It feels a bit like deja vu, a sad repetition of last Christmas, cancelled at short notice. Are we facing a return to Zoom calls, online Masses and the like? I hope not. But the recent rapid changes in the Covid landscape have brought back some of my memories of the time when it all started. A steep learning curve on how to utilise modern technology to retain, uphold, maintain and develop spiritual life in a vastly uncharted territory. Part of the challenge was getting the right equipment for the job. One of the unintended consequences for me was developing a higher sensitivity to the quality of sound. Now, while listening to the radio or podcast, I can automatically pick up whether a speaker uses a high, mediocre or poor-quality microphone; if the speaker recorded or broadcast from a sound-proofed room or studio, or an echo chamber in their house, and so on. This new skill of mine, developed incidentally, is useless and harmless most of the time. But occasionally it\u2019s disruptive when I suddenly stop listening to the content of the show and instead focus on its audible form, i.e. how it sounds. It\u2019s annoying, particularly with live shows that I can\u2019t stop and rewind to listen again to what I have missed.<\/p>\n
Last Sunday\u2019s gospel reading put on the map and timescale the events that would eventually change the world. At a particular time in universal history (about 2000 years ago), at a particular geographical place – the banks of the River Jordan in the Holy Land – the voice of God was heard. Or – to be more precise – God\u2019s message was conveyed by the voice of a particular man called to do so. As I mentioned last Sunday, the message from God happened at a specific time and place and was delivered in a specific form by John the Baptist. Today\u2019s gospel reading is a continuation of that particular story. Last Sunday\u2019s broad-brush strokes filled the canvas and today more detailed, fine lines are added to the picture. Unfortunately, there’s a part missing between last Sunday\u2019s and today\u2019s readings, when John urged his listeners to repent and did it in no uncertain terms. The main message of that part was: \u2018If you are repentant, produce the appropriate fruits worthy of repentance.\u2019 (Luke 3:8)<\/em> That\u2019s what the opening line of today\u2019s reading refers to when the people asked: \u2018What must we do?\u2019<\/em> Or, in other words, what are those \u2018appropriate fruits worthy of repentance\u2019?<\/em><\/p>\n There are two answers to this question: one more general, the other more specific. The former concerns an attitude that is quite common and has been challenging in Christendom throughout its history, as well as in other religions. It\u2019s a perception that religion is somehow disconnected from everyday life. In practical terms, it manifests itself in keeping various religious observances, practices and traditions, often in an irreflexive manner, like gliding on autopilot. An extreme example of such disconnected religiosity is provided by career criminals as depicted in many mafia movies. Sadly, such depictions are based on the much less glamorous, less romanticized reality of communities terrorised by such individuals. As I said, it\u2019s just an extreme illustration of the attitude that is quite common though – thankfully – in a much less horrific way. I call it a disconnected religiosity because it doesn\u2019t affect its proponents\u2019 lifestyles or decisions. And that leads us to the second, more specific answer to the opening question in today\u2019s gospel: \u2018What must we do?\u2019<\/em> What are those \u2018appropriate fruits worthy of repentance\u2019?<\/em><\/p>\n The specific instructions produced by John the Baptist for particular groups in the crowd can be a bit surprising. John himself was a man of quite extreme religious practices, described concisely by St Matthew: \u2018John wore clothing of camel\u2019s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.\u2019 (Matthew 3:4)<\/em> So, his audience most likely assumed that John\u2019s prescription for their repentance would be something in a similar vein, like wearing a hairshirt, or keeping a long fast, or saying prolonged prayers, or inflicting self-flagellation\u2026 But no, John\u2019s advice was not of this ilk. \u2018\u2018If anyone has two tunics, he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.\u2019 <\/em>To the tax collectors, he said: \u2018Exact no more than your rate.\u2019 <\/em>Soldiers were told: \u2018No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!\u2019<\/em> We can summarise those answers as a call for everyday decency in line with their respective ways of life, duties, obligations and responsibilities. In that respect, the message remains relevant to each one of us. We need to remind ourselves that religion must have a positive impact on our lives in their practical arrangements. Not that a religious moral code is necessary to be good. But it helps because it gives us a motivation deeper than our own satisfaction, people\u2019s praise or applause. We are not called to be perfect; we are called to be decent. And many of you know well enough that this can be hard; harder than wearing a hairshirt or saying prolonged prayers.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the connection with my opening story on microphones? Well, I learnt that even the best microphone is useless when you have nothing to say. Even the most elaborate religious practices count for nothing if they are empty. St James hit the bullseye: \u2018Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.\u2019 (James 1:26-27)<\/em><\/p>\n Image by Fabrizio_65<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It feels a bit like deja vu, a sad repetition of last Christmas, cancelled at short notice. Are we facing a return to Zoom calls, online Masses and the like? I hope not. But the recent rapid changes in the Covid landscape have brought back some of my memories of the time when it all started. A steep learning curve on how to utilise modern technology to retain, uphold, maintain and develop spiritual life in a vastly uncharted territory. Part of the challenge was getting the right equipment for the job. One of the unintended consequences for me was developing a higher sensitivity to the quality of sound. Now, while listening to the radio or podcast, I can automatically pick up whether a speaker uses a high, mediocre or poor-quality microphone; if the speaker recorded or broadcast from a sound-proofed room or studio, or an echo chamber in their house, and so on. This new skill of mine, developed incidentally, is useless and harmless most of the time. But occasionally it\u2019s disruptive when I suddenly stop listening to the content of the show and instead focus on its audible form, i.e. how it sounds. It\u2019s annoying, particularly with live shows that I can\u2019t stop and rewind to listen again to what I have missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-c"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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