The Third Monday of Advent -- December 12, 2011

Matthew 21:23 - 27

Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."


I sometimes say to people that the longest journey they will ever take is the 16 inches from their head to their heart.

Of course, that's a metaphorical journey, but the point is that for those of us who spend a lot of time in our head thinking about, understanding, and figuring out, a life that involves the heart and soul can seem very foreign. In fact, many of us resist that life.

We are a society and generation that lives with the belief that having the right knowledge is the key to life. If you just know enough, or know the right things, you can succeed and get ahead. We measure people by how much they know. We formally give them titles, even add to their names: "Dr.", "Rev.", "Ph.D.", "Prof.", "J.D.", and so on.

We value formal education and use it to rank people, to place them in an appropriate slot in a tiered-system of worth.

I'm not against education or knowing.

I am against giving it ultimate authority in our world.

So in the text for today, at least these two things happened:

First, the chief priests and elders were completely given to games of the mind, figuring out and discussing who Jesus was and how he had the credentials to do what he was doing. These accusers -- really trying to entrap Jesus -- lived in a world where figuring things out, then debating or discussing them, was the norm for life. In that sense, they were very much like we are in the 21st century.

But Jesus resisted their head-games by proposing for them a question they could not answer, a riddle they could not solve.

Second, Jesus appeared on the scene without formal credentials. He had no authority in the traditional sense, no external validation -- degrees, positions, formal titles -- for who he was and what he was doing. His validation was internal, experiential, and these leaders who lived in a world of rank, status, and external validation had no frame of reference for this One who lived only with the internal validation of the Father.

The text challenges what I value.

The text challenges how I see people and relate to others by virtue of title and position.

The text affirms the inner authority that comes from experience and personal engagement with God.

I'm trying to make a 16-inch journey.

The First Tuesday of Advent -- November 30, 2010

Luke 10:21 - 24

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”


You'll notice that today's passage from Luke is full of the language of seeing and hearing, hiddenness and revealing. These words represent an underground current that runs through the Gospels. It is a current that is especially strong during Advent.

For all of us there are things hidden. The basic condition of our humanity is that we don't see what is real. We live in illusion. We don't see what is most true about ourselves, others, the world, and most of all about God.

Furthermore, since this condition of un-seeing and un-hearing is fundamentally a part of our condition as humans, it is completely unfair to chastise persons for not seeing what they cannot see. Yet, so much of traditional religious expression holds people over a barrel for not knowing what they don't know or for not seeing what they are not able to see.

So if chastisement for not seeing and not knowing is out of bounds, what should be our posture?

The prophets of old may not have seen the fullness of God, according to Jesus' words, but they spoke what they did see. And beyond speaking what they saw and proclaiming the experience of God they had, these prophets pointed to a time when the incompleteness of seeing and knowing would be fulfilled.

They spoke with confidence and faith about what they knew and experienced of God. But there was also a humility about the prophets. They did not know what they did not know; however, they knew that they did not know. It makes all the difference.

Strange as it may seem, the beginning place of seeing is to acknowledge that you don't see. The beginning place of knowledge and wisdom is to confess that you don't know.

During Advent we confess that we live in darkness. Like the Hebrew Prophets, we testify to what we have experienced of God. We also acknowledge that we don't see totally. The illusion with which we live darkens our sight, clouding both our seeing and our knowing.

The light embodied by Jesus illumines our lives, enables our seeing, enlivens our knowing.

This is how Thomas Merton speaks of seeing and knowing in the spiritual life:

In the spiritual life there are no tricks and no short cuts. . . . One cannot begin to face the real difficulties of the life of prayer and meditation unless one is first perfectly content to be a beginner and really experience oneself as one who knows little or nothing, and has a desperate need to learn the bare rudiments. Those who think they "know" from the beginning never, in fact, come to know anything. . . .

We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life.