The Word Among Words

“A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’” (Lk 3:4)

Last Sunday I proposed that Advent invites us to depth: to live and think and feel and pray deeply.  In the present context of a pandemic of sadness, anxiety, helplessness, and guilt camouflaged by a globalized superficiality, the call to live deeply can take the form of courage.  Courage not to give in to distraction, dissipation, and drunkenness; courage to face the world as it is; courage to stand before the Son of Man without dying of fright.  He it is who strengthens our hearts to inhabit the world as he did: in holiness and justice.  We do this best not as isolated individuals but as a community of believers, Christ’s own body.

Today, on the Second Sunday of Advent, the Scriptures once again invite us into the depths.  The gospel begins with a historical tableau composed of the rulers, the people of power and influence at the time of Jesus: Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas.  In our day we might reimagine the text this way:
In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic,
when Joe Biden was President of the United States, 
and Xi Jinping President of the People’s Republic of China,
Vladimir Putin President of Russia,
Boris Johnson Prime Minister of Great Britain,
and Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany, 
during the tenure of Tedros Ghebreyesus as Director-General of the WHO,
and António Guterres as Secretary-General of the United Nations…

And what happens next?
“The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.” (Lk 3:2)
The word of God comes to one who is able to hear it.  John could hear because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1:15).  This Spirit drew him to the wilderness, a place of solitude, prayer and fasting, of withdrawal from the noise of the world so that the voice of one crying out could be heard.  And, hearing the word, he became the voice crying out the message of God to his people.  The word of God is sent in our historical moment too, to those who can hear it.  

How do we become hearers of the word?  How can we be so transformed by this word as to become a voice for God’s word in the world?  In John’s Gospel, Jesus complains to his opponents that “there is no place in you for my word” (Jn 8:37).  Monks and nuns seek to make space for the word by following John into a place of solitude, prayer and fasting.  We withdraw from the world, or more precisely from the ways of the world, from immersion in mainstream culture, in order to claim for ourselves the freedom to choose to live differently.  We feel called to live a life radically patterned on the gospel, shaped by the word, in the particular form given us by the monastic charism.  But we do not have a monopoly on withdrawal.  All Christians are called to live in and for the world and its people, but at a certain distance from its predominant values and ways of proceeding.  Pope Francis frequently warns against worldliness, which he describes as selfishness oriented to material comfort and power.  “Worldliness is a culture,” according to the pope. The world “has superficial values” and “no fidelity because it changes according to the circumstances.”  To live deeply requires a withdrawal from the spirit of the world.

What does this withdrawal imply?  Does it mean sealing off the channels of communication completely to all that is profane and exposing ourselves only to the holy?  Does it mean only reading books written before the sixteenth century?  Does it mean a deliberate embrace of ignorance with regard to the things of the world, things that make us uncomfortable, things that we disagree with?  To imagine that this kind of withdrawal would be sufficient for the conversion of our hearts or of the world does not take adequate account of reality.  We all know we bring our share of the world in with us, through our inherited patterns of thought and behavior.  As Pope Francis makes clear, the world is not only “out there” but also “in here.”  St Benedict puts it this way: “Your way of acting should be different than the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else” (RB 4.20-21) and his chapter on the Tools of Good Works could be considered a long commentary on the deeper meaning of separation from the world.  Our own conversion to Christ and our part in the world’s conversion cannot exclude conversation with the world in which we live.  I think this is what we mean when we say we aim to be “adequately informed”.  It is not a matter of closing down completely but of thinking deeply and critically about what we hear.

St Paul tells the Philippians:
“This is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value.” (Phil 1:9-10)

If we live in conversation with the world – the world within our own hearts and that which surrounds us – we need to learn to hear God’s word not just in silence, but amidst a cacophony of other words.  Our tradition calls this discretion or discernment of spirits, the central monastic practice of examining our thoughts critically to identify their origins, causes and authors.  The practice applies equally to what comes to us from without, what we read, hear, or see.  To discern what is of value is our purpose as we inform ourselves about the conditions and events of the world so as to better serve this world by the gift of our lives.

In the first of his Conferences, John Cassian employs an interesting analogy for the process of weighing and measuring the value of whatever comes into our minds.  He describes how a moneychanger judges a coin by asking a series of questions.  I think we could use this to analyze our exposure to the media.
1) Is it real gold? – I ask myself: Does this word reflect the teaching of the Holy Spirit or of worldly philosophy?  Am I unreflectively influenced in my thinking and my choices by the values of materialism, moral relativism, hedonism or worldly ambition that I encounter in the media?
2) Does it bear the head of the king or a usurper? – I ask myself: Does this word reflect an authentic or mis-interpretation of Scripture.  Is Scripture or religious language being manipulated to justify a spurious course of action?  Is language of rights and duties and freedoms being so misused?
3) Is it genuine or counterfeit? – I ask myself: Does this word promote vice dressed as virtue, giving the appearance of goodness but masking excess.  Is rigid adherence to some spiritual or moral principle being placed before the more profound demands of love?  Is an appearance of philanthropy masking self-interest?
4) Is it the correct weight? – I ask myself: Is the proposed action weighty with common goodness and fear of God, or light with ostentation, presumption, pride, or vainglory?  Are my motivations colored by a need for praise, self-justification, power, or prestige?  Am I being riled up to support a cause that I do not fully understand and for unclear motives?  Am I being lulled into the false security of thinking that nothing is asked of me?

The word of God is sent to us in our day and circumstances just as it was to John in his.  And, just like him, we are called to respond to the Spirit within us, calling us to listen deeply, think deeply and respond to give voice to the word of God in the world by the way we live.  Today the gospel tells us that: “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Lk 3:6).  We await a day when God will come openly, not only to those who are prepared to listen, but to all without exception, ready or not.  All flesh.  In the meantime, amidst the confusing clamor of many words, our careful listening, our efforts to discern what is of value, our preparing a way for God’s word in our hearts, helps the world to be ready for its Lord.

Image: Icon of St John the Baptist by Andrei Rublev