What's Your Favorite Saint?
a sermon based on Luke  3:1-6
by Rev. Timothy DeFrange

What do you think about the way this gospel reading starts out? The gospel begins with a list of the terrible enemies of the gospel that held absolute power at the time. It’s as if Luke is saying: Our story begins in the worst of times--in the midst of the height of the Roman Empire’s power. While a cruel Roman Procurator holds the persecuted people of Israel under the iron fist of Rome. With godless puppet kings like Herod, Philip and Lysanius on the  thrones and David’s country divided among them. With cold-hearted Annas and Caiaphas running the temple in Jerusalem. In the midst of this hopeless and crushingly oppressive climate, God hadn’t forgotten his people. In the midst of this terrible time where those who loved God were totally without power and without any advocate, God sent them a prophet. In the midst of all these VIP's the word of the Lord came to John, of all people! Not to the emperor who considered himself a god, not to his dignitaries, not even to the highest of those within the ranks of Judaism...but to one very eccentric guy by name of John! God sent them a nervy, fearless but humble man to reveal his plan for hope and salvation. God sent his beloved people the most unlikely of persons in a strange and brash itinerant preacher who captivated them with his shameless calls to holiness and his spine-tingling promise that the Kingdom of hope and love was about to begin.

A columnist in a Christian publication recently took an informal survey of everyone’s favorite saint . Lots of people picked Saint Anthony, St. Francis, and St. Theresa, the Little Flower. Nobody, he said, picked John the Baptist. Yet Jesus said that among those born of a woman there was no greater prophet than John the Baptist. Jesus said John the Baptist was greater than all the prophets of the Old Testament.

What does this John say to a people who have watched their young men nailed to crosses outside the city gates as a warning against rebelling against the might of Rome? He gives them a mission statement. He gives them something wonderful to do. They are no longer impotent. They are a part of the liberation of their own achingly oppressed human hearts.

They are to "'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 3:5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 3:6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

When we take trips I like looking at high mountains. I prefer looking out at the hills of Ohio to the flat plains of Illinois and Iowa. But that’s only when we’re driving. We struggle up mountains and hills when we’re on bicycle or walking. John is not talking about looking out the window at scenery. John is talking about committed travelers, not spectators. John is talking about the journey each of us is making through life. The mountains and valleys are the barriers to Christ’s coming into our lives. The mountains and crooked roads are our sins. John is God’s prophet telling the people us how to get our hearts ready for God to come inside us and dwell with us.

Did you know that we all are supposed to be trying to become a prophet just like John the Baptist? The priest who baptized you anointed you as priest, prophet and king. There are whole homilies on each of those words but suffice it to say that to be a prophet is to speak the word of God to His people. Each of us is supposed to be a prophet who speaks God’s word to others in our lives

So how do we do that? We become prophets by the way we speak and the way we act. Here’s an example of someone being a prophet by the way they speak. I supervise the rear drop off point at the school where I teach. Mostly the kids who are getting dropped off by parents come through the rear doors. But sometimes a mom or dad will come through helping their youngster carry in a project or sports equipment. A couple weeks ago Alex came through on crutches and his mom was right behind carrying his book bag. I looked at his mom and said with a sympathetic smile, “Looks like it hasn’t been such a good week for your family. “ Without missing a beat Alex’s mom answered, “It’s a great week. Jesus is still on the throne.”

She caught be by surprise. I managed to say I agree or you’re right and then she was past me. As I stood there I realized she had made that moment of my day into a prayer by that little sentence of faith. Alex’s mom had been a prophet right then.

We are also prophets by what we do. Mother Teresa left a comfortable convent with the Sisters of Loreto to live among the poor and care for them. At the beginning she had no place to live. After living on the street in tents and having the dying turned away from hospitals because of their poverty she began to look for her own place for them. She wandered through the streets of her city for days without finding any place. At the end of each of those days she ached all over and felt like giving up. The tempter kept whispering to her that all she had to do was go back to Loreto and she could have all the comforts she was longing for right now. She called this homeless time the darkest night of her soul. She had no young women willing to join her yet. She was all alone and it felt like she would never find a place for her ministry. When she approached some people, even priests, they treated her like she was crazy and walked away from her. She was constantly hungry and had to beg for food for herself to eat. She said that she was a terrible beggar but she’d eventually learn. She said it was a useful lesson on how the poor must feel when they try to find a place to stay. She made up her mind to trust God and not to surrender to  self-pity. She said in her deepest discouragement that she wouldn’t allow herself to shed a single tear.

Being a prophet will always come with a cost in our comfort. But if we are willing to depend on God, God will give us everything we need. And then our success will be in God’s hands. John died defending the sanctity of marriage. He saw sin and he pointed it out without mincing words and they put him to death for it. Maybe this is why it’s so rare to hear someone say John the Baptist is their favorite saint. The more we from the golden age of creature comforts look at John the Baptist the more uncomfortable we start to feel.

We must ask God for the grace to allow God to complete the work  that God began in us when we were baptized. We must ask for Paul’s prayer for the Philippians to be our prayer for one another as we try to become prophets in our daily lives at home and at work and in our neighborhood. If God made each of us into what Paul prayed for the Philippians, we’d be dynamite prophets. Paul wrote

And this is my prayer, that your love may increase more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to help you to determine what is of valuable and what is worthless, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, filled with so much  fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ that our very lives will give glory and praise to God.

Amen.