January 16, 2011

Second Sunday Ordinary : C 2011

At the center of our lives there is an innate tension.

On one hand, I want to be different, I want to stand out, be separate, be unique and independent. From the minute we’re born, our independence and uniqueness begin to make their protest. I don’t want to be the same as everyone else. This isn’t just a mark of pride or ego. Nature intended it that way. No two human persons are the same, not even identical twins.

We are meant to develop a uniqueness, and grow into a woman or man such as there has never been one on this planet. Our uniqueness is part our gift to others and so one element of growing into maturity is having the strength to let that uniqueness emerge.

Priest friend: my people want the front of the bus, the back of Church and to be the center of attention.

But we have an equally strong, almost contradictory, impulse inside us. We also yearn for unity, community, family, intimacy, connection, solidarity, oneness with others and the world. As much as we want to be separate and stand out, we also want to be connected, to fit in, to take our proper place. And this isn’t necessarily a mark of timidity or fear.

One of the marks of maturity is the desire to, dissolve into a bigger oneness that makes up the family of humanity and the Body of Christ. All the religions of the world invite us to this; namely, to move into a compassion, an empathy, and a solidarity with others that makes that larger reality more important than our private lives.

Thus we live always with a certain tension: On the one hand, we want to stand out, even when we want to be one with everybody.

That tension is reflected in baptism itself. ( I know some of you are thinking, he read last week’s gospel. Didn’t we just have this on Feast of Baptism of Jesus last Sunday?) On the one hand, baptism is meant to set us apart, separate us from the world. Indeed the very word, ECCLESIA, from which we derive the word Church, has this connotation.

Ecclesia comes from two Greek words, EK KALEO (EK, “out of”, KALEO “to call”) To be baptized into the church, at one level, means to be “called out of” the world and set apart from others.

But, just as equally, baptism calls us into family, community, and the Body of Christ (where, as one cell within a living organism, we are not meant to stand out but to humbly be part of something far larger than our own private reality). Thus, baptism sets us apart and calls us into solidarity with others, both at the same time.

This makes for the tension we feel in the church: How much, and in what way, should Christians set themselves apart from the world?

Should we, for instance, set ourselves apart publicly by external symbols? Do we make the sign of the cross in a restaurant? Wear a religious habit or a clerical collar? Put a sign on our car that speaks of Jesus? Wear jewelry or do some thing to make ourselves stand out in public?

There is no right or wrong answer to those questions. Why? Because we are called, always, to do both. We are called to set ourselves apart, even as we are called to disappear into humanity. Practically that means that we must somehow radiate both. But how to do that?

Jesus doesn’t offer an easy answer. As far as we can tell, he never set himself apart by his clothing or any other externals. John the Baptist, on the other hand, did and in a very pronounced way. Everything in his appearance and message spoke of “otherness”.

Jesus, it seems, set himself apart, not by externals, clothing and symbols, but through the integrity of his life. Where he showed himself to be differen by not sinning, by praying for whole nights, by fasting and going off by himself into the desert, by forgiving his enemies, by constant intimacy with God, and by being morally faithful when everyone else betrayed.

But what does that mean for us practically? We have a long tradition, stretching from John the Baptist to Mother Theresa, that suggests that external symbols are important, even as we have an equally long tradition that suggests that God doesn’t call us to set ourselves apart in this way.

We are “called out of world”. That is where we get the word Vocation. In Baptism, each of us is called to radiate the light of Christ, to be a servant . Some will radiate more the fact that we are set apart, while others will radiate more the fact that we are called to serve in the midst of humanity.

What is most essential is that each of us discern our vocation, our calling, and then have the courage to follow