3rd Sunday Advent A - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2013

I wonder if Jesus’ response to John the Baptist’s question satisfied him? Would it have satisfied you? Why did Jesus choose his healing activity in responding to John? Is the Kingdom of God about physical health and well-being? Is that how Jesus saw it? Thinking about today’s Gospel got me thinking about Jesus’ final line from Isaiah, the good news is proclaimed to the poor, in the light of his earlier Sermon on the Mount, specifically, about the Beatitudes. Blessed are you who are poor; blessed are you who are hungry now; blessed are you who are mourning – [as Luke’s Gospel quotes them.] Is Jesus saying it a good thing to stay that way [or to become like that] – poor, hungry, in mourning? Obviously not.

The coming of God’s Kingdom will result in today’s poor, hungry and mourning being no longer so tomorrow. They, too, are blessed – that is, they will no longer be the marginalised, the discounted, the no-bodies that they were. They are as loved by God as everyone else is. They will possess the land, they will be filled, they will laugh… again. Their blessedness, their change in status, will be the result of the coming of the Kingdom, and, in that sense, a fairly noticeable proof of the presence of the Kingdom and one practical illustration of it. And, statistically at least, with economic and social development comes a lessening of disease and sickness.

Yet, people can be strikingly healthy, citizens of wealthy nations, enjoying high standards of living, yet not particularly fulfilled. So what is the essence of the Kingdom? I think that the middle two beatitudes touch into that: Blessed are the merciful; blessed are the peace-makers [and peace happens to the extent that justice operates]. So mercy and justice constitute the Kingdom – and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount teases that out with its emphasis on forgiveness, unconditional love, non-retaliation, etc.. Look at the effect on the mood of the world of men like Pope Francis and Nelson Mandela. True blessedness, God’s vision of human fulfilment, is a factor of people’s growth as individuals and as society in mercy and justice.

This brings us back to Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist’s question. Jesus’ illustration that he was the one to come, the one to usher in the Kingdom, was not precisely his healing activity as such but his mercy and concern for justice – expressed through his healing ministry. That did not exhaust his contribution to the Kingdom – but it admirably illustrated it.

Interestingly, by living his life guided by, founded on and expressed in mercy and peace-making, Jesus revealed the heart of God – whose rain falls on the just and the unjust, and whose sun shines on the honest and dishonest alike. Jesus’ God is not a God for whom justice consists in appropriate reward and punishment, but for whom justice is the necessary application of mercy and compassion to all divine and human interactions. John the Baptist seems to have assumed that God was concerned with reward and punishment. He spoke of the one to come after him as the one whose winnowing fan is in his hand … and who would gather the wheat into the barn and would burn the chaff in unquenchable fire. Perhaps he was disconcerted by Jesus whose compassion led him to heal indiscriminately worthy and unworthy, with no questions asked. Was John permanently scandalised by Jesus? Or did Jesus’ gentle answer lead to insight and enlightenment?

We look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus because it marks a decisive moment in actualising God’s vision for redeemed humanity. The divine entered the human in the incredible vulnerability of a defenceless infant. The adult way of mercy and compassion would require a similar vulnerability; and, not surprisingly, would culminate in the crucifixion of the defenceless victim of Calvary. [Nelson Mandela – twenty-seven years in confinement.] We cooperate in the consolidation of God’s Kingdom to the extent that we dedicate our lives to truth, reconciliation and justice, in full awareness of the vulnerability that they entail.