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The 3rd Sunday of Advent B
December 14, 2014
Reading I: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11
Responsorial Psalm: Luke 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54
Reading II: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Gospel: John 1:6-8, 19-28
You need to read them all today. LINK. http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/121414.cfm
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners,
to announce a year of favor from the LORD
and a day of vindication by our God.
I rejoice heartily in the LORD,
in my God is the joy of my soul;
for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation
and wrapped me in a mantle of justice,
like a bridegroom adorned with a diadem,
like a bride bedecked with her jewels.
As the earth brings forth its plants,
and a garden makes its growth spring up,
so will the Lord GOD make justice and praise
spring up before all the nations.
What a breath-taking program this would be if some hopeful politician were to launch it in his campaign! This was Jeshua's program. Not some dream experienced in desert delirium, it was his commission. "The Lord has anointed me and sent me."
There is so much talk, hesitation, resistance to the notion of one sent from "beyond" - from heaven, from another dimension, "sent" as an emanation of the spirit energy that gently,irresistibly pushes evolution forward - that mysterious "force" we know must be there but which eludes our investigations.
Sent by YWH, the Lord Most High whom the Hebrews would not name, sent by the one Jeshua called "my father". Sent by being anointed with the spirit. Sent by an urging felt within himself, an agitation of the spirit that stirred him to see the sea of troubles, himself wading through, nearly drowning in it - as I am nearly drowned if today I allow my imagination to take me on a quick flit over the troubled seas: the poor are everywhere destitute, desperate, dying in refugee camps, in ebola emergency hospitals, in the streets because they have no homes or have been thrown out.
You can't do it by yourself. You need to be "sent". Were Mandela, Gandhi, McKillop, Teresa, sent? Are Malcolm Fraser, Julian Burnside, sent? Were Fred Hollows, Bob Brown, sent? (My selection of modern prophets does not reflect a considered evaluation: these are names that pop into my head, that's all.)
The issue is not and never was "Who do you think I am?" "Who do you think Jeshua was?" "How do you define his blend of divine and human?" The issue only is do you believe in him who was sent, trust enough to follow his way that leads to hell - and back? Or do you want to stand aside forever speculating whether his credentials are credible?
We spend our time discussing what we can say about ":heaven" and where it is - just silly pie in the sky. Yet the sci-fi books and films relish the theme, and cricketers pay tribute to a fallen mate by raising eyes to heaven and waving a bat to him "surely looking down on them", as the commentator said. Spirituality oozes out of the infamous secularised world, like a sweet perfume - like it or not. But serious religious enquirers baulk at the too-easy acceptance of one anointed by the spirit, sent to bring good news to the poor and heal the broken-hearted. We don't want to be seen as credulous, pious ninnies.
Just how hard is it to grow out of the childish, the images of the wonder-worker's glowing face and piercing eyes, the superman walking on the turbulent sea in a halo of light? The man took flight and hid among the hills when the crowds tried to make him king. If the force, the power, the divine, the "god" shines through Jeshua it is in his simple human integrity, his rightness of thinking, his trust as he stood his ground on his belief in what is right or wrong, his fearless telling of it to all the power-brokers and sundry other folk. Some had the good will to give him a nod of approval, and they slowly learned to trust him fully. Then he got killed because he risked too much, and after a while they saw the whole experience in another light, and talked about it, and tried to live in truth as he had done, and got themselves killed in the end too, for their faith. Then others caught on too and found conviction...
*****
Four wonderful pieces. If this were all the religious literature we had in the world it would be enough. An ancient prophecy about a person who is conscious of the Spirit's power in him giving him a mission to heal the broken-hearted, so that he rejoices heartily in the Lord:
In God is the joy of my soul.
Echoed, of course, in the song of wondering, humble gratitude on the lips of the young woman who found it was her destiny to have the key role of motherhood.
My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
Mine too! The closing words of Paul writing to the Thessalonians could be a charter for daily living. What more do you need?
Brothers and sisters:
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.
In all circumstances give thanks,
for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not despise prophetic utterances.
Test everything; retain what is good.
