There is something in us (many of us, anyway-- myself included) that sometimes seems to want to "stir the pot"-- to provoke conflict or disagreement or anxiety, just for sport. We can find ourselves saying just the thing which we know will set someone off on a tirade. We figure out a way to raise a subject which we know will result in the conversation quickly devolving into the mud. In the prison system they sometimes call this "casting out a line," throwing out a comment that will get folks going across the cell block. It can provide days of controversy, and thus entertainment, in an otherwise monochrome world. We see some of that going on in today's gospel (Jn 3: 22-30) where both Jesus and John are baptizing in the same vicinity, and someone comes up to John to say that "everyone is coming to him (ie, to Jesus)," not John. Why would the speaker say that? Can't John see what is going on anyway? Does he really need to be told where the folks are going? No, you have to guess that the person who comes up to John is hoping that he has hit a hot button, that he'll set John off on a criticism of Jesus, accusing Jesus of doing something wrong, taking over the business, as it were. He's "stirring the pot," hoping that he'll start some amusing back-and-forth between John and Jesus. Of course, John doesn't rise to the bait. He knows his role, and his remark that Jesus must increase and John must decrease stops the pot-stirring in its tracks. Sadly, we're not all that self-aware. We're easily provoked into feeling wronged. We've all suffered wounds of various kinds, and good pot- stirrer knows just how to touch those scars so that we respond. It can seem to make for good fun on a slow day. We might remember John's example when we're tempted to get into the mud about what someone else is doing, and we might remember as well that stirring the pot doesn't do anything for us. Getting into the mud just gets us dirty-- and that's not a good way to look, especially as followers of Christ.