SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Isaiah 49:3, 5-6 | 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 | John 1:29-34

Almighty, everliving God, who govern all things, both in heaven and on earth, mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.

I want to begin my reflections, as I always do, with the opening prayer, and what we pray for, what we long for, and it’s so clearly something we need, and that is a sense of wellbeing, peace.  And the only way we can find peace is not so much to make a world free of sin or problems or destruction or evil but to make peace with it, to somehow know it has a purpose, it has meaning, it has a reason for being there.  And I want to go back to an image I use over and over again, and that is the partial revelation of the Old Testament.  It’s not the fullness of who God is, and it’s all based in justice.  And justice is a good thing.  The world should be just and fair.  It isn’t always that way, but it would be good.  We love that kind of image of finding peace when there is justice always administered.  Those who are good rise to the top; those who are bad are pushed to the bottom.  But that’s not the message in any shape or form of Jesus.  He radically changed all of that, and peace is no longer found in a kind of perfection but rather in a participation in the most amazing invitation on the part of God.  And that’s where he looks at you and he looks at me and said, “You know what?  I formed you, the way you look, the race that you belong to, the place where you are, the time in history that you’re participating in, my work.  All of that was my plan for you, and it’s not by accident.”  It’s not ⎯ nothing is by accident.  Everything, God would say to you, is part of his plan, and so what he's inviting you and me to do in the New Testament, the fullness of the message, is to believe in one single thing: what is, is what must be.  And that has to do with you, your actions and the world.  

So let’s look at that for a moment.  I want to go back to the Old Testament, because there was a person there that I always find very fascinating, because he feeds my ego, and that is the rich man who came to God and said, “Hey, I have done everything really, really well.  I’ve kept every commandment.  I have paid attention to you.  I’ve tried never to treat anyone unfairly.  I’ve been just in my dealings with it.  I don’t want another person’s life.  Mine is perfect.  But it’s really interesting, Jesus’ reaction, and it’s he’s filled with love for a person who’s trying to save themselves by their actions.  He really does see it as something good, but it has a very bad after taste, a terrible side effect.  And that is pride and judgment against other people.  So when the rich man says, “I’ve done everything well.  I’m pretty wonderful.”  He didn’t say those words, but I think that was the intention.  And God said ⎯ Jesus said ⎯ or, excuse me.  Jesus said to him, and this is in the New Testament, not the Old Testament, but Jesus said to him, “You’ve got one problem.  Let go of your possessions.”  If you look up possessions, what it means is not ownership.  That’s different, but the thing that you have that makes you feel better than someone else, a bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger job, a bigger whatever, a bigger talent than most people have, those are things that God gives to people, and we are never to compete. 

So the clear image I want to work with from the New Testament is the image that we do not gain our own salvation by what we do.  We participate in this extraordinary work of God using you and me to enlighten other people.  We’re not here just to become some perfect being focused on us and our actions, but we’re communal.  We’re here to have some impact on other people, and that’s a wonderful role, and we don’t always think of it as something that’s our responsibility.  When we look at the world, we often condemn everybody that’s bad and try to hope that those that we think, think the way that we do, that they’re doing the right thing, and there’s something so much more than simply evaluating what’s going on in the world.  We need to understand that God has given you and me a certain destiny, and the destiny includes to make ourselves into ⎯ or to have God make us a light to the nations, a light to the circle of friends, a light to your family, a light to your partner, your spouse.  It’s wonderful that that’s the challenge that’s before us.  And the minute we try to think of it as being perfect, we’re in trouble, because it’s very clear that there is something about our nature that was never promised before the coming of Jesus, and that is not only do we have this destiny from God, formed in the womb to be able to accomplish this by participating in something, not rules and regulations but a presence, a presence that’s in you and in me.   

Look how John the Baptist recognized Jesus.  There are many, many people that came along that said they were Messiahs.  That’s even true today in a way.  Somebody comes along and says, “I’m going to save the world.  I’m going to save everybody.”  But the thing about the Messiah that’s so unique and so important, and he’s a model for us, is that he didn’t do what he was doing because of his humanity, which we all have.  We have the same humanity that Jesus had.  He struggled with understanding the fullness of who God is inside of him.  Otherwise he wouldn’t be human.  He didn’t always want to do what God was asking him to do.  If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be human.  So what we see in John’s description of Jesus is something happened to him.  The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, came down upon Jesus and entered into him and dwelt in his heart.  That’s a very, very beautiful image of who we are in the eyes of God, not Jesus himself literally but like Jesus, filled with a gift, not full divinity but a participation in divinity, particularly in the need and the want and the desire of God to bring light, truth, wisdom to other people.  

So when we ever get caught up in the rich man’s problem of wanting to be perfect, we have to, again, watch out for the many other side effects, one of which, of course, is that you condemn everybody that’s not as good as you are, because you resent the fact that they might claim to be in God when they are not perfect.  And there’s a kind of, unfortunately, well-known experience that people have with having religious people be condemning people that are not of their religion, not doing what they’re doing, but the relationship with God is not solely because of the denomination that we live in.  It’s a more personal thing.  It’s about the promise that God  made to you, a personal promise that everything about you is exactly what you need to be, and there will be sins that you deal with that are specifically your weakness, and you will grow by dealing with that sin, not through perfection but through mercy and forgiveness.  And in some cases, you will live with the same sin the whole existence that you have on this earth.  St. Paul had a problem, a moral issue that he begged God to take away, and God said, “No, your grace is enough for you,” or, “My grace is enough for you.”  It’s a beautiful image of God creating you and me imperfect so that we can live on this planet with the understanding of imperfection our brothers and sisters ⎯ and can recognize, when we meet them with mercy and forgiveness and understanding, we are spreading a light, a light called peace.  It’s okay where you are.  It’s okay to be who you are in this moment, and yet it is not simply about this moment.  And it’s not simply about you.  It’s about your participation in a gift called salvation, and when you feel it as a gift, and you know it comes to you from God, you’re going to naturally resonate it.  It just comes out of you, because you’re a man of peace, a woman of peace, a child of peace, and it brings such hope to the world that often gets caught up in the need for perfection.

So we’re beginning our ministry of Jesus in this ordinary time, and we’re going to look at Matthew so carefully.  And what he’s going to teach us is going to lead us into the two things that are mentioned in this set of readings that stand out.  You’ll receive grace ⎯ that’s redemption ⎯ and peace.  That’s everything as it must be.  God bless you. 

Father, your wisdom is so clearly manifested in your acceptance and understanding of our human condition.  You never ask us to be more than we are, more than we can be, yet we stand, often, back and look at ourselves and see so many things that could be better, and we get consumed with our imperfection.  Help us to know your will for us.  Help us to accept everything that you ask us to deal with, and let us find peace.  And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.