Where Are You Staying?

Gospel: John 1: 35-42

The latest fad in church world is the topic of discipleship, and just like its predecessors "renewal" and "evangelization" those promoting it will tell you that it consists of their pre-packaged programs that are all about theology, catechesis, and liturgical rubric.  And like these previous efforts it will fail because it asks the wrong question and looks for the answers in all the wrong places.  

In today's Gospel portion, people approach Jesus and ask, "Where are you staying?"  And his response to them is "Come and see." The rest of the Gospel is all about following Jesus to see where he stays.  And we find that it is among the poor and lame, blind and possessed, deaf and outcast, deformed and marginalized.  We will find him eating with sinners whether they be prostitutes, tax collectors, or Pharisees.  We will find him healing, liberating, and nourishing all of these.

The question of discipleship is not about theology or catechisms or liturgy.  It is about whether we are willing to follow the Lord when he invites us to come and see where he is staying, whether we will take up this work of being among the poor and sick, foreigner and demoniac, sinner and outcast.  To be a disciple is to take up the work of healing, liberating, and nourishing.  How is God calling us to do that work in our world today? 

Mistaken Identity

Gospel: John 1: 29-34

Each of the Gospels take great pains to distinguish in various ways the roles of John the Baptist and Jesus the Messiah.  People were so enamored of John that they thought him the Messiah or a figure more important than Jesus himself.  This issue was apparently acute during the time in which John wrote his Gospel, as he spends the entire first chapter engaged with this issue.  

It is an issue that continually repeats itself in every time and place within the Christian community.  A host of larger than life figures present themselves as Messiah figures - the strong man in politics, the charismatic religious leader - and people will follow them with a zeal greater than that for Jesus in their lives.  They will object that such is not the case, though the ardor with which their apologetic for such figures says otherwise.  How often are behaviors and beliefs that run contrary to that of Jesus are defended as Christian when in fact they are not?

This week's readings are a continual reminder for us as to who the Messiah truly is, and who our only model and guide are in life.  The Gospels are a continual reminder that Jesus alone is our Lord and redeemer, and that an authentic guide to Jesus is one like John the Baptist who repeatedly points to Jesus alone and not to himself or any other.  Today is a day to resolve to look to Jesus alone as the light of the world.

A Resolution

Gospel: Luke 2: 16-21

What is said about Mary is said about the Church and all her members.  In today's Gospel we find a phrase that will be repeated again of Mary in the Gospel: "Mary treasured all these things, and pondered them in her heart." Here we have the model of true discipleship.  It is for us a model of being Church, a model of engaging in liturgy, and a model in doing theology, and a model of being a disciple.  

Mary has received the mystery; she has borne it in her being; and she brings it forth into the world  in humility to the poor and to outsiders.  She has witnessed all sorts of things, and she treasures them and ponders them in her heart.  She does not engage others in polemic, nor engage in apologetic or ostentatious liturgical display.  Mary simply treasures them and ponders them.  She honors the mystery with her silence and her presence.  

What Mary has modeled in her life so we must do.  We too have received the mystery and have been invited to bear it and bring it forth into the world to the poor and to outsiders.  We are to encounter all sorts of marvelous things, and to treasure them and ponder them, honoring them with our presence and our silence.  We do not honor the mystery with empire, apologetic, media conglomerates or cottage industries.  We honor it as Mary did.  Let this imitation of her be our New Year's resolution.