3rd Sunday Advent C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2012

John's advice sounds good practical stuff.  Following in the footsteps of some of the great prophets like Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah, he picks up what has come to be called God's preferential option for the poor.  It might be projection on my part, but I find that his advice, practical and good as it is, leaves me uninspired. 

It is a bit like much of what seems to be happening in our world at the moment – Governments legislating more and more laws telling people how to behave, whether in banking, and the media, occupational health and safety, personal vilification, etc. – perhaps good advice, and even sadly necessary, but lacking inspiration.  With government legislation, observance is ensured by the threat of sanctions – fines, imprisonment, etc.. 

Interestingly, that is what John the Baptist seems to be up to, too.  His basic scenario is threat.  That seems to be his sense, too, of how the one following him, the one more powerful than he, will act: He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will gather the wheat into his barn but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.  

In fact, Jesus did not turn out like that – and that seemed to have rattled John.  You might be familiar with the incident where John in prison sent disciples to Jesus to ask him: Are you the one who is to come, or do we wait for another?  In his answer, Jesus quoted one of the great Hebrew prophets, Isaiah, to describe his approach: Tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak … the Good News is preached to the poor.  And blessed is he who is not scandalized in me. 

Unlike John, Jesus gave few, if any, detailed directives on how we should behave.  When he did move into the area of morality, as he did in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, his language became more hyperbole – challenging people to figure out for themselves whether he was serious, what he was really saying, and, more importantly, why. 

Some of his parables can at first sound threatening.  What is usually the case in those parables is that Jesus is simply describing in graphic apocalyptic imagery the chaos that happens in this world when people choose to act irresponsibly, selfishly and violently.  The God that Jesus reveals through his life and his teaching is not a violent, vindictive God.  What Jesus is interested in is the Good News of God's Kingdom – a world where people interact responsibly, compassionately, ready to receive and to offer forgiveness. 

Jesus is not interested in behaviour imposed from above, but in behaviour that flows from conscience and is directed effectively to the common good of all.  His is not commandment-imposed morality but virtue-governed morality.  It is a sad commentary on the shape of our world that virtue can no longer be presumed and conscience no longer holds sway. 

Jesus' way was to proclaim, as his starting point, Gods' unconditional love and forgiveness offered to everyone.  In the light of this, he called people to genuine change, to conversion.  And he expected people, once empowered by that vision of a humanity loved by God, to guide all their relationships by the principles of universal respect, compassion and love for all - particularly for the powerless and vulnerable. 

He aimed to set people on fire with his vision of a redeemed world; he trusted their intelligence, inviting them in stimulating parables to tease out the possible look of that redeemed world.  He saw people not as a regiment of servants or slaves but as free, motivated and responsible adults, whom he went so far as to call his friends. 

It is as such free, motivated and responsible adults that we come here today to this Eucharist to join with him in his commitment to a world renewed.