Our Gospel reading speaks of John the Baptist, and it reminds me of a poem entitled “If” written 113 years ago in 1910. It also reminds me, and perhaps you as well, that tomorrow is when we celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott. Reverend King and his wife were honored on Friday at the Boston Common where a bronze monument called the “Embrace” was unveiled.
The English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem “If” providing his opinion on what defines a man – and I add, it’s just as valid for a woman. Kipling also wrote “The Jungle Book,” a story many of us have read to our children.
The first verse and conclusion of “If” read: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies; or being hated, don’t give way to hating…Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, and – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son! [or, a Woman, my daughter!]
This verse reminds us of John the Baptist, and then Jesus. First, we have this advice: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” Recall in Matthew that Herodias, the wife of Herod, prompted her daughter, Salome, to ask her father for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, and that head was served.
One message for us today is, if we don’t want our heads served on a platter, we must first not lose our heads – and minds – by believing and embracing disinformation and lies while those around us willingly allow themselves to be duped to become the sheep of false shepherds.
Second, John the Baptist said, “He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’” As reflected in this Kipling poem, “if we can wait and not be tired by waiting,” John waited for that man who would rank ahead of him. During Advent and the Christmas season we waited for the infant Jesus, and he arrived. We didn’t get tired of waiting. We then celebrated the birth of whom we call the Christ-child.
And now we wait for his second coming in glory at the end of time, whenever that might be. It’s a time for which we must be prepared by living as he commanded – by loving God and our neighbor; by being honorable, truthful, and faithful to our baptismal promises we made, or our parents made on our behalf.
When will he come and in what form? We can only imagine through our faith that has sustained Christians for over 2,000 years. Consider that in our creed we say: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”
After Father holds up the chalice of consecrated wine that is now the Blood of Christ, he asks us to proclaim our faith by saying: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.”
But when will he come? We don’t have a timeline. Only in the first century did believers feel his return was imminent. St. Paul certainly thought so, but he was wrong as evidenced by our now being in the 21st century – 2,000 years later. Christ is quite tardy.
But, not really because Christ is already here. Certainly, he appears through the Eucharist. He clearly arrives through the love, care, and compassion we give each other, especially to the poor, victims of war, and the disadvantaged such as refugees fleeing poverty, injustice, and violence. He arrives when we are suffering and we realize through our faith that Christ suffers with us. St. Paul believed and preached that in Jesus, God suffers with us.
Furthermore, Christ comes to us when we follow Kipling’s advice in the second verse of his poem: "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:"
From this verse we understand that Christ comes to us daily to warn us of the many knaves – dishonest and unscrupulous men and women – who twist the truth to trap us as fools. Christ insists we bear to hear the truth and to watch the things we give our lives to, especially if those things, or people, lead us astray by deceiving us with lies and hate-speech. As Kipling and Jesus said, we must not deal in lies; we must not give way to hating. Martin Luther King was of the same mind.
If only Christ could be the gatekeeper for social media postings to screen out and delete bad behavior and hateful speech such as that which occurs on Twitter and Facebook. Then again, isn’t that our responsibility – not to post and/or read that which will corrupt our souls and that of others?
Perhaps we shouldn’t simply wait for Christ to come. This sort of waiting is like sitting on the side of the road next to our mailbox impatiently waiting for an answer to a letter we have written or for a package we have ordered. We need to show initiative and go to him while realizing he is already here.
Consider our responsorial psalm we just sang: “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.” Did we mean going to him to do his will – or did we just make that important commitment without giving it serious thought?
There is one more piece of Kipling’s advice: “If we can force our hearts and nerve and sinew to serve our turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in us except the Will which says to us: ‘Hold on!’
The Will that says to us “Hold on!” is God’s will that we pray will be done on earth as it is heaven. Through that simple prayer we are strengthened to hold on to our belief in a loving and forgiving God so that when times get tough, we can force our hearts, nerve, and sinew to do God’s will. It’s a promise we just made through our responsorial psalm.
It’s also a promise MLK Jr. made and fulfilled. However, his life was cut short. Like Jesus, our Son of God, his life was taken from him: Jesus on a cross and Reverend King through the violence of a bullet. Tomorrow we celebrate him and remember both their violent ends.
Reverend King once said: “Every time I look at the cross, I am reminded of the greatness of God and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. I am reminded of the beauty of sacrificial love and the majesty of unswerving devotion to truth.” Truer words have not been spoken.
Sacrificial love is an embrace we should give to one another and to those in need of help. Furthermore, the truth will always set us free.
Deacon David Pierce
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