2nd Sunday of Advent
Matthew 3:1-12
December 5, 2004

John the Baptist in Advent is not just one of the many prophets trying to convert us. He is the pinnacle of prophecy, the one sent in advance by the Lord so that we not miss our last call.

But John the Baptist may not be as unique a figure as it appears in this gospel passage. In everybody's life the role of John the Baptist is played by some special person or special event conveying an urgent prophetic message. If we are lucky enough, then we meet more than once people harsh and honest enough to spell out in concrete terms that our personal life needs a conversion. Most people expect good advice from good friends, but in fact quite often the best advice comes from adversaries and critics who have no inhibitions that would make them sugarcoat the truth. They may even have good reason and strong motivation to tell us what is wrong with us.

Usually we respond to such wake-up calls defensively. The most obvious weapon we can use against any "John the Baptist" in our lives is a reaction of denial. The Pharisees and Sadducees, who went to see John out of curiosity, certainly found an ready excuse that rendered them immune to the warnings of the Baptist. "Being son of Abraham" is an ingenious reply, even if at first we may not fully comprehend its arrogance. For it means that we have our own lineage that is well known to all who know us -- our family, our identity, our level of education and social status. We are somehow part of a chosen people: the chosen people and God is committed (must be committed) to the cause of our salvation. So we really do not need an unwashed desert prophet living on locust and wild honey, sleeping in caves and going about in rags to talk to us about God.

Is it possible that we ourselves are standing there at the shore of the Jordan among the unidentified Pharisees and Sadducees, watching the crowd that tries to listen and convert while deep down we do not think that we need conversion? If so, we are missing the message of both John and Jesus. After all both of them start with the same message: reform your attitudes and turn around your life. But we are unaffected by this call because our eyes are not even directed at the self. I do not even suggest that we are unrepentant sinners; we are just unwilling or unable to discover the sinner in ourselves. We cling to the idea that we do all that we do for a good reason. Should that not be the case, we are open to a polite and tactful invitation to change our minds, but to our best recollection we have thought about every issue rather carefully. Of course, it might be true that we are mistaken about something, but being mistaken is not the same thing as being sinful. Since no one is perfect, we might be in need of correction, but what counts is our readiness to be corrected. We are, honestly, not particularly aware of any urgent need of confrontation with the self.

St. Paul in his masterful essay on his understanding of this issue, his Epistle to the Romans, spends three chapters on this issue before he concludes that we "all have sinned and all are lacking the glory of God." It is totally pointless to state that we are sons of Abraham, or circumcised or, we may add, cradle Catholics, as if any ancestry or any circumcision or any cradle may guarantee our reconciliation with God.

Here we are less than three weeks before Christmas and it is not clear what the gift of the coming of Jesus may offer us, because we are trapped in our own system of self-absolution, self-justification, complacency, the ongoing congratulation that we extend to ourselves and to those who in turn serve as our support group assuring us that we need no conversion.

If you have ever been in a true desert where there is really nothing else than sand and rock, a blue sky and a scorching sun, then you know what the barrenness of a defensive human conscience is: there is no soil, no moisture, no seed, and consequently the earth produces nothing, a scorching wind blows through the empty space void of life. Where and how does conversion start? Is there a hope for Pharisees and Sadducees? How can the Son of God arrive and deliver his message in the presence of a chosen people completely and tonally complacent in it chosenness.

Maybe in my answer to this question I can encourage you to read the gospel of Matthew systematically with open eyes and with some questions in your mind. As you know in this new liturgical season the church has started reading Matthew again. Perhaps, the very composition of this gospel gives us a lesson on conversion. Today's gospel is from the beginning of the ministry: John the Baptist starts with his call to conversion, but with the Pharisees and Sadducees he does not get anywhere. So his words turn into a threat about cutting out the barren tree and burning it with unquenchable fire. We know what kind of fire he is talking about. But as a measure of hope he refers to the one who will come after him with another kind of fire: that of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, Jesus comes and repeats the same message that John does: repent for the kingdom of God is near. But he also holds right away a rather long seminar on why conversion is needed. He begins the Sermon on the Mount, three long chapters about God's expectations with regard to the human being. Rather high standards, a pure and uncompromising invitation to keep God's law, in its fullness, absolute purity, no deviations. The sermon of the mount runs through the whole material of the Ten Commandments in three long chapters (5,6 and 7), pointing out the highest and purest standards. His audience all admire him but otherwise nothing happens: Pharisees and Sadducees remain just as unconverted as before. So there is a next approach in Jesus ministry. Now we are in chapter 8 and 9: Jesus begins healing the blind, the deaf, the mute, the possessed, the leper. Now the issue becomes a little clearer. We are incapable of conversion because we are deaf, we are blind, we are possessed by addictions, by emotional disturbances, by deep spiritual attention deficit; we are obsessed by the self and all the other demons we not only have but cling to so that they run our life. It is in this stage of Jesus’ ministry that finally conversions, true and authentic ones happen: Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, save me. I am not worthy that you enter my house but just say the word. Help, me, Lord, to believe. Lord, help my disbelief.

In chapter 11, when John the Baptist, who had tried so hard to anticipate Jesus’ message, sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah, the answer is: report what you see; the blind see, the deaf hear the lame walk and to the poor the gospel is being announced.

This key term is important for us, too. "To the poor" the gospel is announced. To the one who does not amount to too much in his own eyes but is poor, lacking means of self-sufficiency. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who come to the realization that they lack God's vibrant, saving, robust, powerful life in themselves, those who indeed have eyes to see their own true situations, those who need ears to hear each other crying out in need, those who realize their own dirtiness of impurity, greed, pleasure-eating consumerism, self-seeking ambition, self-peddling, self-exhibiting obsession with name and fame, thirst for recognition, satisfaction that comes from trampling on others --- and we could go on with the many diseases of the soul.

We have to read the gospel all the way through in order to recognize the whole picture. At Mass we come to its last chapters: "On the night he was betrayed, he took bread and said: take it, eat; this is my body; take and drink this is my blood…" At the end, after teaching, after healing, after failing in many ways, Jesus finished his ministry by giving away his life and distributing himself -- his humility -- as food and drink. The good doctor, not only heals our eyes and ears and all senses of the body but gives a prescription to be taken in daily: he who eats my body and drinks my blood will have everlasting life, and I will raise him on the last day.

This is a long shot from our inability to repent, but we must frequent him, ask him to challenge us, ask him to understand the mystery of life and death, embrace the cross by which he shares his message and become eager for a part in his resurrection.

 [