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“Who are you?”  It’s the key question in today’s Gospel. If we look at the Gospel carefully, we can deduce the tone of voice in which that question was put to John the Baptist. The Gospel calls John’s answer his “testimony” and tells us that John “confessed” and “did not deny”. This is the kind of language we associate with the Sheriff Court. John is being cross-examined. 

“Who are you?” It’s a question about identity. For some people, identity is something constructed from a set of personal choices, a rather consumerist notion of what it is to be human and a dangerously individualistic one, for it can lead to people asserting as “my truth” what is, in reality, their opinion. 

For other people identity, is about membership of a group, a race or a nation and much of the current conflict and tension in the world arises out of that way of thinking. 

What might a Christian answer to the question “Who are you” be? John the Baptist points us in the right direction.

John’s first answer to that question was a negative – “I am not the Messiah”. They then tried to fit him into two other pigeon-holes – “are you Elijah? and “Are you the Prophet?” they ask. John says a definite “No” to those versions of his identity. And then we clearly hear the frustration of the priests and Levites. 

“Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

What do you say about yourself? That’s an invitation to define his identity in terms of his own individual choices. And John the Baptist refuses to do that. His answer is extraordinary – he quotes from the book of the Prophet Isaiah:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

It’s as though he is saying “You are asking the wrong question. Don’t focus on me, don’t focus on what I think about myself, focus on what I am saying.” Or, to put it another way, “don’t stand there looking at me – I’m a signpost. Look in the direction to which I am pointing.” 

And that is prophetic, for the Hebrew prophets’ vocation was to point people towards God, sometimes in warning mode and sometimes, as in the case of today’s glorious reading from Isaiah, to give them hope, to remind them of the resources with which God will bless them if they are receptive.

John the Baptist points his questioners towards Jesus, not naming him but referring to him as 

“…the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 

It’s a very humble statement, but it has none of the weakness that we often, wrongly, think of when we think about humility. It’s the statement of a person so confident in what he’s called to do that he doesn’t feel any need to draw attention to himself, or to accept any of the labels that other people want to tie on him. 

John points us towards a Christian concept of identity. The voice, he suggests, is not something to be used for self-definition or for self-assertion. He uses his voice to proclaim the identity of Jesus. What John the Baptist does and says is shaped by his understanding of who Jesus is. 

As we proceed through the Christian year that began two weeks ago, we will be having a refresher course about who Jesus is and about what that shows us about who God is. We all need that refresher course, for we are all tempted to take shortcuts when it comes to defining our answer to the question “Who are you?”

A truthful answer to that question has to be that we don’t yet fully know who we are but that we believe that we are made in the image and likeness of a God who is unceasingly mindful of us, who seeks to draw us into true authenticity and who offers us the resources of love and faithfulness that can make that possible. That is an offer which we are only able to accept by being mindful of God. 

That’s the point that Paul is making in his letter to the Christian community in Thessalonica. The mindfulness of God of which he writes isn’t easy

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances...”

That sounds impossible, but Paul reminds his readers and us that God is the source of all the resources which can make that possible.

“May the God of peace sanctify you entirely.”

In saying that, he is echoing Isaiah’s promise that:

“…the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

In today’s readings, Isaiah, John the Baptist and Paul offer us signposts, showing us where our attention should be fixed. In following their direction, we aren’t embarking on some sort of self-awareness or self-improvement plan. There’s more to mindfulness of God than the secular versions of mindfulness, the fixing of one’s attention on one’s breathing or on other sensory experiences, helpful though that may be. To be mindful of God is to accept our own vocation to be signposts, pointing those who feel forgotten towards the God who remembers them and who unreservedly loves them.

If like me, you are a fan of historical novels you will be quite familiar with messengers arriving and shouting out their news (and there is a lot of shouting going on in today’s readings). Usually, in the novels the news they bring is, more often than not, unpopular - well you wouldn't want to spoil a good story. In most cases the herald is exhausted having travelled far to proclaim their message. Sadly, some of them end up dead - either because others do not want the message to be delivered or the recipient doesn't like what he or she is told. Whatever their fate, messengers were important in conveying the news of the society in which they lived.

