What Should We Do?
As I read the gospel passage for this Sunday, for one moment I thought that John the Baptist, with his recommendations to the people was talking to us here in T&T. I was also reminded however of people who are ill with some dreaded disease. After having been burdened with high fees by conventional doctors and found no relief, their hope of a cure is almost non-existent. Then they are advised to go to an herbalist as a last resort. Their question is always the same, “What must I do, what must I take, if I am to find relief?”
This situation is very similar to the one which the poor people of the time of Jesus faced. Poverty was thought to be a sign of God’s displeasure and to be a tax collector or soldier was even worse because these categories of persons collaborated with the hated Romans in oppressing God’s chosen people and so were considered outside the possibility of salvation. Added to this was the enormous amount of prescriptions of the law, which the poor and unlettered did not understand nor could fulfil. Salvation was therefore practically beyond their reach. Into this situation comes John the Baptist with a simple message of salvation which all could understand. He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. The people understood that they had to change their lives and so they ask, “What should we do?”
To all of them, the poor, the tax collectors and the soldiers, the message was the same. “It was to love their neighbour in the concrete circumstances of their lives.” And so the poor had to share their cloaks with the person who had none, the tax collectors had to collect only the prescribed, the soldier had to be satisfied with their wages and not practice extortion, or accuse anyone falsely. In this way John was telling the people that they could all achieve salvation, no matter what they might have done in life.
In our own times many good religious people tend to put extra burdens on people. At times people are told that they must belong to some specific group to be saved. They must do the life in the spirit seminar, or youth 2000, or some such thing. They are told that they must do specific prayers, say special psalms etc., etc., and when persons cannot fulfil all the prescriptions which we put upon them, they think that they are too bad to be saved. Today the Gospel tells us that what is needed for salvation is a change of life in which “we love the neighbour in the concrete circumstances of her/his life.” You and I are called therefore to bring the hope of salvation to those who have almost no hope by convincing them that salvation is theirs if they are capable of that change of life.
Salvation always comes about through a change in the way of doing things, be this salvation physical, financial or spiritual. All other salvations however point to the one salvation which must be pre-eminent in our lives, i.e. the spiritual. The saints understood this and worked constantly at changing their lives for the better. They never thought that they were good enough. The Church has always understood this and so we speak of the “Ecclesia semper reformanda!” ie., the Church always in the way of conversion. You and I, as we await the Lord’s coming, are called to do two things. We must be like John the Baptist, encouraging others, by the example of our own lives, to that change of life which is necessary for salvation. WQE must also be people of hope, bringing the hope of salvation to those who have lost hope. These two things all the saints did, whether it was through education, health care, or preaching, and this is one of the ways in which we await creatively the coming of God into our own lives.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, we thank you for the teaching of John, the Baptist. You give us hope that in spite of our great weaknesses, salvation is available to us, if only we put aside our selfishness and learn to love. Give us the grace to love and help us to encourage others to the change of life which will also assure them salvation. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our Mother and your Son Jesus. Amen
Gospel Luke 3:10-18
The crowds asked John the Baptist, “What should we do?” He said to them in reply, “Whoever has two cloaks should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He answered them, “Stop collecting more than what is prescribed.” Soldiers also asked him, “And what is it that we should do?” He told them, “Do not practice extortion, do not falsely accuse anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”
Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ. John answered them all, saying, “I am baptizing you with water, but one mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.
