Father Rick Bolte's Homily

A: Third Sunday in Advent                                               2007-12-16

Christians sometimes wonder why John the Baptist would need to ask if Jesus “is the one who is to come or should we look for another?”  People seeking to make the varied stories of the bible all fit together imagine that maybe John was confused because Jesus wasn’t the kind of Messiah he expected.  John had been a bit of a firebrand calling for major changes in the way society functioned.  He seemed to work toward a strong group ethic for the various groups of people he encountered.  Jesus, though still concerned for social change, begins with the heart of the person.  He didn’t rail against the establishment as much as call for a personal conversion (metanoia).  But the bible doesn’t answer this question, for the biblical writers, this isn’t important.

The value of the question for the biblical authors is for us.  We need to ask ourselves if we really believe that Jesus is the one.  Most of us would quickly say “Yes, Jesus is the one.”  But who is the Jesus we are saying “Yes” to?  Is it who Jesus really is, or who we want Jesus to be?  One way to begin looking at this question honestly is to look at how often we pray.  If we’re too busy, we forget, or we don’t have much to say; that’s a pretty clear indication that Jesus is not who we expect him to be!  Look at what we pray for when we do pray.  We ask for health for ourselves and those we care about.  We ask to do well with our business, to get and keep fruitful and meaningful employment.  We ask for help in passing tests in school and success in important relationships.  In our heads we’re aware that God doesn’t guarantee these things no matter how good we are or how much we pray.  We end up praying without much confidence in getting the answer we want.  Motivation for prayer is often weak except when we are at critical times.

Jesus’ advice for John’s followers is to note what they see and hear.  To see the goodness that accompanied his ministry.  Here is where we sometimes can misinterpret Jesus’ miracles.  When we hear “miracle,” we think “supernatural.”  Without the knowledge of the Old Testament that the immediate readers of Mathew’s Gospel had, we don’t recognize this as a reference to Isaiah 35 & 61.  For the biblical writer, there was no distinction between natural and supernatural.  They had no scientific approach and they had limited understanding of how things work.  For them, a miracle was anything particularly good.  Good things happening meant that God was with them.  That is the point of Jesus’ response.

We define “miracle” as something beyond scientific explanation and connect God’s presence with the supernatural.  We don’t realize God is with us because nothing that happens to us seems supernatural.  Our prayerful requests sometimes turn out as we expected but we don’t often thank God because we’re really not sure God did anything.

We need to respond to Jesus’ invitation to heed what we see and hear.  What does God really do, not what we wish God would do.  We are surrounded everyday by goodness and love.  It’s not perfect, it’s not all we want; but it points to the presence of God in our midst.  God is our hearts and the hearts of those around us.  If I were the devil and trying to keep people away from God, I keep everyone so busy doing “good” and “important” things that they didn’t have time to see and hear what was going on around them.  This season is a particularly busy time.  The very time when we are invited to be attentive to the goodness (Godness) around us inviting us to contemplate its fullness, we can be just too busy.  Let us strive to be attentive to what we really see and hear and come to know God’s presence as God truly is!