Is 11:1-10 / Rom 15:4-9 / Mt 3:1-12
There was a man who'd spent his whole life in the desert and had never seen a train or even a train track. When at last he made his first visit to civilization, he found himself walking down the very middle of some tracks. He heard a whistle, woo-woo, woo-woo. He wondered what it was, and he was still wondering when the train hit him and threw him 40 feet in the air.
Six months later, he left the hospital and before long went to visit a friend's house. While he was in the kitchen, he heard the tea kettle whistling, woo-woo, woo-woo. Without a word, he dashed to his car, grabbed his shotgun, and shot that poor tea kettle dead.
"Why'd you do that?" asked his wide-eyed host.
"Brother," said the desert man, "you gotta kill them critters while they're still small."
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Killing tea kettles accomplishes absolutely nothing, yet we do that sort of thing all the time. If you doubt that, listen to our conversations on the phone, on the golf course, in the car, at the bridge table, or just about anywhere. From all the tut-tutting, deploring and lamenting, one could easily conclude that the world is populated almost entirely by idiots, knaves and incompetents, and that the only exceptions are thee and me … and sometimes I wonder about thee!
Remember what that cartoon character, Pogo, said? "We have seen the enemy, and it is us." He was right. But unfortunately, too often we see the enemy as outside us, and that's what we take aim at … and the poor tea kettles of this world get shot dead.
In Sunday's gospel, John the Baptist tells us that we've got to re-think and re-form our lives. Well that's just not possible until we see and own up to what's wrong in us, what's not working, what's just sitting there in the dark, hoping not to be noticed. But once we do really own up to what's dark in us, we're already half way towards healing. Our facing the truth is humility in its best form, and it makes room for God to come in and help us re-shape what's gnarly and deformed in us.
There's another major payoff that comes with having seen and embraced the truth about ourselves, and that is a changed attitude towards all the folks we were so quick to take pot shots at. Suddenly, they look different, they look like us, like brothers and sisters who are struggling along, trying to make a life, trying to get it right — just like us; making stupid mistakes which sadden them — just like us. Brothers and sisters, a whole world full of them!
What better way to get ready for Christmas: See the truth and face it, let the Lord in to help us work on it, open our arms and our hearts to the big family, every last one of whom turns out to be a brother or a sister. Hearts like that will be full, very full indeed, by Christmas Eve … and no more tea kettles need die!
