think on one level Joseph may have felt cheated; God had stepped in and changed everything. Joseph had no say in the matter. But he soldiered on -- and the next several years were one unsettling thing after another. Mary had the child in a stable, probably unattended by a midwife. He would be sleeping peacefully and an angel would tell him to get up and take Mary and Joseph to Egypt. He would finally get established in Egypt and an angel would tell him to go back Israel. He wondered about the prophecies of the two old people in the temple; he grieved with Mary when Jesus remained behind; and he must have felt a special pain when Jesus said “I must be about my Father’s business” -- this child who had grown precious to him, this child he worked with every day, passing on the skills of his trade.

We hear nothing more about Joseph after the finding of Our Lord in the temple. Some people who are amazed at Jesus’ preaching ask each other, “Isn’t this the son of the carpenter?” But Joseph came on the scene, cooperated with a plan he had nothing to do with, and just as silently stepped off the stage. In the Cathedral of Saint Helena which was my church as a child, there is a stained glass window in a side chapel which shows Joseph lying on his death bed with Mary at one side and Jesus on the other. But, we only imagine that scene. Joseph may have fallen off a roof or died of some more gruesome cause than old age; or he may have lived long past Jesus’ crucifixion. No one knows.

John Lennon wrote a song with the line “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”. I think that describes Joseph’s life. And ours as well. You and I are like Joseph; we think we know what we are going to do tomorrow, where we will be next year. If we are mature adults we know there is a lot of uncertainty in our predictions; but emotionally, we still cling to the illusion that we are in control. And not being in control is upsetting.

Joseph discovered very early in his relationship with Mary that he was not in control; that God was doing the directing. Matthew says that Joseph’s life was directed by angels -- God’s messengers who told him where to go and what to do. I wonder if we are as well. Angels are simply messengers of God and every one of us has been directed by things that happen to us. God still speaks to us through such angels even if we don't realize it at the time..

For Christians Joseph is seen as the model protector, the ideal provider. He was essential to the survival of Mary and Jesus. But I wonder how he felt when all this was going on? I suspect that at some point he realized that he was not in the driver’s seat; he realized that Mary and Jesus did not belong to him, but he belonged to them. And for those of us who have raised families and are well into our twilight years, like Joan and I, we can look back and see that God’s hand directed our lives, despite our own plans; and we can say, that’s a good thing; I only wish I had been more cooperative -- like Joseph was.

Third Sunday of Advent, cycle A

Matthew 11:2 - 11

When I was young, growing up in Montana, we Catholics were aware of two things: we were different from our neighbors – we almost had a separate culture, with our own schools and Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus who dressed up in great costumes for special church occasions; and of course nuns in habits in hospitals and schools. In my town there was even a separate hospital run by the Sisters of Charity. The other thing we knew was that we were on the winning side. We could see new churches being built, new priests being ordained and new sisters being consecrated. We had so many priests in the Diocese of Helena that our Catholic college was staffed with diocesan priests who had degrees in economics and mathematics and science; they lived in their own residence, taught in the college, and said mass on one of eight small altars on the first floor of their residence. And we were told that someday the whole world would be Catholic.

I read the other day that only one third of the millennial generation identify with any religion, let alone Christianity or Catholicism. Churches are being closed. Scandals are happening. Vocations seem to be drying up. Dioceses are declaring bankruptcy.

Zachary, the father of John the Baptist, knew that his son was called to be the forerunner of the Messiah. Elizabeth, his mother, knew that John’s conception had been impossible. John by rights should have become a Jewish priest, because that was sort of hereditary. But I’m pretty sure from the time he was able to understand, he knew from his parents that he had a special destiny. And John seemed to embrace this destiny. He was to prepare the world for the Messiah. He put on the clothing of a prophet, he called people to repentance, he gave advice as to what to do to prepare for the Messiah, and when he saw sinful behavior, he called it out. And when he baptized Jesus, he heard a voice from heaven -- “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” and that must have been a moment when John knew he had made the right choice as to how he would spend his life.

But now he is in prison, and knows that getting out of this alive is not going to happen. And he wonders -- maybe he made a mistake. Maybe Jesus wasn’t the Messiah. After all, the Messiah, according to the scriptures, was supposed to take over David’s throne; he was supposed to free the Israelites from foreign domination; he was to lead the people of God to a future full of peace and prosperity, and all the earth would stream into Jerusalem to learn what God wants for every people. The coming of the Messiah was supposed to be splashy and triumphant. And so John sends his disciples with the question, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?” In other words, “Is everything I devoted my life to false?”

Jesus, of course, reminds John of the prophecy of Isaiah, but doesn’t give a straightforward “yes” or “no” answer. And Jesus, of course, compliments John to those who are around him. But John is off in prison, and hears none of this, and goes to his death wondering, because his question to Jesus was not answered. Because there were people around who were healers, as there had always been. It seemed. Elijah, Elisha, even Moses had healed with God’s power, and they weren’t the Messiah. And there were people around who preached good news to the poor -- Jesus wasn’t the first. In fact, just as is true today, there were revolutionaries in Jesus’ time who started movements with the promise of overthrowing the Roman rulers and bringing on a new political system where those at the bottom would switch places with those at the top. And they weren’t the Messiah, because they had all been killed by the Romans.

