December 16/Third Thursday of Advent
All the people who heard this, including the tax collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. But refusing to be baptized by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves. ~ Luke 7.29-30
During my mid-twenties, when I was in something of a spiritual wilderness, I confessed to an Episcopal priest who had been a mentor during my teenage years that I was no longer certain of God’s existence. He smiled, not missing a beat, and said, “That’s okay. God doesn’t mind.” He didn’t excoriate me, or try to rope me back into the corral; he knew that faith cannot be coerced, that God has given us the freedom to make our own choices, and that we will rise or fall by those choices. (In my case, I fell a while longer, but ultimately re-entered the life of faith through a different door.) The crowds who came out to see John the Baptist, ordinary people who heard his message, took it to heart and turned their lives towards Christ. They heard the call and made the choice to do what God asked of them: repent and follow Jesus. The powers-that-be in Jewish society, however, namely the Pharisees and the scholars of the law, refused to subject themselves to baptism by John, thus, in Luke’s words, “rejecting God’s purpose.” Given the invitation to join the Jesus movement, as issued through his prophet John, they chose to follow their own lights. But the prepositional phrase offers an important qualification (as prepositional phrases often do): they rejected God’s purpose éís éautoùs, “for themselves.” The fact that the establishment misses its chance simply shows the limits of human power: God’s plan is in no way derailed by their refusal to sign on. Or to put it more succinctly, the loss is theirs. The truth of God’s message is not subject to crowd-sourcing.
All-knowing Lord, May I use the free will you have given me to make good and life-giving choices, today, tomorrow, and always. Amen.
For today’s readings, click here: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121621.cfm
To hear “There Is One Lord,” sung by the Songs of Taize Session Singers, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MnfG_zrm_U
