Homily for 15 December (Silver Jubilee Mass)

At the closing Mass of the Australian Catholic Youth Festival the Archbishop talked about questions in the Gospel. Questions which put to Jesus and put by Jesus to others. The questions are important. They questions invite us into dialogue, a conversation with Jesus. In today’s Gospel John the Baptist languishing in prison sends his disciples with a question. Perhaps he both wanted them to relay Jesus’ answer back to him and to hear Jesus’ answer for themselves. He must decrease while Jesus must increase. Still Jesus did not quite fit the image of the Messiah John seemed to present: ‘His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

How does Jesus answer John? ‘The blind see again, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised to life and the Good News is proclaimed to the poor’. Jesus bears…he is the consolation of God. This Messiah consoles God’s people and calls for a response to the consolation he brings. Consolation sounds pretty good; why would anyone have problem with consolation? John seemed to. Many of Jesus hearers including at times his disciples did so. In fact we all do. We want God to be a bigger, perhaps a somewhat slightly better version of us. We have an idea of how God should be doing his God-ing. We like consolation if it is on our terms. And there are some people who do not deserve consolation, but who deserve a good smiting.

A part – I think a significant part – of the journey of discipleship is learning – slowly, grudgingly, painfully at times – that God’s consolation is what we truly need, that his consolation is freeing and life-giving, that he does not draw the boundaries of those deserving of consolation as we do; he doesn’t draw any boundaries at all. No one is at the margins for God. Every person is at the centre of his love and concern; he wants to console all his people.

In truth God has said, ‘no’ to most of the things for which I asked. It is not that he did not answer them or help me, but most of the time he did not help me in the way I wanted. Many people think that I am ‘nice’, but here would be quite a few people who have worked with me over the years who would say that I was very awkward and opinionated. I would have been a lot of worse if God had given me all for which I asked.

We learn – and I still argue with God a great deal about this – to receive consolation from Christ not where we expect to find it or want to find it, but where he chooses in his goodness to give it. And when we allow him to open our eyes to his loving, gentle consolation we learn what it is to say that Jesus is Lord and that this truly is Good News. It is Good News that Jesus is God and we are not!

John the Baptist was a lot wiser because he was more humble than I am, than we are, but he still had to learn from Jesus who is the wisdom of God. In ten days we celebrate the Wisdom of God’s being born of the Virgin and lying in a manger. The consolation of God is so unexpected and unforeseeable, but so wonderful, freeing, life-giving. The consoling wisdom of God which out of sheer tender love raises us up to be part of his Kingdom of heaven.