by Paulist Fr. Rich Andre
June 25, 2018

Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24, 2018, at St. Thomas More Parish and St. Austin Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Psalm 139; Acts 13:22-26; and Luke 1:57-66, 80. (For better context, you may want to read Luke 1:5-25 and 67-79 as well.)

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Surprise, surprise! This is one of those solemnities that takes precedence over the Sundays of Ordinary Time. Why do we celebrate the birthday of John the Baptist on June 24? Well, just as Jesus’ birthday is celebrated three days after the winter solstice, when we can begin to see that the days are getting longer again, we celebrate John’s birthday three days after the summer solstice. John said that he must decrease so that Jesus may increase.

A lot of us aren’t familiar with the story of John’s birth, as recorded in the gospel of Luke. Today, I’ve asked the deacon to proclaim an additional section of the first chapter of Luke, so that we can put the story into better context.

Eight days after John the Baptist was born, his father Zechariah sang a song of praise, celebrating God’s mercy. Let us now do likewise.

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The birth of a baby is always miraculous.

But 2,000 years ago, the birth of a baby was even more miraculous than it is now. Many children did not survive the birthing process. There were no neonatal ICUs. And the birth of John was even more miraculous: we know the story of his mother Elizabeth, giving birth centuries before the advent of fertility clinics.

But the story of John’s father, Zechariah, is less familiar to most of us. As a Levite, Zechariah could only receive the honor of burning incense in the temple sanctuary once in his life. The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah in the holiest place of his religion, at the holiest moment of his life, and announces that Zechariah’s most fervent prayer has been answered. And yet, Zechariah doesn’t believe it.

He’s struck mute, just before he is supposed to speak to the crowd. Reflecting on this later, the people probably linked the timing of Zechariah’s going mute to the timing of Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy. Even before John the Baptist was born, everyone knew that he would be special.

When any child is born into our families today, we ask what the people asked about John: “What will this child be?” But people didn’t generally ask this question 2,000 years ago. Back then, parents did not croon to their children, “you can grow up to be emperor.” Children were expected to go into same trade as their families and to live in same village – perhaps in the same house — as their families. Why have our expectations for our children changed?

Partially through the message of John the Baptist himself. Christianity proclaims that all people have full dignity in the eyes of God. Think of Lucy and Agnes, insisting that, as women, they had full dignity without being married. Think of Paul, declaring that there is neither slave nor free person, neither Jew nor Greek. Think of Jesus, saying that John was greater than all other people born of women, but that all people in kingdom of heaven are greater than him.

We are not victims of our circumstances. We are each born in the Spirit, and we each have the God-given ability to continue growing in the Spirit.

Which inevitably leads us to discussing the dominant news story of the moment: the immigration policies of the United States. This is not intended as a “political” homily: wherever we sit on the political spectrum, I intend to make us all uncomfortable!

Our immigration system has been broken for decades… but our government has failed to muster the political will to try to fix – let alone reasonably discuss – the fundamental problems in all their complexity.

For the entire history of the United States, people have come here to forge a better life. As the Catholic Church has affirmed since at least 1891, people have the right to cross international borders in order to better provide for their families.

There were times when everyone was simply welcomed into this country, but there have been restrictions since at least 1882. In the past few decades, the rules are now much more burdensome than when my grandmother arrived here in 1926 with a first-grade education, not knowing any English. In 2008, Mike Flynn and Sheila Dalmia of Reason Magazine estimated that once someone applies for entry into this country, it takes anywhere between 6 and 28 years to immigrate and become a citizen. The 6-year timeframe is reserved for two special categories of people: (1) close relatives of US citizens and (2) people with specialized skills. (Here’s a handy chart to explain this.)

There are hundreds of millions of people around the world who desire to start a new life in the United States. Tens of millions are living in desperate, unsustainable, violent situations… and as Flynn and Dalmia write, “There is virtually no process for unskilled immigrants without relations in the U. S. to apply for permanent legal residence.” The United States cannot reasonably take all these people in, nor is it appropriate to expect our country to singlehandedly resolve the civil wars in Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, or Eritrea, the gang violence in El Salvador, Honduras, or Guatemala, or the general breakdown of governments in Somalia, the Central African Republic, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. But it’s also unreasonable to say that these desperate people have the resources to fix the problems in their own countries… just as it is unreasonable to say that we shouldn’t allow anyone to immigrate to the United States until after we build a 30-foot tall, 2,000-mile border wall, house all our homeless veterans, or solve the American opioid crisis.

Can we solve the challenges of immigration? Probably not completely, but we can surely find more humane and realistic solutions than those currently being proposed. Are we living out the teachings of John, Jesus, and Paul if our country of 326 million people only admits 20,000 refugees per year (~0.006% of the U. S. population)?¹ Are we upholding the legacy of Lucy and Agnes if we have admitted only 13 of the more than 13 million Syrian refugees so far this year (<0.0001% of the refugees)?

I do not believe that there is a completely satisfactory solution to the immigration crisis. On the one hand, we can’t reasonably admit all of the 65 million refugees in the world. On the other hand, turning anyone away who legitimately seeks asylum is callous. But I am convinced that we as a nation could be much more compassionate than we have been over the past several decades. We could make the process more transparent. We could try to streamline the “legal” process while still doing the extensive security screenings that we do. We could admit more people than we do. We could stop accusing these people in need of having nefarious purposes. We could try not to compound their suffering while we determine their future.

We have each been called, like John the Baptist, to be a light to the nations, to be instruments so that God’s salvation can reach to the ends of the earth.

Let us listen to one another. Even if we disagree, we can pray for unity and charity. Let us pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom. Let us ask for the intercession of John the Baptist, whom Gabriel foretold would turn our hearts towards one another.