2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading: Is 49:3, 5-6; 1 Cor 1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34

Millions look at the same viral videos
but they see radically different things:
some say they see an act of self-defense
in response to domestic terrorism;
some say they see a deliberate act of murder
fueled by rage and hatred;
some say they see a tragedy unfold
that could and should have been avoided.
Perhaps some of these people 
are simply lying about what they see
in order to advance some agenda.
But I suspect in most cases,
people are being honest when the say 
that they see such different things,
because they are looking 
through different lenses,
lenses that filter what they see
and only let in certain sorts of truth.

You can think of lots of analogous cases
in our divided and quarrelsome culture.
Some say they see a lump of cells 
that might destroy a woman’s future,
while others say that see a child 
made in the image and likeness of God.
Some say they see law-breaking foreigners
who threaten American prosperity or security,
while others say they see neighbors in need of refuge
who enrich our economy through their industry
and our culture through their distinctive heritage.
And we find ourselves wondering how 
we can ever resolve our divisions and quarrels
when the realities we see
seem so radically different. 
We find ourselves wondering if we are fated
to see the world through lenses pre-crafted
to make us see as Democrats of Republicans,
liberals or conservatives,
woke or MAGA.

When people looked at Jesus
they also saw different realities.
Some saw a merely human teacher
whom one might follow if his message
seemed interesting or useful.
Some saw a dangerous agitator 
who aimed to overturn 
the religious and political status quo,
and probably get his foolish followers
and a bunch of innocent bystanders
killed in the process.
Some didn’t see him at all,
caught up in their daily lives
and far too busy to pay attention 
to an unimportant person 
speaking about unimportant matters.
People looked at him through different lenses,
lenses that filtered what they saw
and only let in certain sorts of truth.

John the Baptist, however, seemed to see
something in Jesus that no one else saw:
He saw the Lamb of God who takes away 
the sin of the world;
he saw the one on whom the Spirit
descended like a dove;
he saw the one who ranks ahead of him
because he existed before him.
John looked at Jesus with eyes of prophetic insight,
and saw with eyes illuminated by the light
that was coming into the world,
the light that shone in darkness
and which the darkness could not comprehend.

We Christians have been illuminated by this same light,
for we see in Jesus what John saw:
the living Lord whom death could not conquer.
And we, like John, are called to see all of reality
by the light of the Lamb who takes our sin away.
We are called to let Jesus be the lens
through which we see and understand the world.
But how often do we look at the world
through some other set of lenses?
Perhaps we do this because we have identified 
our favored ideology with the Gospel
and conformed Jesus to our political faction.
Or perhaps it is because we think that we need 
one set of lenses to see the truth of Jesus 
and another set of lenses 
to see the truth of the world.
But nothing in the Christian faith suggests
that Jesus conforms to our ideology
or that our sight can be divided up this way.
Jesus Christ lays claim to the whole of our lives
and calls us to see everything in his light,
to view all reality through the lens of the Gospel.

But what exactly does that mean?
How do we come to see the world 
in the light of Christ?
We must see his light 
by encountering him, as John did.
We must come to know him 
by immersing ourselves in the Scriptures
and by opening ourselves to the possibility
that doing so might turn our worldview upside down.
And if the strange world within the Bible,
the foolishness of the cross, 
and the weakness of the all-powerful God,
do not unsettle our presumptions 
about the world of our daily life,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found.
We must come to know him
by living more deeply 
the life of his body, the Church,
drinking more deeply 
of the free and prodigal grace
that is offered to us in the sacraments.
And if the freedom with which grace 
has been given to us in the Church
does not create in us a spirit 
of generosity and mercy toward others,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found.
We must come to know him
by seeking him out in those places
where he himself has told us he can be found:
in the hungry, the thirsty, 
the stranger, the naked, the imprisoned,
in the distressing disguise of the poor.
And if we see in the needy 
only a threat to be kept at bay,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found,
and woe to us on the day of judgment.

