Birth of St John Baptist 24.6.12
Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin? I’m going to start with a
few lines from a short story by Colm Tobin
As [ Carme ] watched them going, she noticed again what she
remembered from years before when the horses, having
performed their ritual, left the street on St John’s Eve.
There was a melancholy that came over everyone, a sort of
communal deflation as people realized that the excitement had
come and gone. The summer was at its peak; from now on the
days would get shorter, the shadows would grow deeper. This
feeling lasted only a few minutes, but it brought with it memories of
those who had witnessed this night over the years and had died,
those who would have loved this night and were gone forever. As
she looked around her, especially at the faces of the women, she
saw it, the look of regret, a sudden stillness. And then it lifted just as
quickly as it had come. People reached for drinks, which were
handed free from the houses, or decided to move on and follow the
horses, or turned back and made their way home.
(The Empty Family p111/2)
The story, New Spain, is about Carme, a young woman returning
home from exile, after the fall of Franco. She catches up with her
family in Menorca, in their much loved and remembered holiday
home and is disturbed by how everything is changed.
She arrives at Fiesta time – the Feast of St John Baptist that we are
celebrating today. The fiesta involves throwing hazelnuts at one
another and the aforementioned dramatic rituals with horses that
involve men raising up horses onto their hind legs by lifting up their
front legs, outside and even in people’s houses!
Toibin describes the sense of sadness that comes in the midst of
intense festivity. His words suggest why rituals are important to us;
they are rites of passage that help us manage change and decay.
They also suggest the sense of loss that can come when people
abandon faith losing its consolations. Thanks to the Reformation
and the weather, St John Baptist is not much celebrated in England,
save in church, although once it was.
All this leads us into today’s Gospel according to St. Luke. It was a
time of rejoicing, of celebration. Elizabeth and Zechariah, a devout,
aged couple, had finally, impossibly, miraculously been blessed with
a son. There prayers had been answered. The circumcision party
was in full swing.
Then something disturbing happened. Zechariah who had been
struck dumb by news of the conception spoke again, naming his
son, John, not after himself as was expected. Fear and pondering
ensued throughout the hill country. What then will this child become,
every one asked?
All new parents wonder that. The rite of passage of baptism helps
us manage that. John grew strong of spirit in the wilderness until he
went public. We know the rest of the story. John prepared the way
for Jesus, recognizing him as the Lamb of God, baptizing him with
the crowds. He proclaimed a harsh message of repentance. He
condemned Herod’s marital arrangements and lost his head as a
result. His bones may be on an island in Bulgaria, as was reported
last week.
Much for us to think about but I’d like us to end by thinking about just
one thing that John is reported as having said:
I must decrease that he may increase.
What John meant was that he needed the humility, despite his
greatness to give way for Jesus. Jesus needed to increase as he
proclaimed the kingdom of God. The church, all of us together, is
called to do likewise, to decrease that he may increase. It has often
failed. Once the Church grew rich and powerful, a theocracy that
claimed total sway over human lives. Constantine gave up on
Christian persecution and execution. It made the Church grow.
Instead he defeated the Christianity by making it official. The devout
fled to the desert in disgust. In the West we are living at the end time
of the Constantine Church. Caricature, I know but did Christianity
decrease that Jesus might increase, no, not always?
What of us as individual Christians? It is not always so simple.
Discernment is need. God may be calling some of us, most of us, to
increase, to become the people he wants us to be in Christ, full of
life. Others, overbearing and powerful may also be called to
decrease, so that others can flourish and come to the fore, so that
they can increase in Christ. As we age we have to decrease so that
those who come after can increase – traditionalism. Like the
Jordanian baptismal waters all of us find ourselves in the muddy
confusion of life.
So to close, the Feast of the Birth of St John the Baptist,
Midsummer’s Day, is an occasion for celebration if not quite a
Spanish fiesta in English rain, but there is a melancholy at its heart
that we are enabled to negotiate. A melancholy because we know
what John became and that disturbs and challenges us. We can
pass through because John Baptist points us to Jesus Christ,
enabling us to discern his will for our lives, prayerfully knowing when
we are called to increase or decrease or both. That too is a cause
for celebration. Amen.