What can we learn from John? These were, after all, his last recorded words. Another John, Saint John of the Cross, wrote a mystical poem -- some people think it was a revelation from God rather than something he composed himself. John went on to write two rather long books about the poem, which sort of favors the idea that John didn’t think up those lines himself. The poem, to which we have given the name “The Dark Night of the Soul” John explains is about the soul approaching its destiny, God Himself. And as the soul gets closer, more and more is stripped away -- all the attachments that we love so much; and this is painful. And finally, certainty itself is lost, and we are in the dark night, where the only thing that sustains us is faith. John of the Cross commented that every soul has to go through this, some in this life, most in the next. And we can’t possibly become one with God unless we go through this. And maybe that is what we see in John the Baptist -- as he goes through his life, told by his parents that he has a special call; having this confirmed by his success at bringing people to repentance; having the mystical experience of hearing the Father Himself identify Jesus as “Son”, and then having his whole world crash, his followers dispersed, he himself locked in prison, soon to die, and nothing Messiah-like is happening, and at some point John like all of us, had to make the choice -- do I believe even though everything seems to be going wrong? Do I trust that God will carry out his promises? Is Jesus really the Messiah? John is the greatest born of woman up to that time; and John had doubts. We are living in a time where faith is greatly challenged; some of our shepherds have turned out to be wolves; can we trust our priests; my children don’t go to church anymore; they just closed the church in which I was married. And we are called into the dark night, where only faith sustains us.

Second Sunday of Advent, cycle A

Matthew 3:1 - 32

Every year on the second Sunday of Advent we go out into the wilderness to meet John the Baptist, with his camel’s hair coat and peculiar diet of locusts and honey.. John somehow attracts large crowds. I wonder if he could do that today? We’d probably rather stay at home and watch television than go out into the desert and listen to someone threatening fire and brimstone. John would either be all alone or maybe put in jail for disturbing the peace.

But we are invited to go out into the wilderness. To prepare the way of the Lord involves stepping back from our usual preoccupations. That’s part of what repentance means. The greek word, metanoia, means something like “get out of your mind”, which in turn meant to look at things a different way.

The people flocked to John and his baptism because they knew he was a prophet. Back in the era of the prophets -- people like Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea -- Prophets called attention to themselves by the clothes they wore and what they ate. They would perform prophetic actions, then explain what they meant. You remember how Ezekiel dug through the wall of the town and left during the night to symbolize how the Jewish people would be taken from Jerusalem? And of course John was doing a prophetic action -- baptizing. It’s said that he chose a spot on the river where Joshua had done the same thing Moses did when they escaped from Egypt, when he separated the waters to lead the people into the promised land. To be baptized by John was to recommit yourself to the people God had called for himself.

The old prophets had two kinds of messages: If you do something God wants you to do, God will see that something good will happen; and if you don’t do something that God wants, he will punish you. John’s message was a little different. God had already done something -- the kingdom of heaven is at hand -- and you could either get on board or get out of the way, but there was no in-between. Joining the kingdom meant two things: first, to repent, to take notice of where you are and where you are heading, and what you need to do to correct the course of your life; and second, to produce good fruit. We can't just repent, we have to show evidence of repentance.

It’s pretty clear that John has no use for the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He calls them a “brood of vipers”. To our ears it doesn’t sound so bad, probably because we don’t use the words “brood” and “viper” much., but to them it sounded more like “bastard children of snakes”. I wonder why he singled them out? After all, they weren’t all bad, and they had come out apparently hoping to be baptized as well. But everyone knew that the Pharisees spent a huge amount of time taking the law of Moses as a starting point and making all kinds of rules as to how to obey the law. If Moses said you could not boil a baby goat it its mother’s milk, the Pharisees figured that you couldn’t use the same dishes for meat and dairy products. If you were not supposed to work on the Sabbath, was taking a stroll around the neighborhood work? As it turns out, it depends on how long the stroll was. The Pharisees could tell you. And John saw this as a perversion; the law was good, but as Jesus would say later, “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. The law pointed to something else; it was not meant to take the place of charity, of true devotion. There is some Pharisee in all of us, probably more now than fifty years ago. The whole culture of wokeness says that if you hold an opinion different from the woke people, you are not worth talking to, you will be in front of a firing squad if we ever get power. The opinion you hold is more important than you as a person. Or consider those who have decided that the Pope isn’t Catholic anymore. If you go to the website of Church Militant, you can see disagreement as reason for excommunication; lack of charity masquerading as true religion.

And the Sadducees. These were people that did not believe in an afterlife; but they also did not believe much in following the laws of Moses; in fact, many adopted Roman customs and most of the puppet rulers like Herod were Sadducees. And the Sadducees live today -- Christians who see no problem with same sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, or using medicine and surgery to change a child from one sex to another. We Sadduccees speak with the late Governor of New York Mario Como, who famously said, “I’m personally against abortion but I have no right to impose my morality on other people”

During advent we need to ask, where is the Pharisee and Sadducee in each of us? How can we, with God’s help, practice true religion?