Vocal Training
What is the difference between “I have a voice” and “I AM the voice?” Today’s Gospel is synced with the beautiful poetry from the Book of Isaiah. Mark implies that John the Baptist fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy; he is the voice sent to prepare the way for the coming of the Just One. In the Gospel of John, it’s not just an implication; there, John the Baptist clearly declares, “I AM, as Isaiah prophesied, THE VOICE of someone crying out in the wilderness, THE VOICE that says, ‘make straight our God’s road.’”
John the Baptist was a total oddball. He lived on the fringes of society, maintaining a strange diet and a bizarre sense of fashion. He is truly the voice in the wilderness, the place for outcasts, where such strange behavior occurs.
The wilderness is the marginal world, where God’s most zealous ones are disciplined; that is, made into disciples. Today’s story suggests that this is the place where one’s voice can be fine-tuned. It is the place where we take voice lessons, if you will, to move beyond just having a voice to being the voice. It is the place where Jesus himself went for forty days and forty nights to do battle with the devil, so the story says. It is there that Jesus found his voice, his sense of mission. And after returning from the wilderness, he stayed on the margins. He entered another wilderness, getting his voice trained even further among the poor, the sick, the tax collectors, and sex workers—the ones not welcomed in the Temple. He got to know their wilderness and remained there. If he was to be the voice that announces that the Reign of God is here, he also needed training in the wilderness.
We are blessed to be where we are: on the fringes, meeting in out-of-the-way places without any official approval from church authorities, gathering where sexual minorities, women and gender-marginalized people, and the un-ordained lead. Many of us take positions on social issues that would be condemned by “good” Christians and profess a faith that some consider too progressive; some even label us as heretics. This is our wilderness. We are right where the unconventional John the Baptist would be. We are truly blessed to be where we are, because where else could we get such amazing vocal training? Where else can we learn the skill of being the voice?
Do you have a voice—or are you the voice? Over the years, DignityUSA has been defined as “the voice of LGBTQIA+ Catholics.” DignityUSA has had to be a voice in the media, being the go-to group that news outlets frequently count on for comment when there are events that impact our LGBTQIA+ community. Fundraising appeals have asked members and friends to “support the voice of DignityUSA,” so that we don’t just have a voice; we are a voice. Having a voice doesn’t necessarily mean you are using it; having a voice is passive. Being a voice is active. It’s about putting yourself out there and embodying your convictions and sense of justice. Being the voice builds the roads, fills in valleys, and levels mountains. It makes the rough ways smooth so that the glory and radiance of the Divine can be seen. Like John the Baptist, we must be the voice.
Several years ago, I attended a rally at which I heard some wonderful activists speak, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. We were angry, because just the night before, the U.S. Senate passed a so-called tax reform bill that numerous independent, non-partisan groups severely criticized. The Congressional Budget Office reported that this bill would add $1.7 trillion to the national debt. Provisions in the bill would result in thirteen million people losing their health insurance. Leading economists called this bill a huge disaster for the nation that would actually raise taxes for the great majority of us. The list of problems with the proposal was extensive, and there was nearly universal agreement among the bill’s critics that it robbed the working and middle classes to enrich the upper class, who clearly didn’t need it. How, many of us wondered, could anyone with a conscience support this? We had plenty to be angry about.
One of the speakers at the rally was from a rural county, a proud, tough, plain-spoken Appalachian great-grandmother, who, like John the Baptist, did not hesitate to quote Isaiah as she lambasted the politicians responsible for this scam. “Woe to you who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?” She delivered this message with righteous anger, the anger of her people. This woman lived among some of her state’s poorest people; that was her wilderness, where she received her voice training. And now, she was a modern-day John the Baptist, calling for the powerful to repent.
That’s not just having a voice; that’s being the voice.
I think of a scene from some Hollywood Bible epic, depicting John the Baptist getting arrested. He stands in the Jordan River as a group of Roman soldiers approach him. One says, “We have orders to bring you to Herod.” John, who is not intimidated by anybody, replies, “And I have orders to bring you to God.” They go into the river after him, and as they reach him, John grabs their heads, plunges them into the water, and shouts, “Repent! Repent!” Now, that’s BEING the voice.
John the Baptist urged us: “Prepare the way of our God.” That’s the voice Isaiah described; the voice that we embody when we live our prophetic calling. I prepare the way when I am the voice, when I speak up, when I refuse to be silent in the face of injustice. I prepare the way for the coming of God when I attack and expose the corporate and systemic sins that harm God’s people. And I prepare the way when I acknowledge the personal unloving attitudes that are in my own heart. I must be the voice of justice for myself as well. I must smooth out the rough road within me. I must look at that which makes the road rough: greed, jealousy, bitterness, a judgmental attitude, despair, lack of forgiveness. I must be the voice that demands that my soul clear a path through my own wilderness. I must let go of everything that blocks my vision of God’s glory.
Our Advent task is to work on developing our own voice, and to become the voice with which we can make a difference. Our task is to embrace our exile in the wilderness, to learn from our fellow outcasts how to clear a straight path and “make ready the way of Our God.” Then, as Isaiah, proclaimed, “the glory of God shall be revealed, and all shall see it together.”
Rev. Richard P. Young is a retired Catholic priest and mental health counselor. He chairs the liturgy committee of Dignity/Dayton’s Living Beatitudes Community and has worked with several DignityUSA chapters since the late 1970s. He once served on DignityUSA’s national board and has attended all the national conventions/conferences since 1981. He is married to former DignityUSA national secretary Bob Butts. Richard was honored with a President’s Award at the 2022 Dignity National Conference in San Diego.
