3A Advent - 12/11/22

Joy Sunday

Isaiah: Uplifting message

Magnificat - Mary said yes to conception - consent - important

Psalm 146 - spicy material

https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/2434-annunciation

James:

Matthew: Jesus is eulogizing John - while in prison - was it worth it? Jesus answers: stuff is happening -> we invested into something…was it all worth it?

Good morning,

How are we already on third Sunday of Advent? How? And so may be our puzzlement about the gospel text - we jump from John baptizing people to John in Prison - quite the jump! So John is at the end of his prophetic ministry - about to die from what most prophets die of - telling the truth as compelled by God, in this case, as you may recall, for telling Herod Antipas that he shouldn’t have married a widow of his brother. This wife and also a sister-in-law, Herodias, then manipulated her daughter Salome to dance for Herod and ask for the head of John The Baptist on a platter in return for her beautiful dance.

However, we are not there as yet! And while John has still his head on the shoulders, he is spending it reflecting, “was it all worth it?” The endless prophetic toil, having to deal with needy followers, answering endless questions about the one that is yet to come, eating nutritious if a bit disgusting bugs, and now imprisonment? And I think that is why he is sending a disciple to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Or in other words, are you the one that I gave everything for? I think that Jesus understands that, because he gives him a very practical and not a theological answer - a witness account, rather than an explanation, trusting in John’s intellect to make up his own mind.

And what is more, he then turns to the crowds and eulogizes John…And it is an eulogy, because Jesus surely knows that John is about to be executed very soon. In some ways, he is pronounced as the final and greatest pre-messianic prophet. Quite an honor to be eulogized by Jesus himself!

Our passage in James then lifts up patience as a quality we should acquire and that we should take an example from the prophets, for after all, most of them did not get to live to see the coming of the Messiah! And yet, they patiently and painstakingly kept at their vocation. Until John the Baptizer actually got to see the Lord in the flesh. He too had to wait most of his life to see that moment.

And I think this world can be lived a little better if one has patience. Every time I see somebody aggressively overtaking me or running a red light, I spare a thought that it must be REALLY hard for them to live in this world, where much of our lives is waiting, from the beginning until the end, whether we are children or the elderly, there is always something to wait for just around the corner!

And so it is with our faith - faith is by its nature a lot about patience and waiting. There is not much need for faith, if something is already here! No need to hope for December, the December is already here…and so will the year 2023 shortly! Our faith, of course, concerns spiritual things both near and far, but it is the far off, the on the horizon stuff we spend a lot of time reflecting, acting upon, and contemplating.

And we may ask, from time to time....is it all worth it? All the patience? And I do not think we need a theological answer as well, but rather a practical one. Yes, we gather here to celebrate and worship God in three persons, but a part of what we do is reassurance and strengthening for our patience and what we do in the mean time, God’s work with our hands, while we wait. We serve each other and the world through acts of kindness, love, and compassion - feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, advocating for people’s right to decide how, with whom, and without what they want to live their lives, protecting the vulnerable and ostracized… Without these reminders in a community that strengthens our resolve to imitate Christ, I think it might be far too easy to lose patience and simply let go.

If we are reading news, we can find plenty impatient people that have no desire to wait for the Lord and work on God’s vineyard in the mean time - they want things NOW and many are not above playing dirty to get it. Just recently, a vice president of the European Union’s parliament was suspended by her party after she was arrested in connection with an investigation into suspected influence peddling at the EU assembly by a Gulf state, presumably Qatar. Corruption can be intoxicating - it leads to rewards and amassing of wealth that doesn’t have to be waited for too long. Or during a recent program on NPR, it was said that propaganda is employed by many politicians, whole governments, companies, and other individuals, because it is easier and faster than persuasion, which requires effort and yes, patience in waiting for the other to make up their mind! In short, our world is filled by people that are not willing to wait, but are willing to bend or evade the rules to get what they want. I believe we are called to do the exact opposite, just like in many occurences in the Bible, good, worthy things took time to be realized - be it waiting for the Messiah, reaching the Promised land, or justice for the oppressed and marginalized, the orphan and foreigner.

So let’s allow Jesus to reassure us - through the Word, sacraments, the wonder of creation, and the foretaste of the Kingdom we try to build - witnessing to the world, where the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. Let us have patience and do the work in the mean time as a community and resist the worldly temptation to prioritize easy reward over listening to the ever present voice of God telling us to wait patiently and serve incessantly until the Kingdom of God will truly come. Amen