NewCreation

Homily for 3rd Sunday in Advent, Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for the third Sunday in Advent, the Sunday sometimes known as Gaudete Sunday from the old introit to the Mass before it was put into English, before the Paul VI version was given to us, in which the antiphon or the introit was "Gaudete" — rejoice in the Lord, always. Again, I say rejoice — a quote from Philippians, which is not actually in our reading this week. So this is the Sunday when, as we get close to Advent, there's the beginning of the rejoicing coming forth. The rejoicing cannot contain itself. That, I think, is the sense of the Gaudete Sunday. Let's continue with our path towards discernment with Matthew. You remember, in each of the previous two Sundays, I've been bringing out how the possibility of coming to learn and distinguish what's going on is at the back, if you like, of the readings we have, and is part of Matthew's way of opening us up to reality. Last Sunday we had John the Baptist preaching, in which he announced the wrath that was to come, called people "brood of vipers," and so forth, and there was a mixture of the Holy Spirit and fire as he announced that one after him was coming whose sandals he was not worthy to carry. So it was a portentous preaching, a truly prophetic preaching. And now we come to the really very difficult moment of discernment as to what's going on. This is the place where Jesus draws rather a strange line in the sand between him and John, his cousin, and offers us a hint of something quite different coming about. So let's look at the text and see if we can pick up this new thing that is coming in. "When John the Baptist heard in prison what the anointed one was doing" — and of course remember that John had seen Jesus being anointed by the Holy Spirit during his baptism in the Jordan. So for the Gospel to refer to him as "the anointed one" was referring to something that John had seen. The question is: what did it mean? So John heard in prison what the anointed one was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him — and I prefer the old, the glory of the old language for this — "Art thou the one who is to come, or wait we for another?" There's a certain elegance in the old language there. Thomas Merton has a very beautiful meditation on John in prison, what it must have been like for him to live a life of such extremity, with his vision set absolutely on the one who was coming after him, the one whose way he was preparing. And yet beginning to doubt, from what he had heard of what Jesus was doing, that Jesus was the real thing. He clearly thought that the someone who was coming after him was going to be someone more powerful than he, but doing the things of power that one does when one faces up to kings and tyrants, when one faces up to corrupt priests and religious institutions as he had done. And somehow the report he was getting of Jesus, which was preaching rather mysteriously and lots of healings, but he didn't seem to be lining up in the activist ranks in the same way that he, John, had rather expected. So the question is, is it really? Is this what I was waiting for? Has my life been a failure? Have I been barking up the wrong tree? So there's a very deep plaintive quality, I think, to John's wonderful message, which I think Thomas Martin brings out rather beautifully. Anyhow, Jesus answers the messengers: "Go and tell John what you hear and see." And then he quotes from a mixture of Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 35, from the passage which we have as our first reading this week. "The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised" – that's all from Isaiah 35, and those all have been illustrated by miracles that have been done in the preceding chapters. And finally, "and the poor have good news brought to them" from Isaiah 61, the announcing of the Jubilee. And then Jesus adds, "and blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Now, a very interesting point. The suggestion is that John is being caused to stumble by what he sees and hears, because the phrase "blessed is the one who takes no offense at me" is literally "blessed is anyone who is not scandalized by me, is not caused to trip, to stumble by me." Absolutely central word for René Girard's understanding of the Gospel, and thanks to him, of my understanding of the Gospel. Under what circumstances might Jesus be scandalizing John? Well, the answer is in not being the kind of one who was to come that was expected, and precisely in not being the kind who was to come, because the one who was to come in John's understanding was going to come with violence. If you look at the passage which is our first reading this week, you will see that we're given the full whack. The verses which say immediately before we get to the part where it says "then the eyes of the blind shall be opened" – the verse before that is: "Say to those who have a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear. Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you." That's not the verse that Jesus is quoting, though. He is effectively saying, "Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees, say to those who have a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear." That's his message to John. But he is not quoting the words of vengeance. And he understands that that scandalizes people, because many of those who want a prophet want someone who is going to make things right, who is going to turn things around. That invariably involves some sort of violence. Remember that in Matthew's Gospel we don't get the scene we get in Luke's Gospel, which is Jesus beginning his ministry at Nazareth, where we get the passage from Isaiah 61: "I have come to announce good news to the poor." And Jesus then reads the passage of the setting free of captives and so forth, and then it says, "In your hearing, this is now done." And it starts explaining this to them, and they are scandalized — it doesn't actually use the word "scandalized," but their reaction is terrible — because Jesus leaves out the words about vengeance. Because in Isaiah 61 there are also words about vengeance, which are left out. So Jesus is taking two chunks of Isaiah, and in both cases he's snipping off the bits about vengeance. And he's saying, "Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me." Quite literally, not being scandalized by Jesus means not being scandalized by the lack of violence. The coming in is not going to be a coming in violently. It's going to have violent effects for those who don't receive it, but it is not in itself violent. And that makes it terribly difficult to understand. John the Baptist, if he had been tempted to think that he was Elijah — Elijah had been a violent prophet; he'd had all the prophets of Baal killed; he was taken to heaven in a fiery chariot — and it was thought from Malachi that he would come before the end, presaging a lot of violence. So if that is who John the Baptist is, and Jesus hints that he is indeed that, it's a very different sort of Elijah than the one we actually know. Which is why Jesus later says — and this is unfortunately not in today's Gospel — "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came, and if you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come, if you're willing to accept it." In other words, the notion of an Elijah who is in prison and about to be executed, rather than the one who has triumphantly seen off the bastards — that's not the image of Elijah that anybody expected. So when John's disciples leave, Jesus begins to speak to the crowds and says to them, "What did you go into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?" Obviously not. And it's interesting that here he's using the language of looking at. And to be honest, I wonder why he's talking about the visible things of the prophet rather than the audible things. I would have imagined, "What did you go out into the wilderness to hear – but no, it's to look at a reed shaken by the wind. No, something that absolutely stands up against the wind. And that's a terrible thing, because with a terrible wind it can be broken. But you don't go out to see a reed. Something that is terrible and standing up might be broken, but it's quite a spectacle – a cedar that could be snapped. What then did you go out to see? And apparently this triple repetition of what you're about to see, if translated back into Aramaic, can form a poetic form. "Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces." In other words, he was not the sort of person who was going to be giving friendly advice to kings. A court prophet. The point of court prophets was they were all yes-men, all people who rubbed up the royal figure the right way, and therefore their words are worthless. Someone who stands up to them is someone who's about to get executed, which of course is exactly what's going to happen to John – that's why he's in prison. They would all know that, so they know that he's exactly not that sort of person. "So what then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'" The first line of that is from Exodus, where God says to Moses, "See, I am sending my angel before you to prepare the path of Exodus," and it's mixed here with Malachi: "See, I am sending my messenger before you." And again, that messenger in that case is Elijah. So he's saying this is more than a prophet – this is the angel, this is the angel who is to come. This is the one about whom it is written: "See, I am sending my messenger." He says he's more than a prophet, and I think that's very, very significant. Let me just say – more than a prophet, one greater than a prophet – because he said, "Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." So amongst all the generation of people born before, the suggestion is that John the Baptist in his person encapsulates the living presence of all the previous prophets – hence what they saw on him, which was his clothing and his way of eating, encapsulating the Exodus, Elijah, Samson, and – I forget what the other one was – oh, the Joseph in the Midianite caravan taking Joseph to Egypt. He was encapsulating all of that, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And there, strangely, our Gospel leaves us, and it leaves us without the key line, because too difficult usually to interpret. "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force." So imagine that he's saying John the Baptist encapsulates the whole of the previous life of prophecy — "for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came." He's encapsulating all of that, and it's all expecting a violent coming of God. And what he is bringing in is going to be something different. There is no vengeance. John is the greatest, and yet the kingdom of heaven is entirely without violence. It's much more easy to be scandalized by its non-violence than by anything that it does. Remember that Jesus caused scandal to those who were too good rather than those who were too bad, to those who wanted to sort things out quickly rather than to those who are too weak to do anything. The scandal of Jesus is the scandal of the one who is non-violent, and who is going to make a God available, entirely available, as one in whom there is no violence. And now we're on the threshold of beginning to sense what strange scandal, what potential scandal, is coming into our midst, as the apocalyptic noise begins to diminish and our Savior's birth draws nearer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.