Advent Saturday 2 - The trap of authority

Readings Sirac 48:1-4, 9-11, Psalm 80, Matthew 17:9a, 10-13

It sounds quite dramatic what Jesus says about the scribes:

“Elijah has already come, and the scribes did not recognize him but did to him whatever they pleased. So also will the Son of Man suffer at their hands.”

Jesus does not say about them that they were wicked people, or murderers. But in a sense their fault is much heavier than that. Their approach to people was institutionalised and blindly chained to the letter of the law. This is how they misunderstood the preaching of John the Baptist and this is why they were about to start persecuting Jesus. Both men could not fit into the scribes’ understanding of how God’s salvation is going to come about. The scribes were figures of authority and for them to accept challenge from two young men, John and Jesus, who were neither important nor educated, was something unthinkable.
This is an ever present temptation in our own life, to presume that as long as we are in a position of authority whatever we do is going to be to somebody’s advantage. But do we care to listen with a keen ear to what others are telling us? Or do we just categorize them and force-feed them with our scheme of things?

We need to remember today perhaps even more than in the past, that it is the human person that is ‘the way of the Church’.