Father Lazarus Abboud
I stand bewildered before the Baptist, that stranger in his conduct, if I read his conduct through the thinking of some today. So I ask: what did John gain when he said to the unjust Herod: “It is not lawful for you” (in the colloquial: what did he get but a headache — rather, the cutting off of his head). Indeed, John did not change Herod’s decision, nor change his conduct, for he remained as he was, crooked in conduct. What did the Baptist gain from defying the king, when authority was in the hands of the unjust Herod and power in his hands? What would the penniless Baptist change before that tyrant who is supported by all the power of the earth? What did John the Baptist reap other than the cutting off of his head in the end? What is John’s hoped-for benefit from raising his voice? Will he change reality, or will he turn Herod away from his evil?
Was he not able to go along with it? To content himself with prayer, and God would set things right and take vengeance? Was he not able to seclude himself in a cave and remain an ascetic, praying, fasting, and self-denying — so that after he had baptized Christ, he would return to the wilderness, praying for the unjust so that God might take vengeance on them or set their condition right, so the condition of the flock would be set right, and he would pray for the flock? What is striking is that he confronted Herod while Jesus was working wonders — that is, God on earth incarnate was able to say: Jesus is working, so why should I speak?
What John wanted to do was not because he wished to change reality and change society and authority, but because he was a man of God, because God had placed in his mouth a scroll to proclaim His will, to proclaim His word, even if it were not heard. Therefore he was called a voice crying in the wilderness (and in the colloquial: the one who cries out in the wilderness, no one hears him). But he remained a man of God proclaiming His justice.
We are before a reality that makes us unable to balance between withdrawing from reality into prayer, and withdrawing from prayer into reality. “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Eccl 3:1). Prayer alone is not enough to stop injustice or the one who breaks God’s law. The one who prays prays in order to receive the power of God in the face of the injustice of the world and its corruption. Man prays in order to read events with the eyes of God, so that he may be able to return all that is temporal and human to what belongs to God. Prayer is the foundation, but action is a necessity. Did not the Apostle Paul say that we are fellow workers with God? If prayer alone were the benefit, why did Elijah not pray for fire to come down from heaven to burn Jezebel and her husband, when he was able to do so? Why did Moses not only pray and thus save his people? I cannot enumerate thousands of examples, for the history of the Church is full of those who confronted the heretics, the emperors, and the robber councils, not by prayer alone but by action face to face. Why do we not only pray instead of going to visit the sick — and the analogies are many? Why do we not pray for the couples in our rooms while they are in theirs, and be done? Because we are fellow workers with God, as the Apostle Paul says.
Every Christian (lay or clerical) is called to the face of the Baptist, not because we resemble him in his obedience and his righteousness, but because God is still present in this existence, and His word is still seeking someone to proclaim it. It is said that not every man is a prophet, but every baptized Christian is anointed a prophet. The Christian’s role is to raise up the voice of God and to proclaim God’s rights in human justice. Prophecy is not an individual state, but a general gift — the power given to the Christian to discern God’s will and to convey His will to the world. For if there is no one to convey God’s voice, “then anxiety and violence will reign forever if the voice of the condemned is stifled in the absence of justice,” as Patriarch Ignatius IV says. We are called to raise a crying voice in the absence of justice in any society, ecclesiastical or civil.
Metropolitan Paul Yazigi says: Who dares the love that may bring him into collision with the mighty of this age? The Christian is the one who loved the will of God above everything, and who makes in the earth a divine commotion and clamor, for prophecy has a troublesome voice.
Patriarch Ignatius Hazim says:
Be troublesome, and the day you become desirable, woe to you.
Be troublesome; you must disturb heedless consciences and awaken sleeping consciences.
You must say to ears that have gone deaf: there is a voice calling.
You must unsettle entities that must submit to the mercy of God and His grace.
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