John-the-Baptist is one such messenger and his ministry seems to have been foretold by the prophet Isaiah centuries before, also a messenger:

3 A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

In today’s readings what is clear is that the messenger is not the one 'to come’ but merely the pre-cursor and it is striking in Mark’s Gospel account that John is humbly pointing the way to Jesus:

7He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. Mark 1:7

The messenger, so says Isaiah, is the one sent to tread the path 'to make a highway in the desert', to level out the uneven path for the more important figure to follow. Many people, we are told were, drawn to John’s call to Baptism and I suspect many wondered if he were in fact the promised Messiah but John refutes any such suggestion that he is ‘The One’. He is merely the servant of the one to come. I wonder how many of us would be as humble as John was, when lauded with praise and adulation not to take on the mantle of superiority and to make out that we were the ‘Promised One’? Human nature likes flattery and we can all be tempted to be something we are not - but, not John.

Mark tells us that John-the-Baptist came to make 'the paths straight' and to encourage repentance. Both Mark and Isaiah seek to tell us that we need to prepare and be prepared to meet the Lord, the Christ. Perhaps not an easy thing to try and do nowadays with the frenetic run up to Christmas and the disappearance of Advent in secular awareness. There just doesn’t seem to be time to prepare. We do not, however, only need to prepare we also need to be ready to respond to the call as well. It is all well and good ‘hearing’ the call to repentance but we have to make a positive response in order for that cal to really make a difference in our lives. John called his followers not only to repent but to be physically Baptised as well. We 2000 odd years later are also called to hear and respond too.

In order to properly prepare and respond we have to try and clear space in our lives, hearts and minds in order to shut out the ungodly din of life and allow the godly voice of our Creator to talk to us and to encourage us to make that response to his call. Easier said than done, though. So what to do?

This Advent try and find just a few minutes each day to be still, to stop and let the busy-ness of the world pass you by. You might want to quietly and calmly say the Lord’s prayer a couple of times a day or just to sit and be with God for a few moments. You could even do this on the bus, or in a busy café. Just carve out a wee space to pray or to be quiet.

How ever you create this time, make trying it a priority. See this as prayer time in which: “The still,

small voice of calm” can talk directly to you in the silence or even with just the silence. Look out for the signs or people (prophets) pointing you in a new direction or encouraging along the path you already tread and be open to surprises as to how God might be talking to you.

What might you hear? and How will you respond?

These are two questions you might have to try and answer. For when we stop and give space to God, we might be surprised, as I said, by what God is trying to say to us! And, who knows where, actually giving God a bit time this Advent, might take you?

“See the Lord comes ...” Isaiah 40:10a

Advent Sunday 

‘Happy New Year’ - a bit early you might be thinking? Not at all because today being Advent Sunday is the beginning of the Church’s new year. It might seem a bit daft beginning a new year today when the calendar year till has a good month to go, could the Church not wait a bit? Actually, no and when you consider that pre-1752 New Year’s Day was the 25th March starting the Church’s new year today is as good a day as any. 

We begin the Church’s new year today because with the beginning of Advent we turn our thoughts again to the forth coming celebration of Christ’s nativity. Every year the church reminds itself of Jesus’ life story and the birth narratives coming in our darkest months give us hope of new life and new hope, Even if life does not tend to be as straight forward as we might sometimes hope.

Stephen Cherry in his poem ‘Advent Wreath’ writes:

I wonder about circles

and straight lines.

I wonder about eternity 

and time.

I wonder, though this sounds grand, about the 

purpose of my life.

Many of us will no doubt have wondered similar things this past year if things did not plan out as we might have expected. With the days of our lives there seem to be echoes of repeated patterns of living from the past but also the emergence of new ways of being too. The familiar and the unknown all mixed together and it’s never easy when that happens.

