Month: June 2012

“And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest”

Summertime! The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist signals the beginnings of summer, falling as it always does near the summer solstice. For Canadians, too, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist is significant. On this day in 1497, John Cabot landed in Newfoundland. It marks, we might say, the beginning of the Christian encounter with this northern land we have come to know as Canada. John the Baptist has become the Patron Saint of Canada.

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“And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest”

“Sumer is icumen in”, as the Middle English round or madrigal of 13^th century origin puts it, perhaps one of the earliest forms of musical counterpoint. It somehow speaks to our celebration this morning. For “summer is a coming in” as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist reminds us since it always coincides with the week of the summer solstice. There is almost a double counterpoint about this feast, counterpoint referring to a set of opposing contrasts in musical terms which bring out a deeper resonance and harmony of sound. For we begin and we end the summer, especially the maritime summer, with the birth and death of the intriguing figure of John the Baptist. And, of course, the nativity of John the Baptist in the week of the summer solstice equally points us to the nativity of Christ in the week of the winter solstice; there is just that kind of complementary contrast between the week of the longest day and the week of the longest night, a kind of counterpoint of light and dark, we might say.

Such suggestive contrasts belong to the reflective richness of the Christian story, to the back and forth of light and dark, the interplay of birth and death, of nature and grace. Somehow we can only think in counterpoint, we might almost say. Each moment and story has its own integrity and yet illumines another and greater story.

There are only two nativities that the Christian Church celebrates on the basis of scriptural witness: the nativity of Christ and the nativity of John the Baptist. They are not equal. The whole point of the story of the nativity of John the Baptist is how it is preparatory for the birth of Christ. John the Baptist is the great and intriguingly complex figure who in a way sums up the whole of prophecy and points us to the new reality of Christ. “Art thou Elijah,” the Priests and Levites from Jerusalem ask him, to which he replied that he was “not the Christ,” nor the Prophet Elijah, but simply “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as saith the prophet Isaiah” and the one who points out to us the one who comes, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”

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“If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart,
and knoweth all things”

What does this signify? Only that God knows us better than we do ourselves, however much we deceive ourselves. In a way, the Epistle and Gospel reading this morning not only complement each other but provide a pretty strong encouragement to enter into what has been made known to us in Jesus Christ. Or to put it in another way, our excuses are absolutely nothing worth when it comes to the heavenly banquet, itself an image of the soul’s enjoyment and fellowship with God. Our relationship with God cannot be simply what and when and if we please. What kind of God would that be? A God of our own devising, which is to say, no God.

Our excuses do not excuse us. This is a tough but obvious truth. Worship simply has priority. It is as simple as that. And yet to say it misses the greater point. Worship cannot be coerced; it cannot be forced. It is about more than mere duty. It is about what we love. It is about our love of God. In the long end of the day, if we don’t want to be here we shouldn’t be here because we have missed the whole point of being here. You can’t sell the Gospel. It isn’t a market commodity. God is not for sale.

But you can and have to proclaim the Gospel. The proclamation of the Gospel is the repeated invitation to enter into a life with God. Today’s Gospel story is about the invitation to the kingdom of God’s blessedness. What launches the parable about our excuses is the proclamation: “blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” It is, to be sure, a blessing and not a right. The refusal of the invitation is a refusal of the blessing.

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