Scripture, sacrament, and service:
these are the places where we hear the voice:
“Behold the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sin of the world.”
These are the places where the light shines
so that we may come to see the world truly.
These are the places where 
our comfortable ideological lenses
can be stripped away
and reality seen,
as uncomfortable as that 
might be at times.
These are places where we learn 
to see the world together 
with the mind of Christ
through the body of Christ.

Let us pray that Christ the Lamb,

who takes away the sin of the world,

might have mercy on us all.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

VIDEO

John the Baptist, 
who featured so prominently 
in our Advent liturgies,
returns to us today as we embark 
on what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.”
Only now the word he speaks to us
is not “prepare the way of the Lord,”
but “behold the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sin of the world.”
The time of preparation has passed
and we are told to cast our eyes
upon the savior 
for whom we have 
been preparing.

But the life of a Christian
doesn’t really divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
as if, after a period of preparation
we are now ready to behold.
For what we are bidden to behold
is a mystery so profound
and a love so immense
that our minds fail in comprehension.
We are called to behold the Lamb 
who bears not simply our sins,
but the sin of the entire world,
the servant to whom God says,
“I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach 
to the ends of the earth.”
In beholding, we find ourselves
pitifully unprepared, 
totally incapable of receiving 
the one whom we behold,
not simply because of our sins
but because of the surpassing greatness of his love.

Think of how the words of John the Baptist
feature in our liturgy each week.
Before communion we are invited 
to behold the Lamb of God,
to behold the one who takes away
the sin of the world.
And how do we respond?
“Lord, I am not worthy…”
I am not worthy even though
I have confessed my sins 
and acclaimed your glory.
I am not worthy even though
I have listened to your word
and professed my faith in response.
I am not worthy even though 
I have offered my prayers 
and gifts at your altar
and cried out to the Lamb 
for mercy and peace.
I am not worthy even though
I have spent the entire liturgy
preparing for this moment,
because when now confronted 
with the reality
of the mystery of God’s love
present body and blood, 
soul and divinity,
in the power of the Spirit,
all my preparation seems as nothing.
I am not worthy to have you 
enter under my roof
not because I am sinful,
but because your love is so great
that the house of my soul cannot contain it.

We might be tempted to think 
that what is called for
is more preparation, 
more work to be done
before we can receive him,
more earnest effort on our part 
to enlarge the house of our soul.
But this is not the word
Christ speaks to us at that moment.
Rather, he says “blessed are those
who are called to the supper of the Lamb.”
Blessed are those called to feast on the one
who takes away the sin of the world.
Blessed are those to whom he says “come,”
to whom he speaks the word that is healing 
for our cramped, little souls.

For when Christ enters us sacramentally
the walls of our souls are pressed outward
by a love exceeding every human love,
the love that encompasses all,
the love that takes away the sin of the world.
The book of Sirach (24:21) says,
“He who eats of me will hunger still,
he who drinks of me will thirst for more.” 
The supper of the Lamb,
expanding our souls, 
only makes us hungrier—
hungrier to love him
and hungrier to love as he loves:
loving the enemy and the sinful,
loving the outcast and the stranger,
loving scandalously and without measure.

The life of a Christian
doesn’t divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
but there is a kind of rhythm to it.
We prepare,
we behold,
we receive,
and in receiving we are drawn into
a more rigorous kind of preparing,
a more perceptive sort of beholding,
a more profound way of receiving.
We confess our sins, knowing that,
despite our firm resolution of amendment,
we must still strive not to sin again.
We hear God’s word, knowing that, 
because we see still dimly, as in a mirror,
we must always listen to it anew.
We receive God’s grace, knowing that,
if God’s Spirit is to lodge in us,
then the house of our soul 
will once again have to be enlarged.

