…the fifteenth
year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of
Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the
region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the
high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of
Zechariah in the wilderness. [Luke
3:1-2]
Every time I have set myself to get the history of this
period straight in my mind I have wound up in confusion. It is impenetrable. Tiberius never wanted to be emperor, but he
was – that should have been quite a good sign, but in fact he was what my
mother would have called, “Not very nice at all”… to say the least of it. And if you ever are tempted to think you
belong to a dysfunctional family you should take heart. These people all emerged from families marked
by murder and plots and nepotism – Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas,
Philip, Lysanius, and the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas – represented a
coterie of corruption and crime, as toxic a bunch of political unpleasantness
as you would find in any age including our own.
Then, into this climate of fear and oppression comes a word
from God. Most of our contemporary
dysfunctional culture would not give two minutes of attention to any alleged
word from God. But in any case it is not
as though God somehow intervenes with some news, some instruction, some wisdom,
that hadn’t been heard before. It is
more that a prophet, a person disciplined to listen, announces that there is a
word from God we need to know. There are
prophets in our day also, and they prophesy in a world environment in many ways
strikingly similar – but like John the Baptist they are out on the margins and
scarcely noticed, certainly not on the official Christmas card list.
What John the Baptist hears is a message about repentance. The Greek word Luke chooses is µετανοια (metanoia), and plenty of scholars regard
the English word repent or repentance as a serious mistranslation. John the Baptist was not inviting people to
feel sorry for their sins. God’s word is
a command to change, to move into a new life, more accurately to be changed – metanoia means change. The best response to a world of corruption
and violence, lies, injustice and the misuse of power, is to be different from
that – as Jesus put it, It shall not be
so among you -- within the world, of course, loving and hospitable, but
different. Baptism signifies this entry
into the new obedience and response to God and life.
As we know, our culture quite often does not agree that it
is OK to be different. If you are in any
way different, you may make some people feel insecure, even angry – but, like
any contemplative, you simply and gently be it without needing to justify it. Christians, all followers of Jesus, have at
their best always been at odds with a world scorning to hear any word from
God. Sometimes we join that world, and
sometimes we retreat from it. But never
could we feel that our home is in the world of violence and lies, even in our
families and among those we love. Jesus
taught us another way. It entails change
at the level of the heart. That is metanoia. Benedictines have a vow called conversatio – it means openness to
conversion and change by the Spirit of God in Christ, each day. That is the point of our prayer, Christian
Meditation, to be silent and still in what Jesus called the πνευµα, the wind of
the Spirit – blowing, as a local prophet, James K Baxter, pointed out, both inside and outside the fences.
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