{"id":505,"date":"2012-06-21T14:41:37","date_gmt":"2012-06-21T18:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=505"},"modified":"2012-06-21T16:37:25","modified_gmt":"2012-06-21T20:37:25","slug":"var-_gaq-_gaq-_gaq-push_setaccount-ua-25646250-2-_gaq-push_trackpageview-function-var-ga-document-createelementscript-ga-type-textjava-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rjr.richardross.annaerossi.com\/?p=505","title":{"rendered":"<script type=\"text\/javascript\">    var _gaq = _gaq || [];   _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25646250-2']);   _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);    (function() {     var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text\/javascript'; ga.async = true;     ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https:\/\/ssl' : 'http:\/\/www') + '.google-analytics.com\/ga.js';     var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);   })();  <\/script>  <\/heat> An Improbable Message on The Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Reading &#8211; Lk. 1:57 \u2013 66, 80<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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, &#8220;No. He will be called John.&#8221;\u00a0 But they answered her, &#8220;There is no one among your relatives who has this name.&#8221;\u00a0 So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.\u00a0 He asked for a tablet and wrote, &#8220;John is his name,&#8221; and all were amazed.\u00a0 Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.\u00a0 Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea.\u00a0 All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, &#8220;What, then, will this child be?&#8221;\u00a0 For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.\u00a0 The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Maybe Luke\u2019s Message!!!\u00a0 &#8211; Those who have ears to hear let them hear.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 They heard of Jesus in the context of their own gentile life situations, ruled by Rome and peopled by all kinds of gods.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>For Luke, then, John represents the end of one era and the beginning of a new one.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As we enter into our own presidential elections, I am almost certain that such a narrative will be used by either or both candidates. \u00a0Certainly, the struggle in Europe over the debt and the euro raises questions about the end or a new beginning for Europe. The \u201cArab Spring\u201d 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\u00a0mismanagement, the bishops\u2019 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.\u00a0\u00a0As I said this theme of end and beginning is relentless in human history.<\/p>\n<p>It is critical, though, to see this narrative finally in very personal terms, our lives after all are not normally a straight trajectory upwards.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>To enter into the narrative with God as our guide, though, invites us to look deeper into Luke\u2019s narrative itself.\u00a0 To do that let\u2019s listen to the human actions and reactions to God\u2019s plan at work.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li>Birth is the work of the Lord and there is rejoicing.\u00a0 Keep in mind though that even for those for whom there is no god, the birth of a new life brings rejoicing.<\/li>\n<li>There is the religious ritual of time with its human expectations.\u00a0 The child will be called \u201cZechariah after his father,\u201d of course.<\/li>\n<li>Human expectations are challenged \u2013 &#8220;No. He will be called John.&#8221;\u00a0 But continued objection &#8211; they answered her, &#8220;There is no one among your relatives who has this name.\u201d\u00a0 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.<\/li>\n<li>And when the truth is spoken, the father\u2019s tongue is loosened.\u00a0 The truth will make you free.\u00a0 But where did the truth come from?\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to say God, of course.\u00a0 Such thought though is simplistic; for the struggle to achieve the truth often emerges out of a previous period of darkness, uncertainty, even fear. \u00a0During which we are won&#8217;t to say that God is absent, has forgotten me, us. [Jesus in the garden, My God! \u00a0My God! \u00a0Why have you forsaken me?] \u00a0Truth often reveals error and, even worse, unwillingness.\u00a0 The freedom received in truth is the opening of a door we may have kept shut for some time.\u00a0 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? \u00a0Are they not absolutely certain they already possess the truth. \u00a0Yes,\u00a0&#8220;There is no one among your relatives who has this name.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The Bishops, the Nuns, the Pope; these are the other, but what about me, ah the searing question to be avoided.\u00a0 What truth have I kept locked out, shut the door on? \u00a0Certain that I already possess the truth. \u00a0On Sacred Truth!!! Only in the secret recesses of your heart does the answer lie.\u00a0 <strong>[Pause don\u2019t keep reading to avoid the message \u2026]<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>And when his tongue is loosened \u201che spoke blessing God.\u201d\u00a0 He blessed God, a strange activity in our world but the spontaneous thing to do in his world.\u00a0 What has changed?\u00a0 Who is God in whom the first response is to bless for the good that happens?\u00a0 Contrasted with the God whom we ask to bless us.<\/li>\n<li>At the end, there is another reaction.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea.\u201d\u00a0 This fear is different, it is awe.\u00a0 Life is awesome because its author is awesome.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>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.\u00a0 Nonetheless Jesus has been the source of a continuing renewal.\u00a0 The critical thing for Jesus was his being faithful to his Father; ultimately nothing else mattered.\u00a0 Hearing the Father is a lifetime of coming to hear, shedding the humanly expected, accepting the unexpected, discerning, discerning, discerning \u2026 If only it was easy, simple and for some it might be but not for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Reading &#8211; Lk. 1:57 \u2013 66, 80 When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. 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