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Some evangelical provocations …
It is all upside down. God stands in line for man. Sweaty and sunburned, God is waiting in the crowd for John to be baptized. It’s all different, abnormal. Or maybe Christianity is different and abnormal? Sometimes, when I don’t know what to do, I look at the world and do the opposite… And it works. What’s more, completely opposite to the reason contaminated by the world, because what is comfortable does not always mean God …
Baptism and other sacraments in the practice of the Church … All these norms, prohibitions, laws, instructions (probably we will catch up with Jewish regulations soon) – it is a bit like closing a wild animal in a zoo, giving it rules and paragraphs to read. But if the heart is wild and untrained, will the law educate it or at least lead to the Truth? I don’t know if John wrote Jesus a baptism certificate and if everything was in accordance with the laws and regulations, but I know that Jesus lived according to the grace he received, because he felt gifted, beloved, he felt like a son of the Father … This is the task of the Church – that is, all of us! – lead to an encounter with God, so that man no longer lives like others, but as a chosen and beloved son or daughter.
Sometimes, when I go out to the pulpit, I tremble and cut, because … I am afraid to distort the Gospel of Jesus with my images and ways of reading … And I would like to remain silent and look at Jesus with people … God’s humanity lined up, no noise, no being the first, some Super Star or even pointing to himself.
Yesterday a young boy came to me saying that his life has failed, he is failing … He thinks that he is wasting time and would like to do something great … I understand him, I have that too sometimes … And then I hear a gentle voice: And who told you that you should be great, that you should mean something, be successful, that everything should be as you want? Or maybe it was the one who asked about prohibitions and forbidden fruit in paradise?
After all, the way of the Gospel is the way of Christ, and therefore of diminishing oneself, disappearing, so that He may grow. After all, Jesus could be a patron, sorry for the scandalous word – losers … A great prophet and teacher, a miracle worker, who somehow did not convert the crowds, and His chosen ones fled from persecution and death like kids stealing apples from a neighbor’s orchard. Paradoxically, the Cross – humanly speaking – a defeat – turned out to be a victory. And near there were twelve, crowds healed and converted … There was Mother, John and a few weeping women. Oh, and the Church of God…
If you want to be so big and important, also you, brother priest, then go somewhere else, look at your navel saying: ommm ommmm … Maybe then you will grow up – because Christianity is not a struggle for influence and importance, Christianity is not an excessive self-focus, but closeness to Christ!
God in line to see a man (John the Baptist) has patience and tenderness, but a man in line to see God is just a circus. How is it in the queue (I know it and I know it perfectly), and it screams, and it pushes its elbows, and it scams and lies, if only closer, it is better, as the little man came up with, because he knows better … Yes, we are in all these are funny and clownish … And all you have to do is stand in the queue to Heaven and slowly move towards the entrance … Meanwhile, we, circus performers, make noise around what should be done in silence and run like a dog behind the tail, when you just have to wait …
The church is not an express service point or a quick service bar, so that the customer can quickly go and give way to others, after all, profit counts and numbers. The Church is the source and life, and life is lived …
It’s ridiculous to come to a spring and draw water with a rusty scoop. You have to bend down and drink and come back and drink to live, and we still can’t do that …
This Sunday invites us to rejoice. Rejoice or hear God’s voice for the first time: You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter! – this is your dignity and greatness! Being a child of God!
I took you by the hand so that you would go … We were chosen, gifted, beloved to live and to go. A church going out, looking, a hospital for broken life. And we sit there quietly like in a cinema, in a comfortable armchair and pretend to participate and eat just any pop-corne, so that God forbid us not to get involved . How many people have found their way to God and live God thanks to you? Don’t excuse yourself … How do your children, your catechesis students, your parishioners, friends, family live by grace and grace?
Pastoral success is an answer to the question: how many people who have never been to the church today find themselves in it and have life … and live in grace and Grace? Not how many people we have in the church, but how many of those who are still missing have converted? … Hmm, a question that is embarrassing for everyone and probably embarrassing …
Let’s line up to God to receive Him, to live in Him, because we need it like air. And let us go, let us boldly carry Him to the world, because the world needs Him.
