(updated) Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

(This is the updated version of last Sunday’s homily with a couple of key lines added)

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time.. Year A 20th Jan 2008.

There is a line in today's gospel that John the Baptist keeps repeating… and it is an intriguing one…. Twice John the Baptist says "I did not know him….but…."…. what is the meaning of this line…… why have I never noticed it before???/

Its mysterious…

John the Baptist is the cousin of Jesus…. He certainly would have known who he THOUGHT Jesus was, but now he was seeing a new side of him…. Someone much more significant…. The one who would carry the sins of the world on his back and through whom the world would be saved……. Its almost too enormous for comprehension…… John the Baptist has very clear and strong ideas about what the Mesiah would be like… and although it was his role to proclaim his coming, the really ironic thing is that John the Baptist really got it wrong…… his concept of what the messiah would be like…. Was not anything like what Jesus turned out to be…. Jesus turned on its head the concept of what a messiah was like…. Instead of judgement… he brought a time of God's favour….. instead of retribution… he brought freedom from prison, and cancellation of indebtedness……… absolutely amazing….. john the Baptist had to really swallow his pride and do a backflip in order to understand what Jesus was showing him and all who had the eyes of faith……

John the Baptist keeps repeating… I did not know him, but he is the one I was preparing the way for,,,,,,,,

it is also a reminder … we cannot just rely on the testimony of others about Jesus….. we must eventually testify to him in our own lives too…. to testify to the person and message of JESUS as we encournter it in our daily lives too..

There is something reassuring about this for you us… who live two thousand years later… we believe in jesus as the Lamb of God… and the messiah….. each of us here is committed to following Jesus. However, we are in good company if we don't fully comprehend the significance of who jesus is for us …… if we don't yet fully appreciate the radical call that Jesus is asking of us…… the world-changing values Jesus has come to bring us…..

I always have a soft spot for the poor disciple of Jesus… they followed Jesus wherever he went…. They saw themselves as his disciples….his faithful……. They knew their master, Jesus, had the words of everlasting life…. But time and time again.. they 'didn't get it' they missed the point of what jesus was trying to tell them. Jesus was often quite exasperated with his disciples, saying… 'you have been with me all this time and still you do not KNOW me?" they often didn't have a clue….. but still the kept following.. and slowly…. Little by little… they began to understand who he was…. And what the meaning of his message was….

There are some other lines from this weekend's readings that really strike me……

It is from the psalm: 'he put a new song in my heart… a song of praise to our God"….. and also "I have told the glad news of our deliverance in the great congregation, see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O, Lord."

It reminds me…. there are so many things we can focus on in life…. So many words we can use…… so many things happen to us in life… some are good…. Some are awful….. some are hurtful and some are upbuilding…. The words of scripture encourage and remind us that… it is so important to notice and give voice to all the positive and life-giving things that are going on. Even in the midst of hard times, there are so many things we can still give thanks for…. That can still fill us with a sense of gratitude and thanksgiving… fill us with a new song….

While I was on my sabbatical time… one of our presenters Fr John Fuellenbach, a Divine Word Missionary from the same order as FR Gerard Mulhollans, said that there are different types of prayer… prayer of petition, where we ask for what we need… prayer of penance..where we ask for forgiveness… ; prayer of lament.. where we cry out for what is hurting us.. or worrying us, a prayer of complaint and grumbling so to speak…. Fr Fuellenback told us that ‘there is nothing wrong with a prayer of complaint… pouring out our hearts to God about all that we are upset and unhappy about and even grumbling about what God is apparently doing in our lives…. he said, that this is okay in prayer as long as at the end you leave a time for God to complain about YOU! That is, prayer is a two-way conversation, and we need to give God a chance to complain about things in the world and evenj with us that God is unhappy and worried about…..!!! ……..and finally but very importantly….. there is also….prayer of worship and thanksgiving…where we give voice to all the gifts and wonders that surround us… that we can be tempted to take for granted… our presenter said… 70 percent of our prayer should be prayer of thanksgiving.. that still give us 30 percent for asking for things.. or voicing grievances and hurts….. this is not suggesting that we go on talking about everything being rosy when its not…. But even when we take the rose coloured glasses of… even when we are brutally honest… there is still so much to be positive about… so much to be profoundly grateful for…. So many opportunities to see Jesus vision for the world which is so radically different from the logic of this world… and yet… we still struggle to understand the meaning of it…. But we never stop trying…..

Daily, we keep following Jesus, even though we (even now) don't full understand his ways….. but we believe in them…. We follow him into the unknown…..….. trusting in his guidance along the path he leads us…….because he promises to be with us always….. in with a new song on our lips… a song of praise…. And thanksgiving…