Memorial of Saint John of the Cross, priest and doctor of the Church
I remember a time that one of my nephews became obsessed with jokes. One joke that he clung to went like this:
“What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?”
“I don’t know.”
“Time to get a new fence!”
Uproarious laughter or general groaning and eye-rolling then followed. Today’s Gospel reminded me that Jesus is like that elephant.
While Jesus does not have a penchant for destroying personal property, he does undercut fence-sitters. This is a reality that is described unequivocally in Revelation when Scripture says, “So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Jesus is not content to leave us as fence-sitters. This, I believe, is the engagement between him and the leaders.
They ask him a question and he responds with a leading question that pulls them to engage. It is the motion of Jesus. He is always in motion. He is in the business of leading, of keeping us in motion. This is the role of a shepherd because a flock that feeds only in one pasture will eat themselves into starvation. However, that journey from pasture to pasture can be uncomfortable, inconvenient, and scary.
That is when the side of Jesus we see in today’s Gospel comes into play. We need the probing, piercing, challenging Jesus to dislodge us from an over eaten pasture.
When the choices before us in life leave us wanting to just stay put and stay on our fence. When we want to disengage from the dance of motion that Jesus puts before us. He makes like an elephant and sits on our fence. Unlike the joke, getting a new fence is the wrong response. Rather we are compelled to step from our former perch, ideally toward Jesus who poses a response-provoking question to us. Sometimes we step back, a move that always leads him to step closer. The response that produces the least amount of fruit is to just sit on our newly broken fence. Our edifice of inaction becomes a decision. This is the position we see in the leaders today. They prefer the familiarity of their broken fence to the new horizons offered by Jesus.
During this Advent season, may we engage with the motion of moving toward our savior that has come so far to engage with us. May he lead us from our fences, our indecisions, our inaction, and our apathy. May we give him enough of a response that he may lead us to richer and richer pastures.
Amen.
- Spencer Hargadon