WHAT SHOULDN'T WE DO

About ten years ago now, my sister and her son – my nephew – were on a vacation trip to Washington DC, and as part of that trip they visited the Capital building in order to experience some of the beauty and history of that important place.  As they arrived there was an elderly man seated in a chair on the plaza out front who was advocating for the cause of American military veterans, in housing, in health, and in benefits.  Apparently this man was there almost all the time.  My sister and her son had their picture taken with him and exchanged a few pleasant words before heading in to the building.  They sent the picture to me.  That guy in the chair was former Senator Bob Dole, who was buried yesterday at the age of 98.  I was amazed.  Here was a person who had been once one of the most influential political figures in the country, a candidate for President, and now a relatively aged person, devoting his days to advocate for others.

I’m sure that many from a younger generation would have had no idea who he was.  But to the elders, who had been around for 40 years or so, like me, he was unmistakable.  He was the senate majority leader for years, and who was now demonstrating in his retirement that there exists something more important than himself and his party.  There exists the need of people who have difficulty in providing for themselves.  Sometimes that kind of character can seem like ancient history now. 

And so we come to the scriptures on this Third Sunday of Advent, and so the people come to John the Baptist with the repeated question, “What should we do?” What does repentance actually require of us as we live?  And John sort of turns that question around by saying, “Here’s what you shouldn’t do” and in various ways he’s telling his various audiences that what they must not do is to make life all about taking care of themselves, ourselves, and only ourselves.  To the relatively wealthy – the ones with more than one cloak – his reply is to quit accumulating more goods for yourselves while there are people out there who have nothing.   To the tax collectors – the ones who have the ability to treat others unfairly for the sake of their own personal gain, he says, “Stop that.”  To the soldiers – the ones with the power to threaten and to extort and to fabricate stories about people they don’t like, he says, “Stop that too.”

So what should we do?  We should live with honesty, integrity, generosity, justice, and self-offering, aware that I’m not the only person in the world.  I stand in a web of necessary relationships with every other human being – especially with the most vulnerable.  And every kind of sin that there is represents, in one way or another, a decision to install me as the center of all things, rather than to install us.  And the amazing thing is that to recognize such a basic truth can be a cause of joy, not a cause of loss.  To de-center myself for the sake of a greater communal good is truly to become healthy and happy, as well as more faithful to the gospel certainly.  So on this day, this Third Sunday of Advent, which is traditionally called “Gaudete” weekend, our scriptures remind us that it is God’s wish for us to be joyful, which means shoving to the side all of those false allurements to joy that confront us all the time; particularly that peculiar American belief in “Me First.”  That’s a dead end when it comes to enduring joy, because there will never be an end to the battle to keep “me first.” And it’s a false pursuit anyway.

To know the true joy of God requires relationship, not merely self-indulgence.  So as we make our way forward to Christmas, now just 2 weeks away, let us pray for that which will make us truly happy, that is the sincere desire and the effort to stand in solidarity with those who need us the most.  Bob Dole did that in a very public but humble way.  We can all do it, and show others how to do it too, whether as a parent, as a sibling, as a mentor/teacher, as a minister, or as a friend.  Community is what will be the cause of our joy.