2nd Sunday of Advent/ “The Importance of Proclaiming Truth”
2nd Sunday of Advent/ “The Importance of Proclaiming Truth”
Not many of us would want to have John the Baptist at our holiday party. Nor would we want to have to work with him. John was a prophet. Prophets are difficult to get along with.
Prophets have attitudes that most people don’t have. One thing can have a God given mission, a mission from the time they were born. The story of the birth of John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke identifies him as a prophet. Unfortunately, we never read that story at Sunday Mass. Zachariah (John’s father) goes to the temple to perform his liturgical duties as a priest. When he enters the holy of holies to offer sacrifice an angel appears telling him that he and his elderly wife Elizabeth are to have a son. Zachariah and Elizabeth had asked God for a child, so the birth of John was an answer to a prayer. Other miraculous events surrounded the birth of John. We can imagine John being told from a young age that he had a divine mission in life. When people think that God has told them to proclaim a message it is hard to get them to back down. John was that way. He believed his role was to set the stage for a dramatic revolution in the life of Israel. But Israel had to purify itself. Israel had to reform its moral life so that it would be ready to follow a savior when he came.
Prophets also believe that they must be willing to speak truth to power. John did that with King Herod. Herod was involved in infidelity. Herod was involved in sexual misconduct, but he was also unfaithful to the desires of God in other ways. He was cooperating with a foreign power. Rome treated the people of Israel with cruelty. People were also bled by unjust taxes. Herod looked the other way. John asked Herod to be the King he was supposed to be. Herod told him to be silent. John believed that he spoke the truth, a truth revealed to him by God. He would not back down. He ended up with his head on a platter.
Prophets also have a belief that they are never to become the message. Prophets are only to proclaim the message. John believed the message he preached of renewal and change would live on. As he said, “I must decrease. The one who comes after me must increase (John 3:30).” And it is this quality that is most telling if we want to understand who a true prophet is. An authentic prophet doesn’t use their status for personal gain.
Prophets are needed in every time and place. We especially need them today. Our society is in a state of disarray. Our church is also polarized. Are these new developments? If we are candid, we would have to say no they aren’t. The issues we wrestle with today have been percolating for a long time. We might have thought that evils like racism, injustice, clericalism, poverty, pollution and a host of other problems had gone away, but they haven’t.
The question, we might ask, is are we going to be any better accepting the prophets that appear in our midst than were the people of John the Baptist’s day. How do we know who the true prophets are who hold up a mirror to us teaching us what we need to change?
We can only recognize authenticity if we have a regard for the truth. Prophets do not simply criticize those in power, but they speak truth to power. A false prophet will tell lies to those in power. A false prophet will tell the people in in authority that they are right even when they are wrong. We remember that Satan is often is often called the prince of lies. When we reject objective truth, we are on the road to a society unraveling. As Jesus says in John 8:44, “the devil…..has never based himself in truth; the truth is not in him. Lying speech is his native tongue.” Prophets are never attacked for the truth they speak. No, they are quickly discredited by the powerful who question the prophet’s credentials. In the case of Jesus, he was dismissed as a simple uneducated carpenter from Galilee.
The other thing we must pay attention to if we want to determine who true prophet is whether they try to hang on to their privilege. A prophet is willing to lose everything to stand up for truth. When a person proclaims a message at the risk of losing everything then we probably need to pay attention to that person.
In the present moment we need to remember the story of John the Baptist. We need to also pray for prophetic leadership in our world.
Please note: rough draft, grammar may not be perfect.