By focusing our attention on St. John the Baptist, we may reflect on what it means to be a Christian. Of course, a Christian is a follower or disciple of Jesus Christ. But what are the concrete implications of following Jesus Christ, of Christian discipleship?
One implication is this: to follow Jesus Christ, to be a genuine Christian, demands standing against the culture. The disciple of Jesus Christ is counter-cultural. St. John the Baptist is a clear and convincing model of the counter-cultural person. So, by reflecting on his life, we learn a great deal about how following the Lord Jesus involves our being counter-cultural in today’s society.
There are many areas in contemporary living in which you and I, as disciples of Jesus Christ, are called upon to be counter-cultural. Let me propose for our reflection three: (1) self-identity, (2) values, (3) life-style.
Self-identity implies understanding and accepting who one is as a person. John the Baptist was very clear about who he was and was not. He was not the Messiah. As we heard in today’s second reading, “…[John] would say, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not [the Messiah or Savior]. Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet” (Acts 13:25). John knew who he was: a voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord,” the herald of the Messiah, the servant of the Lord, a light to the nations. We too must be counter-cultural in terms of our self-identity. Each of us is a person loved by God and gifted with human life at conception; a person of infinite dignity and worth, not because of what we do, but because of who we are; a person consecrated at Baptism, given a share in God’s own divine life and called to be a disciple of Jesus Christ; a person with strengths and weaknesses, invited daily to conversion and holiness. Like John the Baptist, each of us must be honest about who we are. How different this will be in our culture of restlessness and self-pretensions!
Values influence our choices and decisions. John the Baptist’s values were likewise clear and certain: truth, rooted in the Word of God, so he confronted irreligious living; the centrality of God, so he proclaimed: “He must increase, I must decrease;” conversion, so he challenged people to personal reform and to a change of heart; fidelity, so he died a martyr’s death for the sake of truth. Like John the Baptist, we too must be counter-cultural in terms of the values we formulate and by which we live. We must make the truth our guiding principle — the truth rooted in God’s Word and taught by the Church; the truth that is The Gospel of Life and The Splendor of the Truth, the truth about the centrality of God in our lives and in the world; the truth about life in every stage beginning at conception and ending at natural death; the truth about moral living. Like John the Baptist, each of us must formulate and live values which are integrated with the Truth. How different this will be in our culture whose values are fake, false and, therefore, empty.
Life-style implies the pattern of how we go about living life day by day. John the Baptist’s lifestyle was simple, even stark. We must be counter-cultural in terms of our life-style. Do we live simply and without pretense, using responsibly our resources for the welfare of our families and the support of those who are truly poor and in need? Does our clothing reflect the understanding that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, deserving of respect? Do we value the persons in our lives above material things, so that we spend more time with them than with earning more money? Like John the Baptist, each of us must fashion a lifestyle that will make the Gospel easier to preach, to see, to influence. How different this will be in our culture with its self-centered and inauthentic life-style!
Ultimately, we must be counter-cultural in terms of being really Christian, genuinely Christian, in all of life, not just at the Sunday liturgy. We are called and challenged to declare by the life-style we fashion, by the values we formulate, by the self-identity we reflect, the centrality of Jesus in our daily lives. We must be counter-cultural by proclaiming more through action than by words: “Jesus is Lord.” That is what John the Baptist did. That is what we must try to do and to be, in reliving his life in ours.
(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
