Last week we had a close look at John the Baptist. He is centre stage again this Sunday, which is remarkable because that makes two Sunday's out of 52 where the focus is on the forerunner. There had to be a forerunner. It is of the nature of things that there has to be pre-publicity to get the attention of the people, and even a warm-up act to get them in the mood. Each member of Christ has the role of being a forerunner. We might try to sort out what this entails.

We are not forerunners in the style of John the Baptist. On one occasion Jesus said that John was 'the greatest', but immediately added that the least in the kingdom is greater than he. Not only because the Kingdom of God being inaugurated in the Passover of Jesus brought to a point of fulfilment all that had gone before, but also because even the style of the Kingdom was an advance on John's style. As we said last week, John preached in the tradition of some of the great prophets, while Jesus took a very different approach.

The Word of God did not come among us as fiery preacher, not even as one of the priestly families, nor as a member of the ruling class whose destiny might be to achieve control over society and through government transform the structures and morals of the world. He did not call for rebellion against the Roman occupiers, or even protest against their oppression of his people. Not that he wasn't game, since he would hardly have suffered a worse fate even had he been the leader of an uprising.

The Word of God took flesh and dwelt among us as a common, ordinary, everyday person, a worker well known and respected in his home town. He set out one day, after an experience in the Jordan river when John baptised him, to walk the country roads, going through the towns of the district, talking to the people, meeting them face to face, mixing with them, having meals, going into their homes to see those confined to bed, even at times speaking in front of large crowds. His way was to meet people in eye to eye contact, and his way of teaching was to invite them to think things out for themselves.

This not only shows how the least in the Kingdom might go about being a pre-publicity agent for the coming of the Messiah into the lives of their friends, it also shows why this advance mission cannot be fulfilled by ordained ministers. It can only be achieved by ordinary folk who share the lives of their neighbours and allow their faith to be perceived by them.

During the week on Catholica Herbie gave us a very concise summary of these things. I would like to quote a few lines, with the suggestion that to linger over each phrase could be a very rewarding exercise. I am concerned that isolating these few lines may obscure rather than reveal Herbie's meaning, so best to read what wrote in full:   http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=91558

'Faith' is an enlightenment (...) a personal awareness of an accessible G-d by virtue of what Jesus of the gospels presents about this.


This experience of 'faith' can go a notch closer to the mysteries: and become an inner conviction.

This is by reason of what can probably only be best named as 'enlightenment'.

When the lights goes on, you know what (or who!) is in the room.

(...)

The gospel is enshrined in exclusively first century terms and under the cultural conditions and limitations of that very clever era.

Experience of it then [at that time] through the medium of the gospel transformed lives and inspired a transition into the next generations.

It is by allowing another person to sense or perhaps to touch my experience in very ordinary moments of daily life that I may prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. How another person actually comes to 'faith' is surely a mystery, or should I say a 'personal secret' between that one and the Mystery we call G-d. Herbie says that the experience, in that first century, inspired a transition into the next generations. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a small measure of yeast that a woman hides in three measures of flour, mixing it through until the whole batch is leavened - secretly: Oh, so secretly!