SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

Today is the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Ordinary Time” is the “in-between” season—the weeks outside of the big seasons of Christmas and Easter and their preparation times, Advent and Lent. Ordinary Time presents the story of Jesus in a continuous reading of the Gospels as well as other parts of Scripture.

Life and learning are really all about referral: one person referring information to another person. A single individual showing how something operates, telling us information, relating to us a deeper understanding of how the universe works.

In today’s Gospel passage, we see how this teaching, this act of referral to a larger life, works. The passage opens with John the Baptist along comes Jesus. Then comes the proclamation that Jesus is the Lamb of God. When John describes Jesus as the Lamb of God, he means that, Jesus is, the restored relationship between God and people. But that proclamation began with John and, as the text says, is his testimony. John is testifying to what God has already made known to him.  John, then, is testifying to those around him. And what do they do in response to that testimony? They leave John and follow Jesus.

It’s then that we learn that one of John’s disciples is Andrew; we know Andrew will become one of Jesus’ disciples. After Andrew spends time with Jesus, he goes to his brother Simon Peter and refers him to Jesus. Here is that whole notion of learning from another; Andrew learns about Jesus from John, and then, in turn, teaches Peter about Jesus and on and on and on it went until just this very second, right here in this place. The Church and all of Christian history, witness, and theology is a chain of referral to Jesus that began with John and Andrew and ends right now in your ears, your head, and your heart.

 However If no Christian went public, so to speak, if no Christian testified to Jesus, the Church would evaporate. The gospel would still exist, of course, but only in the abstract. If the gospel is not proclaimed, is it the gospel?  The gospel requires people to proclaim and live it. If we don’t, society and culture will just swallow it up, because as we know, nature abhors a vacuum. If we do not proclaim that God is love and, through Jesus Christ, has broken every bond and boundary and empowered us to do the same, well, the culture will come in and teach us how to get and get and get and how to use people as things.

The thing is: how are you testifying to Jesus? How are you, like Andrew or any of your teachers, referring Jesus to others? You   should have something, some sense of how Christ is growing in you.

We may not be too articulate on this point of testimony to Jesus.  Testimony means simply: what does it matter to your life – your buying, your selling, your loving, your viewing, your praying, your driving – that you have been baptized and follow Jesus? Begin to answer that, and then start bringing Jesus up as the reason why you act the way you act.

How is your testimony to Jesus? Start small and simply. If you are not articulate in testifying to Jesus, start small. If you have children, start with them, teach them that your family is loving and courageous because Jesus invites us into that kind of life. Find a trusted friend and say, “You know, I think I actually believe this whole Jesus thing.” Once you begin saying it, once you begin referring Jesus, it gets easier and you become braver. 

Without testimony, the gospel dries up, and when that happens, other ways of life will come in – ways of life that are manifestly not ways to life.
Friends, we need your testimony now more than ever. Be like John, be like Andrew, be like the uncountable cloud of witnesses to God’s gospel.  Show  in your words and life that Jesus is the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world.