This Sunday’s Gospel opens by identifying the terrorist leaders of the Roman Empire. The Empire is topped by Caesar who controls two trained underlings in Palestine, Pilate and Herod. The Roman Empire, like all empires, including the U.S. Empire, terrorizes common people. Those terrorized include common people of the ruler’s own land, as well as those of other lands conquered and occupied. Some of the terrorized people react by mimicking the terror. They engage in reactionary terrorism. This was true of zealots against Rome’s terrorism and is true today of Middle East zealots fighting U.S. terrorism. After the Gospel identifies the terrorist leaders it then shifts. It identifies Jesus’ herald, a local prophet named John the Baptist. John is linked neither to empire and its terrorism nor to local zealots and theirs. John is free. He is wild. John has not been domesticated. Physically he lives in the natural environment. He is described as “A voice crying out in the wilderness.” Untamed and rooted in life-giving nature John exemplifies freedom from domestication in favor of a wild life.
We too can exemplify that same untamed life rooted in nature. We too can be free from domestication and be wild. There is a wild energetic flow to nature which invites us to be in touch – with water and wind, with plants and the soil from which they sprout. This past week the World Day of Soil was celebrated marking the halfway point of the Paris climate talks. People across the world, wild people, have been celebrating this particular life energy all year long. 2015 has been the International Year of Soil. We have celebrated all the energy of nature within and around us. We experience nature and her energy as regenerative; wildly charged with the power to push a flower up through a sidewalk’s crack and to nurture a tree sprouting out of solid rock. As attributed to Lao Tzu: “Those who flow as life flows know they need no other energy.” Nature’s wild energetic flow powers our bodies, for we are nature. We are wild. We radiate nature’s life-giving and energetic flow. Imbued with nature’s regenerative energy we experience our vibrancy. We radiate the power of life. We bring forth energy for another day, month, year of being a voice crying out in the wilderness. We are voices spreading the wildly regenerative power of life. We are surrounded by a domesticating system of concrete and solid rock that is a terrorist U.S. Empire and we are wild sprouts, flowers and trees blossoming forth.
This is the season of Advent. It always asks us: What shall we give birth to in this world? What is my wild response?
Prayer: Courageous Spirit, keep our hearts open to people’s sufferings in life and our spines resolute with the courage to heal them.
Question: How is this culture domesticating me and how am I staying wild?
December 6, 2015 Luke 3:1-6 Second Sunday Of Advent