Becoming a Christian is not 
a one-and-done affair
in which, having prepared,
we now behold and receive.
The life of a Christian is not a straight line
but a kind of forward-moving spiral,
in which preparing, beholding, and receiving
are recurring moments along the way
of our pilgrimage into the mystery of divine love.
Thanks be to God that Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of our faith
joins us on that spiraling journey 
to the supper of the Lamb.
Lamb of God, 
who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us and grant us your peace.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

“If you see something, say something.”
This is the vaguely Big Brother-ish
post-September 11, 2001 slogan
of various U.S. security agencies,
encouraging Americans to keep
a suspicious eye on each other.
But, in a very different sense,
it might also serve
as the slogan for today’s Gospel:
“John the Baptist saw Jesus
coming toward him and said,
‘Behold, the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.’”
John saw something
and he said something.

A prophet is someone who is gifted
with a keen eye and a persistent voice.
And John the Baptist—
the last prophet of the Old Covenant—
has a particularly sharp eye.
He reads the signs of the times
in the light of Scripture,
and he keeps his eyes open,
looking not for potential threats,
but for the savior
whom God has promised to his people.
He also speaks out persistently,
crying out in the wilderness of fading hope,
“prepare the way of the Lord,”
unafraid of the religious and political leaders
who would silence him.
The prophet sees something
and he says something
so that others can see what he sees.

And what John the Baptist sees is the Lamb of God.
Others might have seen simply a young man
of undistinguished background
from an unimportant northern village,
who had no particular potential or promise.
But the keen eye of John, the eye of faith,
sees in Jesus the fulfillment of the promise of God.
John sees something and says something
so that we can see what he sees:
“Behold”—look! see!—“the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.”

In acclaiming Jesus as the “Lamb of God,”
John evokes a host of images from the Scriptures of Israel:
the Passover lamb whose blood marked the doorposts
of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt,
sheltering them from the angel of death;
the lambs sacrificed every morning and evening
in the Jerusalem temple to offer honor to God;
the servant of the Lord prophesied by Isaiah
who would be “led like a lamb to the slaughter”;
even the scapegoat that symbolically bore
the sins of the Israelites out into the wilderness.
John says what he sees in Jesus
so that we can see it too:
here is one who would bear away
not just the sins of the people Israel,
but the sins of the entire world,
who would rescue us
from the ancient curse of death
that afflicts the human family,
so that, as God says in our first reading,
“my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

A prophet has a keen eye and a persistent voice,
and John’s voice persists even today,
in the words of our liturgy:
when we sing the Gloria, John still acclaims Jesus
as “Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father”;
when the bread of Christ’s body is broken,
John still implores the Lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world
to grant his mercy and his peace
to us and to our troubled world;
when the priest invites us to communion,
John’s words still invite us to see what he saw:
“Behold the Lamb of God.”

Do we see it?
Do we see the Lamb of God,
the bearer of all our sins and sorrows,
present in his gathered people,
present in his word proclaimed,
present in the gift of himself in the Eucharist?
Perhaps it takes the keen eye of the prophet
to be able to see the Lamb here present
within the motley assembly of the Church,
within the often puzzling words of Scripture,
within the simple gifts of bread and wine.
But John tells us that Jesus has come
to baptize us with the same Spirit
that descended on him at his baptism,
to give us the eyes of a prophet,
eyes of faith to glimpse the Lamb
now present here in mystery.
This is what the gift of God’s Spirit does:
makes us able to see the Lamb of God
who is here with us now,
veiled in sacramental signs.

So if we see something,
do we say something?
Do we keep to ourselves
what we see with the eyes of faith,
or do we, like John, speak out,
perhaps at cost to ourselves,
so that others can see what we see?
We, no less than John,
have been given a prophet’s eyes
to see what is hidden
and a prophet’s voice,
to say what we see.
We, no less than John,
are called to be,
in fear and trembling
and with all due humility,
Christ’s heralds to others
so that they too might praise Jesus
as Lord, Lamb, and Son;
so that they too might implore his mercy and peace
on our broken and warring world;
so that they too might know themselves
graciously invited to the banquet of life.
If you see something, say something,
because the world waits to know
what can be seen with the eyes of faith.
______________________
Click here for the video of this homily.