3rd
Sunday of Advent
Cycle C
December 13, 2015 8am
and 5pm
Saint Margaret Parish, Bel Air
John: Not a Disciple
In my
reading, I recently came across a question that I had never thought about.
Why didn’t
John the Baptist become a recognized of Jesus? I mean, he is never mentioned as a disciple
and is never listed as one of the apostles.
The
Scripture is clear that John respected Jesus.
At one point, John said that he should be baptized by Jesus.
But,
John never became a disciple. In fact, he
even sent someone to ask if Jesus really was the promised One of God.
So, what’s
going on here? The answer seems to lie
in how John and Jesus viewed the kingdom of God.
John and Kingdom
John the Baptist
held a very traditional or Old Testament understanding of God’s kingdom.
John believed that
God was first and foremost a judge. God
would separate the good from the bad – like the wheat from the chaff in today’s
gospel.
God would reward
the good and punish the bad. God would
include the good and exclude the bad from his kingdom.
Jesus and Kingdom
Jesus’ approach to the kingdom of God is very different.
In fact, Jesus himself is the kingdom of God in our midst. And so, it is right in him that we see the
difference.
No question, he addresses evil and darkness, as John does. And no question, we will have to give an
accounting of our personal behavior.
But Jesus’ way of preaching and being the kingdom of God is very
different. He invites and does not intimidate.
Jesus tries to understand where others are coming from, not to
judge. He relates with others and does
not distance them – even to the point of having dinner with those who are
viewed as sinful.
So, Jesus’ way of being the kingdom of God is very different from what John
expected. Little wonder that John did
not become a disciple!
What Should We Do?
Now, what are you and I to do with all of this?
I think Pope Francis is showing us the way. This past Tuesday, he began what we Catholics
call a Holy Year.
Pope Francis has titled this a Holy Year of Mercy. I will say more about this in the weeks
ahead, but for now I just want to quote a few words of what he said this past
Tuesday.
Pope Francis said that “We have to
put mercy before judgment. How much
wrong we do to God when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before
we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy.”
In this and at many other times, Francis is lifting up Jesus’ idea of the
kingdom of God. I see this as meaning
that we are to be an inviting and welcoming people.
The accent is not on putting down others as wrong or less than we are. Instead, we are to engage with others in
respectful, mature conversation about life and faith.
We are to see faith not only as fulfilling obligations and assenting to
teachings. Instead, we are to see it fundamentally
as a matter of relationship with the Lord Jesus and participating in community
and walking this earthly journey together.
And so, our effort is to include others.
We are seldom if ever to exclude because it usually does no good for anyone.
On this point, one of our Catholic Scripture scholars remarks that John
the Baptist urged repentance as a condition for communion with God. But Jesus practices communion as a prelude to
a deeper experience of God.
Conclusion
So, the difference between John the Baptist and Jesus has some real
consequences.
Pope Francis is showing that this affects how we see ourselves as a
Church. It has effects on how we
understand God, how we are as a parish and how we as persons relate to others.
It is, I believe, both a challenging and an enlivening approach to living
a life of faith.