Refrain from every kind of evil.
Then comes the man, one sent from God, whose name was John. He cut an awesome figure in his rough attire, fearless in challenging the people and the leaders to change their ways. Disturbed by his words and the impact he was making, the authorities sent officials to find out more about him. But he told them he was not The One, not some prophet, not the ancient prophet whose return was thought to be a sign of the coming of the One. "I am only sent in advance to get you ready."
Last week there was a post in this forum [165641] that suggested there is a John hiding inside each of us. Peter Dresser wrote:
>... I think in each of us there is a bit of a quarry, a John the Baptist in the wilderness complete with camel hair, locusts and wild honey, that needs to be filled in, top-soiled, seeded and well-irrigated if it is to yield a new heaven and a new earth.
>And so I think... that the Readings suggest that we take note of the voice screaming within the quarries of our own wildernesses to prepare a parkland, to prepare ourselves to give birth to our Christian Avatar Jesus in our own lives and, by help and example, in the lives of others.
My first thought was of some conflict here. The temptation to the Messiah complex is so common that it might seem wiser to suggest we should imitate the Baptist. not bury him, humbly identifying with him as the messenger, the one sent ahead to prepare for his coming - in ourselves and in others.
But of course it is all about getting the balance right, and I seem to go through life mostly in extremes: too hard / too soft, fast/slow, severe/lenient, too harsh / too kind for the other's good, or even my own. What Joy Ryan-Bloore wrote in last week's reflection thread is worth looking at again. Being old and busy sorting through the archival mess of memories, I know it all, but I do need a comment like this from a qualified person. Do you remember this opener in a reply to Brian http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=165481 :
>In response to this and to your earlier comments about Jesus/religion belonging to our later years, - this is actually what I am on about. I would say this stage in life is about a 'conscious' acceptance of an earlier and necessary collective and non-reflective faith... Also not everyone is called to this.
>I think part of the discipline of ageing is being content to do what we are each called to 'do and be' within our unique limitations in that state - and trust that that is actually 'enough'. ... the young and younger adults are more likely to discover what they need if we are faithful to our journey.
There's the Baptist image: 'content to do what each is called to do and be'. Then in reply to Warren, Joy wrote: http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=165515
>So, yes I think there are levels and stages - as to whether people are conscious of this is the point I was making. What Jung discovered and which I see in the lives of some of the people I journey with, is an archetypal pattern in the human psyche which some people become aware of - something which calls each individual to consciously, knowingly embrace a similar path as did Jesus the Christ.
Finally she quotes Teilhard de Chardin:
>"We are all of us together carried in the one world-womb; yet each of us is our own little microcosm in which the Incarnation is wrought independently with degrees of intensity and shades that are incommunicable." [The emphases in all the above are mine.]
The pope with his unfortunate grandmother metaphor was probably saying the same sort of thing to the European Union. Looking at our current unease, Australia is presently making all the mistakes of the young adult strutting about full of their own importance, convinced we are the gift the world has long needed. The devil dressed in a messiah cloak. A bit of John's self-effacing attitude would be warranted here.
It applies to myself too. I'm currently helping a small group get established in some form that will allow them to bring some healing to victims of Sexual Abuse of Children in this town, and to the local community as a whole. I feel the way many priests might feel when they try to give the lay people a go. It's so easy to be dogmatic, decisive, formulating the decisions in a way that reduces the consultation to mere charade. Interesting to watch myself, what I say and how I say it. I guess this experience would not be unique to me.
Joy is calling for older folk to consciously, knowingly embrace their role, not grand-standing, not as know-alls, but knowing their limitations and their accumulated store of experience, of understanding how life developed through diverse stages, and to willingly share this wisdom in how they live and how they speak. On Catholica we are blessed with many old fogies doing this. Even if the audience is mostly people like us, it is still not wasted because we teach one another, and constantly learn how to contribute to the dance in the way that only we [each one] can contribute.
Like John baptising, I am convinced there is one sent to proclaim freedom to us captives, one anointed to make holy our human misery, one who oils disjointed humanity with love. Give myself the way he did and it will be enough, in the end.