Advent, can I think, does give us hope. For Advent is a time when we look forward and anticipate the future through the lens of the known. What I mean is that in Advent we ponder on the second coming of Christ by reminding ourselves of his birth some 2000 odd years ago. We remember through the Old Testament prophets and the Gospel writers what happened and hear from the letter writers how that birth changed the world and the lives of all God’s people. And, we can do the same thing this year. 

As we light the candles on our Advent wreaths we do so thinking about the teachings of the prophets about the Messiah and the knowledge of his birth and how his life is so intimately bound up with our lives. Ponder and wonder on these facts over the next four weeks and as you light your candles pray for each other and our world; that the light and hope of Christ will never be lost. 

Advent Wreath Prayers

Advent Sunday & the First Week

We light this candle to recall prophetic voices which announced the Prince of Peace, which foretold the coming Kingdom of God, which called for justice and announced the song of happiness.

May the light overcome the darkness.

Advent II & the Second Week

We light this candle to recall, shepherds on the hills and throughout the ages who in their place of work have been ready to hear good news and who were delighted to pass it on to others.

May the light overcome the darkness.

Advent III & the Third Week

We light this candle to recall Simeon and Anna and all those who are the Quiet in the Land. Those who have awaited every generation for the glory of the Lord to be revealed and who have patiently accepted your will and timing.

May the light overcome the darkness.

Advent IV & the Fourth Week

We light this candle to recall Mary and Joseph who saw their visions and dreamed their dreams, who heard angelic announcements and were obedient to your Word and their calling, giving a home and care to the Child.

May the light overcome the darkness.

Christmas Day

We light this candle for the baby of Bethlehem, for the child born to be King, for the boy in the cradle who became the man on the cross, the Redeemer and
Saviour of the World.

The darkness is overcome, the light is around us.

St.Andrew of Scotland 2023

How did a Galilean fisherman become the patron of Scotland? 

According to early chronicles of the Christian religion, Andrew was inspired to preach in Greece and as far north as Kiev, which is why Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Georgia and Russia have him as patron saint. He is widely venerated in many other Christian countries, and among other patronages ascribed to him he is the patron saint of fishers, miners and singers. Andrew was martyred by the Romans in their province of Achaia – now in Greece – at Patras, on an X-shaped cross which became his symbol. Andrew asked to be executed on the saltire cross as it is now know because he did not believe himself worthy to die on a similar cross to that of Jesus Christ.  Christians at Patras somehow managed to preserve his body in a secret grave.

Legend again has it that a monk at Patras, St Regulus or Rule, was determined to preserve the relics and in a dream he was told to take the saint’s arm, kneecap, three fingers and a tooth to the ends of the earth – Scotland, at that time!!! Then comes the most intriguing legend about Andrew. You will recall the Constantine story of a vision before battle – well the same vision was seen in the sky by King Oengus II before the Battle of Athelstaneford in 832, and with his Picts and Scots being victorious against the larger forces of Northumbria, Oengus ordered that the flag of his kingdom should be a white X cross on a blue background – the Saltire, as we know it.

The Scottish cult of St Andrew grew exponentially. Thanks largely to St Margaret and subsequent kings, St Andrews became the largest ecclesiastical centre in Scotland and a centre for pilgrimage with the long-lost shrine of our patron saint as the main attraction.

Quite some legend! The important thing, I think, about St.Andrew that we can take away this morning is his willingness to give up everything and to follow Jesus. He did not have to give up his fishing and probably quite a good life but the inspiration he found in Jesus was enough to encourage him to take a risk and to follow the young rabbi to who knew where. Andrew, like us, discovered that faith in Jesus can help us to do things we did not think we were capable of and like Andrew we have a duty to share our faith with those who have yet to hear the words of Jesus speak in their hearts. 

