“Those who follow you, Lord will have the light of Life,” so today’s Responsorial goes (PS 1: 1-2, 3, 4 and 6).

What does it mean to follow?  Are we afraid to follow?  Does it show weakness in character or lack of confidence?  Does it fly in the face of the Western mentality of self-making individualism?  Perhaps so.

What if “following” is just another way of saying “be open.”  To be open to life and experiences is not to naively allow everything to impact you in such a way so that all you can do is react.  Being open is more about allowing yourself to be taught by other things, people, and life experiences.  It is a confident embrace of something that can touch you in a way that you can be enhanced, transformed, and NEW.  It doesn’t have to be a loss of identity, but really the possibility of becoming more of what you already are.

Matthew (MT 11: 16-19) has Jesus almost reprimanding us today…

““To what shall I compare this generation?    It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another,   ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance,   we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’   For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’  The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’  But wisdom is vindicated by her works.”

For some reason, this description reminds me of the consumer Christmas season that begins somewhere around Halloween, crescendos on Black Friday and the various Cyber sales days, and then does its best to derail the Advent season of hope.  It seems to be centered on expectations on what we think we want and need and what others want and need.  Similar to the children described in the Gospel, we are either satisfied or dissatisfied, based primarily upon how things and people meet our expectations.  This can quite quickly become a closed system and erupt into chaos wherein people compete for “items” of expected satisfaction.  Here, we are the children in the marketplace “piping our tunes” of expectations and making judgments based upon whether or not they are met.

The heartbreaking flipside of this consumer Christmas season is that there is a deep current of brokenness that flows underneath the surface.  Loneliness, grief, and even despair make their presence known intensely, so that many find this time of year an endurance test that must be undergone.  This is the cross already present in the Incarnation, the death that must be undergone for new life to be possible.   Truly this is sadly a hidden truth of Advent.  In our “waiting,” there is the sometimes painful pregnancy of something new and unexpected that can heal in some way the brokenness that we experience.  This is the difficult following that can seem like groping in the darkness and looking for the hand ahead to reach out to us.

Then, we have Isaiah (IS 48: 17-19) describing God as the Holy Teacher Who will show us the way to go, if we just would follow:

“I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go. If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river, and your vindication like the waves of the sea; Your descendants would be like the sand”

Following the leader here translates into following the Lover!  When we can enter into relationships of trust in God and with each other, then expectations become modified or even sometimes disappear completely.  The anger, grief and loneliness can be assuaged by a growing community of fellow sojourners.  The horizon of desires widens so that the edges of our dreams and hopes can become passageways that allow us to grow outward simultaneously allowing others in.  This is the “prosperity” like a river that will flow, as Isaiah says, making the “descendants” (works) in our lives as numerous as the sands.

There is a Gospel of “Prosperity” here that has nothing to do with making money or obtaining possessions.  This is consumerism turned on its head.   What we gain is each other, and in this process, ourselves.  This is the God who calls all of us to follow the Love that leads through brokenness to healing.  This is allowing both John the Baptist and Jesus, the “demon” and the “drunkard” (as identified in the Gospel) to teach us OUTSIDE of our judgment upon them.  When we begin to do this, we do prosper as human creatures of dignity and love.  And with this mutual respect and care we challenge each other – but the challenge is not only about changing behavior but changing the perspectives of our hearts.  Once this happens, the “good works” flow naturally.

The “light of life” that we have when we follow the Lord is the hand-in-hand momentum of changed hearts and loving works.  This is the prosperity gained, where Jesus says in the Gospel, “wisdom is vindicated.”  When we can trust the One we follow, then we can “relax” enough to see those others around us on the same journey and grow the trust forward.  We can share tears of loneliness and joy, which always walk together.  This is the light that grows!

Then, as the Psalmist declares, we become …

“…like a tree planted near running water,     That yields its fruit in due season,     and whose leaves never fade.”

Peace

Thomas

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.  There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”  – RUMI