A homily from my husband's friend:
I. John/Jesus birth
You, no doubt, notice that we do not celebrate the feast of Sunday today. Instead, we celebrate the feast of the birth of John the Baptist. It is a solemnity and it cannot be moved, like Christmas. Actually, it is tied into the celebration of Christmas. Today is the 24th of June, exactly six months before Christmas Eve. These are also the longest days of the year, the most sunlight. The nights around Christmas are the shortest days of the year, the least sunlight. It is a beautiful bit of symbolism. Remember that John the Baptist said of Jesus: “he must increase, I must decrease.” Therefore, from this time on, the light decreases until Christmas when it is reborn again with the birth of Christ. As I said, a lovely bit of poetic symbolism but perhaps even a bit more than that.
II. More than poetry
Notice carefully that the passage goes, “he must increase, I must decrease.” I look around at our world today and fear that too many of us, too many Christians and even a good number of Catholics, get it quite wrong. We are all pretty much willing to let the Lord increase, that’s not the problem. The problem is that we tend to hitch our wagons to the Lord’s rising star so that we can increase too. Notice that John does not say: “He must increase so that I can increase.” Yet, I fear that, too often that is exactly how the Gospel is read. Let me give you three examples in which the names will changed to protect the guilty.
III, First, faith not investment banking
First, I remember once, many years ago, in a parish far, far away, I heard a priest preach that God would reward everyone who contributed to the parish by making them even richer. He actually said that for every dollar cast into the collection plate, the giver would get back 10 or a 100 more. Sounds like he must increase so that I can increase to me. Of course, I have never been a pastor and had to pay the bills. But if I ever am, I hope I can find some way to keep the lights and air on without utterly perverting the Gospel. As Thomas More once said: “If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good and greed would make us saints.” We do not live in such a state. In this world, He must increase; I must decrease!
IV. Second, cross, not sword
Second, and I know I have been saying this a lot lately, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of love and humility, not a Gospel of arrogance and power. You often hear this power reading of the Gospel from politicians of all stripes and, frankly, it makes me sick. If Christianity is used to attain power, if faith is used as some sort weapon with which any particular group acquires or maintains political, social or economic hegemony over any other particular group, then the Gospel has been perverted beyond all recognition. The Gospel is the Gospel of the Cross, not the sword. Violence, war or bloodshed in the service of Christianity is like child abuse in the service of children. He must increase; we must decrease.
V. Third, mundane way
Third, I think the most dangerous and insidious way to pervert the Gospel is the most common and mundane way. People get the odd idea that because they are Christian, they are somehow better than everybody else. I don’t know where we get this idea, certainly not from the Gospel. I once knew a lady who was very devout. She went to church every day, prayed all the time and was constantly pointing out the faults of everybody else whose religious practice didn’t measure up to hers. God rest her soul but she was mean-spirited, ungrateful and judgmental to the extreme. I don’t care how much she prayed or went to Church ... she was the most unchristian Christian I ever met. We are not better than anyone else because we are Christians. We are Christians because we are no better than anyone else, not perfect or meant to be, only forgiven and loved. He must increase, I must decrease.