Matthean version of the Parable of the Talents

In these days of higher interest rates, many people have been asking the question “where would it be best to invest our savings?” We are, of course, very fortunate if that’s a question for us since many people have no savings to invest. I remember some years ago checking out the website of a major British bank, which shall remain nameless, where you could only get at information about savings accounts and interest rates by first answering a series of intrusive questions. “None of your business” was my immediate reaction to that exercise – but I had no trouble whatsoever in deciding what sort of saver I am. I plumped for the cautious option.

Today’s Gospel – the Parable of the Talents – reads like the story of an over-cautious investor and seems to paint a picture of a scarily judgemental God. It’s one of a series of parables in which Jesus is explaining what the kingdom of heaven will be like, and most people down the centuries have assumed that God is there in the parable – that God is the master who goes away on a journey, leaving his three servants in charge of his wealth. 

It's important to bear in mind that Jesus’ style of storytelling was vivid, and that he sometimes made use of hyperbole – he exaggerated to make the story more emphatic. It’s also important not to take the story out of the context of Jesus’ whole teaching about God. Keep in mind that he told his friends that God, mindful of the fall of every sparrow, was far more mindful of their needs and problems. Keep in mind also one of his most memorable stories – the loving father who welcomes home the prodigal son without a word of blame or criticism. I don’t think that the point of this story is that we should think of God as the master who condemns the cautious and fearful servant who has buried his share of the money.

A talent was a vast sum of money. The best way of explaining it is to think about how many years of a labourer’s pay it amounted to, and the answer is twenty years. Expressed in terms of someone in Scotland working a forty-hour week on the National Minimum Wage for twenty years, a single talent equals £433,472 at 2023 values. The employer in Jesus’ story is therefore a very trusting person. Between them, the three slaves are entrusted with almost £3.5 million. These facts may help us to understand what is at first reading a puzzling parable. 

I say puzzling because at first reading the master in the story seems harsh and judgemental and that’s not the God whom I encounter in Jesus Christ.     I don’t believe that God  “reaps where he does not sow, and gathers where he did not scatter?” 

Perhaps the question we need to ask of this story is “For what is the servant being condemned?”  On the face of it, it looks as though he is being condemned for failing to make a profit. Read a little more carefully and you’ll see that isn’t the case. The failure of the cautious servant wasn’t a failure to make money for his master. Rather it was that he had a fearful and negative view of his master. 

Anyone who has watched small children develop knows that the child who is able to take risks and become more adventurous is the child who is secure in her or his parents’ love. The third servant was paralyzed by fear of his master and was completely unable to take risks. And it is that fearful view of his master for which he is condemned. So we have two kinds of servant here – the first two know that their master is generous and kind, that he trusts them rather than micro-managing them, that he wants them to be free to take risks and that he will reward them generously for making good use of their freedom. The third servant has a false image of the master – he imagines him to be hard and unreasonable in his demands. He is afraid of the master, and his fear paralyses him.

So today’s Gospel asks us the question – “What’s your image of God?” Is it a loving heavenly Father who gives you the gift of freedom and wants you to venture into the world, to take risks and to make yourself and your talents available to others? Or is it a stern disciplinarian – a very demanding parent who is quick to punish? The latter image is unhealthy and unhelpful because it makes people fearful and cautious and fear and caution are the very opposite of what Christianity, the faith into which Zoe will shortly be baptized, is about. 

It's helpful to know that our English word “talent” is derived from the Greek word talanton that the Gospel writer uses. We are all blessed with God-given talents and part of the adventure on which Zoe has embarked is the adventure of discovering, with the help of Katie and Drummond and her Godparents, what her talents are. May she enjoy them in the freedom that God gives her. May she never think of God as an exacting disciplinarian but rather as the loving and generous source of her existence and the existence of everyone and everything. The call of Jesus is not a call to be cautious and to obey the rules, but rather a call to the kind of love and outreach that Jesus himself practised, a call to engage with the world and to use our God-given talents to make it the place of love and acceptance that God means it to be.