A (0:00)

So I mentioned at the beginning of this Mass that this day, this Sunday, is the beginning of ordinary time. It is the beginning of. I always think of ordinary time as time for growth, right? So normally, ordinary time, we wear green, and green means grow. Today, since it's the baptism of the Lord, we have in white because it's a great celebration. But it does mean it's the beginning and the beginning of a new. Obviously, the first Sunday of Advent was the beginning of the church year. But there's something about right now, next weekend, we are having our students back. It's our beginning of the semester next weekend. This. There's something so powerful, so important about having this beginning, starting with the baptism of our Lord, because A, it's the beginning of his public ministry, and B, our baptism, your baptism was the beginning of new life in Jesus for you and for me. Like this. This is what started so many ways, what started it all. The question I have is this, how do we live out that baptism? How do we live out that new life? How do we live out a relationship with God? And I think. I mean, there's so much to say about this, and we probably will talk about it much, much more into the semester, into the new year. But we fall into some traps. And you might not fall into these two traps. I want to talk about two traps this morning. You might not fall into these two traps, but I think a lot of us regularly do. And that the traps, essentially, that John the Baptist might be tempted into in the gospel today, the first trap is the trap of not seeing God as the one who teaches and the one who leads, but seeing God as the one who needs my counsel. God is the one who needs my advice. The other trap is the trap of performance. So let's go look at the first one. The first one is. It's common to a lot of us right here is John the Baptist. And Jesus comes as he come. He's coming to get baptized. And John says to God himself, right to Jesus himself. He says, no, no, I need to be baptized by you. Like, I won't do this kind of thing. How many times are you. Do we in our prayers see ourselves as God's counselor? See ourselves as God's advisor? Here's what I mean. It's when we're in prayer, it's usually a time like this, usually a time where we're desperate, when we. There's something we know we need, there's something we know someone else needs or we desperately, desperately want. We say, God, you have to do this Thing. How many times has that marked our prayer? Come before the Lord and we say, okay, God, this is what you need to do. Here's the situation. My kids, they're away from the church. Here's what you need to do, God, here's the situation. This person's marriage is on the rocks. Here's what you need to do, God. Here's the situation. This person is sick. Here's what you need to do. And we see ourselves as God's counselors. We see ourselves as God's advisors. Now, there's something different. There's a difference of bringing our needs before the Lord, a difference of bringing our desires before the Lord. That we're called to do that, right? We're called to come before God and say, God, my kids are away from the church. Please, please bring them home. Or this marriage is. It's broken, it's hurting. God, please bring your peace, your forgiveness, your mercy to this marriage or God, please heal this person, heal me. Those are great prayers. We're revealing our hearts. We're telling God the truth. We're telling him. We're asking him for what we need. God, Jesus told us to do this. He said, ask, seek, knock. He said, the persistent widow, right? Coming before that judge again and again and saying, here's what I need. There's a difference, though, between revealing God, revealing our desires to God, or pleading with God, praying, asking God to help us. There's a difference between that and. And advising God, counseling God, God, this is what you need to do. It's the difference between saying, okay, God, you're failing to live up to my expectations. And, God, I trust you, God, here's the cry of my heart, but I trust you. Imagine being John the Baptist standing in front of Jesus. Now, I don't know the degree to which John knew the true identity of Jesus. I believe he knew he was the Messiah. I don't know if he knew that he was actually God himself. You can imagine him arguing and saying, no, I'm not worthy to untie your sandals. I can't be baptized by. I need to be baptized by you. And yet here's John, who humbled himself and stopped being the counselor of the Lord God, stopped trying to be the advisor of the Lord God and just did what he said. The measure. The measure that we're measuring out is not, does God live up to my expectations? The measurement is, can I put down my clipboard? God, here's all the things you need to figure out. Here's all the things you need to do. Can I put down my clipboard? Stop advising God and say, thy will be done. Again, I bring him my. Bring him your needs. Bring him your desires. Bring him those crises. He wants us to do that, but not as his advisor, as his sons and daughters. That's the first thing. To be able to put that aside, put that identity as God's counselor to the side. No, I'm not God's counselor. I'm his child. The other is I need to perform. I can imagine, again, this is me just reading into John the Baptist's life. I just imagine, because it says from people from all over the place, we're coming to John the Baptist to be. To be baptized, and they're repenting of their sins. There's an incredible revival happening in the Jordan river, and John is at the center of this whole thing. And I can imagine that at some. To some degree, there might have been the temptation. I imagine John given into the temptation, but I imagine there might have been some temptation that John would say, okay, now we gotta perform. Like, now I've gotta. I gotta put on the show now. At some point, I've got to give the people what they're looking for. And we can do the same thing when it comes to life. We can do the same thing when it comes to school or work or friends or strangers. We do that a lot with strangers. We can even do it when it comes to God. But to realize that when you've been baptized, when you've been made a child of God, the last thing you need to do is perform. I'm not saying that people who aren't child of God have to perform. I'm saying that the last thing you need to do is one who has been claimed by the Lord, who's been chosen by God himself to be his adopted son or adopted daughter. The last thing you and I need to do in prayer is perform. Years ago, I was talking with a high school senior, and I'd known her ever since she was in sixth grade or maybe even before. I think maybe I might have met her in the Catholic elementary school here in Duluth when she was in fourth grade when she went through our program. And as a high school senior, this was a young woman who had a 4 plus, 4.0 plus, you know, whatever. She had, you know, weighted grades, perfect score. She had. She was on varsity in every sport she was in, captain of a lot of her sports. She played some kind of musical instrument. That was incredible. And she had so much pressure on her, pressure to be perfect. I remember her saying, this one, such a profound statement. She said, everywhere in my life, I have to be perfect in orchestra, I have to be perfect on my sports team, soccer. I have to be perfect in my class. I have to be perfect at home. I'm the oldest of all my sisters. I have to be perfect. She said, you know why I love adoration? Because adoration is the one place in the world where I get to go in and be there and I don't have to be perfect. And I remember when she said that, I thought, oh, my gosh, she's got it. She's cracked the code in so many ways. There's all these human beings who expect her to be perfect. Now, maybe they didn't, but she expected that of herself. But at least when it came to her relationship with God, she knew she didn't have to be perfect. Can you imagine how stifling, how impossible it would be to come before the Father and come before the Lord Jesus in adoration, or come before the Father in prayer and feel like you had to still perform? I would cringe every time I started prayer. God, I know I'm still screwing up. I know I'm still a failure. I know I'm still not who I should be. I'm so sorry. My prayer would be mark by God. I'm sorry. As opposed to God. Thank you. These two obstacles to the Christian life at the beginning of this new year, at the beginning of this ordinary time, the obstacle of I'm going to take up my position as God's counselor, or the obstacle of I have to perform. We get to put those to the side. So here's the invitation. This is the last thing today for the rest of this Mass. Any other time you like, move forward. Bring your cares, bring your needs, bring your concerns, bring your desires before the Lord and then trust him. I'm not your counselor, God. I'm just asking you as your child, your adopted child, for what I either need or what I want. But I trust you. I'm not your counselor. I'm your kid. And I don't have to perform. Lord, if every other person in my life demands my perfection. And your presence is the one place I can be and just be me and not have to be perfect.