2nd Advent: Listen to the Prophets

“You’ll shoot your eye out!” A classic line, prediction in our culture.  Parents are prophets, are they not? At least in some fashion. You parents can see a situation and assess, and make a prediction: “Don’t do that or you are going to hurt yourself?; He/She is not nice, don’t come crying to me when he/she breaks your heart….”

Prophets see a situation, make observations and then call out the probable consequences and can provide a different way to act. Prophets have a degree of wisdom and insight.

Now prophets are not just doom and gloom. Prophets, especially religious ones and in our Jewish/Christian tradition, actually want to lead people to security, to joy; ultimately to God. They declare a way to avoid one path, so as to choose another.

Think of Parenting again. Those prophetic warnings to kids really comes down to teaching kids about actions, consequences and how to choose. And they can mature into healthy stable adults.

As we ourselves continue to mature though, who becomes our prophets? Especially in our faith, and to where are we being directed?

John is considered the last of the Old Testament style prophets. He sees God at work, from Scripture and prayer, and he says what is going on. John sets the stage for Jesus’ own ministry, a ministry of revelation and of love, of self-giving. A ministry that calls us to participate.  John does so by pointing out the need to change: repent, to change our lives. He calls for a deeper relationship, deeper spirituality; because one based on superficiality, one based on appearances, or even one based on assumed privilege will do nothing.

To be open to God and God’s ways involves a giving of self, a commitment.  To experience the Joy of Christ means to enter into it.

And we don’t always do it… And sometimes we need the prophetic voice to remind us. We may be Christian, but we have not become disciples of Jesus.

Sometimes we can use God as a problem solver, expecting Jesus to sprinkle magic grace on a situation and make it all better. If it doesn’t we get all angry and go Karen/Kyle on God. Or if the situation resolves itself, then we forget God, at least until we have another problem.  We expect simply because we have been baptized, or have the name Catholic we are good to go. We GOT all our sacraments. We will get into heaven, so we can slide on by in this life.

John the Baptist, the prophet, tells us no. John tells us to re-think, repent and choose a different pattern. Jesus will repeat this same message over and over…

Being A Catholic Christian is not about magic, nor about superficial token actions…. The beauty of our faith, the beauty of what Jesus reveals to us is for us to enter fully into it. We must not merely be Christian, but disciples.

That involves a commitment to understanding the wisdom that comes with Jesus’ teaching on humility, on forgiveness, on compassion…and how much that can heal relationships, strengthen us to live in this complicated world.  It is grasping the joy that God remains with us, to raise us up, so that when overwhelmed in chaos, in grief, we have the power to get up and continue on. 

Discipleship is placing that faith, that grace we receive into practice. Each day. It is praying, meditating, contemplating, each day.  Discipleship means to prepare ourselves for when we will be called to truly BE Christian in word and deed.

It is not always easy, convenient; it will conflict with other priorities we may have in life: sports, fun, work… How often parishes struggle with confirmation programs competing with sports schedules, families not coming to mass, and yet demanding something they have little grasp of.

How often individuals struggle with what a worldview will say, and what a deeper faith will say.

Yet, ultimately, we remember what we prepare ourselves to celebrate in the coming weeks. God comes to us, so that we may have life in the full! So that liberated from what limits us we can live in relation with the world around us; and help bring forth the inherent goodness that resides within us, within this world.

All signified in our Eucharist.  

Itself which calls out to us prophetically!