The Gospel Story for today (John 1:29-34) is John pointing out Jesus, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. This happens as Jesus is beginning his “public life”, his ministry. John is presenting Jesus to the people as he himself begins to fade from the scene — “He must increase, and I must decrease”. The majority report sees this as a story about Jesus, beginning his ministry. The minority report can be quite different, but never contradictory.
What is going on in our life as we read or hear the Gospel has a great influence on what we hear it saying to us. These days just about all of us, in one way or another, are affected by the violence, polarization, anger, frustration, and just plain evil happening in our country and throughout the world. The usual reaction is shore up our own side and project blame on someone else, usually in pejorative and denigrating terms. We certainly see this happening. If there is any peace, it is the peace we hold in our own hearts that is based in our belief that somehow Abba is in all this with us. While we believe this, it remains difficult to explain. The scripture readings might offer some insight.
The Responsorial Psalm is centered on doing what Abba asks. It says, “Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will”. It goes on to say, “I have waited, waited for the LORD”. Most of us could say this is what we are doing, waiting for the Lord to help us with all this nastiness. The same Lord that John calls the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. This phrase invites us to have an openness to Abba’s “will” in whatever is going on in our life at any given time. In our tradition we don’t try to understand something so we can believe it. We first choose to believe, to trust, and then let ourselves be led to a new and perhaps very different understanding of whatever the situation is. This is especially difficult with the increasing nastiness happening in our country right now. Each of us has the opportunity to ask, “Abba, what are you saying to me in all this? What is your will for me?” This might, or might not, involve an invitation to do something, or to be something.
What do we mean by the “will of God”? Many say we do God’s will when we follow the rules of a given religious tradition. The traditions differ among themselves, and many claim their way is the only “true” way. Rev Benjamin Cremer: “As a pastor, I’m much less concerned about those who question God or even doubt God than I am about those who claim to know the mind of God better than anyone else and therefore have the right to impose their beliefs on everyone else.” There is a lot of this going on these days.
“Here am I, Lord; I come to do your will” can be as personal as I want it to be. Our image of Abba influences on how we understand Abba’s will. If we see Abba as some kind of “super person” out there somewhere, we probably see Abba’s will as a series of laws we have to obey, a script we have to follow or we will somehow be punished. If our image of Abba is someone in us and with us in everything, we may come to understand Abba’s will as a relationship we work out as we make our choices in our everyday living. We choose whatever leads to a deepening of Abba’s life in us. And so our ongoing question is along the line of “what are you saying to me in this situation?”. We learn to live with a kind of trusting openness in everything in our life, the good and the not so good, to not judge people. “Be kind, everyone we meet is fighting a battle we know nothing about.” The more we open ourselves to Abba in our every day living, the more we come to recognize this as true. While we might have to make decisions based on others’ actions, we find we have no need to judge them as a person. We might even become aware of the persons causing or inflicting the evil and pain as fighting their own battle, as themselves hurting so much that the only way they can deal with their own pain is to inflict pain on others. This is not so unusual as we might like.
We come to recognize sin not just as a personal matter, but also as a social, a public systemic matter that has to be addressed. Where systems or institutions are causing people to suffer something has to be done. Our involvement, whatever it may be, is something we discover in our quiet time with Abba. Elie Wiesel: “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Probably few of us are actually indifferent. We just don’t know what to do.
“To those who accepted him, he gave power to become children of God”. It might be that, wherever and with whomever we are, we have the gifts Abba needs to bring healing to those around us who are fighting their own battles. We don’t have to know what the battle is. We are just invited to live the Grace, of the Present Moment, and let Abba work through us, kinda like a combat medic in a sticky situation. We can’t let ourselves be so caught up in any situation that we forget Abba’s invitation to spend time with him, get to “know” him, and go where he takes us, to where we are needed, which might be just down the hall. The reality of Abba can become a profound experience in the midst of chaos, as we let ourselves to led to where Abba wants us. Perhaps a great part of all this is the real experience that no matter where we are, we are never in any way alone, we are important, we are needed.
We can see John’s amazement in the Story, and from time to time we may see the same amazement in ourselves as we recognize the Lamb of God happening in so many people in our own day right now, in the midst of such terribleness. Perhaps we might be among them. Episcopal Bishop Donald Johnson: ”O God, in the dawn of jaundiced justice, in the day of twisted truth, let my life protest despair, let my presence proclaim peace, let my faith mirror mercy, until your ight outlasts the night, and your justice rises, sure and bright like morning”. All this is real. Nothing has to change. We are exactly where we need to be. Just sayin . . .