A step in history

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent
Gospel: Mt 11:11-15
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121125.cfm

God wants us to progress through history. The child may inherit the sins of the parent or carry forward the trauma from previous generations, but God wants the arch of history to be the progress of humankind to the Kingdom of God. A lot can be accomplished in a generation as a lot can also be set back, but God is always at work pushing it all forward. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus comments about John the Baptist that no one is greater than he, but that he is the least of those in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is speaking to our continued growth throughout history. He also says that during his present moment in history, the kingdom is suffering great violence. He recognized the struggling power dynamics, to include the binary dynamics between people (the clean and unclean, the Samaritan and the Jew, those in positions of power and those without), were keeping the kingdom from coming together. Jesus saw the need for there to be a paradigm shift, and his call was to bring about such change.

That change he drove was not instantaneous, and only realized by a select few during his time. We are still reflecting and learning from it today. His life and its impact has been a catalyst for a change to the good. One that, at times, has sadly been misunderstood and used to justify the very power dynamics and separations of people that his message was trying to fix. Our prayer should be that we do our part to successfully progress the kingdom, knowing that it could be fully realized at any moment or it could also take time for it to fully reveal itself. We must do our part in the eternal dance hoping and praying, that if not in our time, those after us will continue the progress forward.