Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Homily by Fr R Christopher Heying
Where are you?
Whoever we are and wherever we may be, we are invited to go out into the wilderness of our lives, there to hear a wild man address each of us directly and personally, “Where are you?”
Where are you?
Are you in that place to which Peter just beckons?
That while we wait for the fulfillment of God’s promised life, we might be in a place of “peace, without spot or blemish,” grateful for the patience God shows us because God does not want any to perish but all to come to metanoia, or in English, “repentance,” defined not as “a self-loathing for bad behavior” but rather an invitation to recognize where we actually are and then to metanoia, repent, to change our mind, to change our heart. And go in a new direction, toward that place God wants us to be, a place of life and peace.
Life and peace. That is what John invites us to through a “baptism of repentance,” a new and life-giving direction through a change of mind, a change of heart.
Where are you?
The Russian rabbi Shmeur Zalman, a mystic who died in the early eighteenth century, tells of having to choose early in his life between studying with a Rabbi known for scholarship or with a Rabbi known for prayer. Rabbi Zalman said that he knew something about being a student but little about prayer, and so he chose the path that would lead to a deepening prayer life, to an encounter with the living God.
At one point, his enemies conspired against him and had him arrested and jailed for his teachings. In the prison cell Rabbi Zalman was deep in prayer when the chief of police came in to check on him. The chief was somewhat taken aback by the rabbi’s calm demeanor in the face of persecution.
Whether it was to test him or a matter of true curiosity the chief asked the rabbi, “How are we to understand God, the all-knowing, saying to Adam, ‘Where are you?’”
The rabbi answered, “Do you believe that the scriptures of God are eternal and that every era, every generation, every human, is included in them?”
“Well, yes, I do,” the chief responded.
“Well then,” said the rabbi, “in every era, God calls to everyone: ‘Where are you?’ Where are you in your world?’ So many years have been allotted you; forty-six have now passed and so where are you in your life?’”
The chief, on hearing his exact age mentioned, pulled himself together, laid his hand on the rabbi’s shoulder and cried, “Bravo!”
But in his heart, the chief trembled. . . .
The rabbi and John the Baptist seem to be on the same track today, addressing us in the wilderness of our lives, revealing that God is asking not only Adam but each of us, “Where are you?”
Do you remember Adam’s response to God?
“I was hiding.”
Could it be that at this very moment we also may be hiding?
Hiding behind the false security of old behaviors that inevitably lead not to peace but to disease, unrest, disappointment, in others, in ourselves, even in God who seems somehow to have withdrawn from us?
Could it be that like Adam and everyman we find ourselves hiding?
Hiding from the truth that John the Baptist tells each person? That we need metanoia, repentance, a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of direction.
Recall the story of Jonah, how God called Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh and how Jonah went in the opposite direction, only to find himself “hiding” from God in the belly of a fish?
I am sure you remember that Jonah finally repented, changed his mind, and did what God asked him to do . . . even if it was with not a little reluctance.
But do you remember this?
When God saw that the people of Nineveh repented, changed their mind, what did God do?
Jonah 3.10 says “When God saw what [Nineveh] did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.”
That’s a little odd, isn’t it? To think that even God might be one to “repent,” to change his mind, to go in a new and life-giving direction, for the people of Nineveh who repented, for the people hearing John the Baptist who repented, for you and for me who are willing to stop and assess where we are and, with the assurance of God’s help, repent and go in a new and life-giving direction, toward the peace and spotlessness of which Peter speaks.
Where are you?
Are you at peace with God and others? Are you at peace with yourself? If you are, give thanks for God’s amazing grace and blessing.
But if you are more like Adam, more like Jonah, or perhaps, even more like God, then you also may rejoice, for even at this late hour it is by God’s forbearing patience we are given time to come out of hiding, to stop, to turn around, to repent, to change our mind, to change our heart, to go in a new and life-giving direction.
And should we find that in order to do this repenting, this changing, we need help, then indeed there is one who is coming who is more powerful than John the Baptist or anyone else, who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Where are you?