The Reading – Lk. 1:57 – 66, 80
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.
Maybe Luke’s Message!!! – Those who have ears to hear let them hear.
When all is said and done what is Luke saying first to his own audience and then skipping over the 2000 year history to our day, what is he saying to us?
Luke was interested in confirming the faith in Jesus of his community, a Gentile community that did not grow up with the stories of the Jewish Scripture. They heard of Jesus in the context of their own gentile life situations, ruled by Rome and peopled by all kinds of gods. John the Baptist is the last of the Jewish prophets meant to tell us who Jesus is often times by separating the two in contrasting John and Jesus.
For Luke, then, John represents the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. This notion of an end and a new beginning is something that reappears all through human history; not only in religious terms but in social, cultural, and political terms. As we enter into our own presidential elections, I am almost certain that such a narrative will be used by either or both candidates. Certainly, the struggle in Europe over the debt and the euro raises questions about the end or a new beginning for Europe. The “Arab Spring” raised this narrative for the whole of the Arab world. The struggles that our church is having with regard to the pedophile scandals with its mismanagement, the bishops’ embattled position with certain provisions of the health care legislation, the nuns conflict with the Vatican, and many other events, also causes this narrative to arise within the Catholic Church today. As I said this theme of end and beginning is relentless in human history.
It is critical, though, to see this narrative finally in very personal terms, our lives after all are not normally a straight trajectory upwards. More likely than not, we live a series of ups and downs and occasionally one of the series is an end of one era and the beginning of a new one.
To enter into the narrative with God as our guide, though, invites us to look deeper into Luke’s narrative itself. To do that let’s listen to the human actions and reactions to God’s plan at work.
- Birth is the work of the Lord and there is rejoicing. Keep in mind though that even for those for whom there is no god, the birth of a new life brings rejoicing.
- There is the religious ritual of time with its human expectations. The child will be called “Zechariah after his father,” of course.
- Human expectations are challenged – “No. He will be called John.” But continued objection – they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” Lots of human evidence that life should be the way we expect it to be and we provide all the arguments we can muster to keep things the same; even if there is something else [God] at work.
- And when the truth is spoken, the father’s tongue is loosened. The truth will make you free. But where did the truth come from? It’s easy to say God, of course. Such thought though is simplistic; for the struggle to achieve the truth often emerges out of a previous period of darkness, uncertainty, even fear. During which we are won’t to say that God is absent, has forgotten me, us. [Jesus in the garden, My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?] Truth often reveals error and, even worse, unwillingness. The freedom received in truth is the opening of a door we may have kept shut for some time. How hard would it be for the Bishops, the Nuns, the Pope, to hear the truth that would reveal their own errors, their own unwillingness? Are they not absolutely certain they already possess the truth. Yes, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
- The Bishops, the Nuns, the Pope; these are the other, but what about me, ah the searing question to be avoided. What truth have I kept locked out, shut the door on? Certain that I already possess the truth. On Sacred Truth!!! Only in the secret recesses of your heart does the answer lie. [Pause don’t keep reading to avoid the message …]
- And when his tongue is loosened “he spoke blessing God.” He blessed God, a strange activity in our world but the spontaneous thing to do in his world. What has changed? Who is God in whom the first response is to bless for the good that happens? Contrasted with the God whom we ask to bless us.
- At the end, there is another reaction. “… fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea.” This fear is different, it is awe. Life is awesome because its author is awesome.
So when confronted with the narrative of the end of an era and the beginning of a new, listen with a great deal of skepticism. Nonetheless Jesus has been the source of a continuing renewal. The critical thing for Jesus was his being faithful to his Father; ultimately nothing else mattered. Hearing the Father is a lifetime of coming to hear, shedding the humanly expected, accepting the unexpected, discerning, discerning, discerning … If only it was easy, simple and for some it might be but not for me.