December 9, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OP
I love the way Matthew introduces John the Baptist! He just appears, suddenly out of nowhere. It suggests mystery and leads us out of the ordinary and into wonder. You get a sense that something is up, some mystery is about to begin. The setting for this mystery is itself a place of wonder and wildness: the desert. Everything about this scene recalls Israel’s past: the clothing, the diet, the setting. Prophets and Passover are the stuff of this image and message. Something new is at hand, but only for those who themselves are new.
His words are shouted as a challenge to what is old with a promise for those who will turn around from old ways. Pharisees and Sadducees emerge as the old, and they are finished. Gone is privilege and the security of law-keeping. Something new is happening. A new age, a future that fulfills every prophet’s dream, and everyone’s hope; but the way into that future is not the way of the present. Those who will be part of that future will have turn around. They will turn their back on the present and the things that are.
In his desert preaching, he thunders a judgment at those who are content, prosperous, and comfortable with themselves and the way things are. His cry is heard everywhere, and even the curious are drawn to that desert place where things are stark and simple In the desert, there is no noise, no clutter, only the wind and the presence of God. In that desert, the truth is inevitable and unavoidable.
John would have us in that desert where we and everyone who hears his cry can see themselves in truth where pretense, denial, and falsehood are useless. There is nothing soft or easy about the message in that desert. It is a call to purity, to cleanliness, to holiness: a condition that confronts evil and sin for what it is.For a people in that age and this who have grown comfortable and compatible with sin, there is trouble. We don’t like to talk about sin, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it. But this desert wild man is not afraid to name it for what it is. As I said on the Holy Day we have just observed, and some have not: we would rather try to explain human suffering, failure, and evil in terms of psychological disorders, social change, pressure, tension, depression and anxiety. But none of that talk changes a thing and says nothing about the truth. After all, ages, cultures, psychology, and societies don’t really exist. Only people do. Sin is what it is. All our pretending and denial never makes it go away. Even our absence from the confessional hasn’t made better. It just adds to our moral misery and growing contentment with it.
We face tragedies like the killings in an Omaha Mall as though it is just something we have to live with these days. “What a shame.” we say. “What a poor sick boy.” We endure bombings and war, poverty and hunger, homeless people on our streets, corporate greed, and the rich sheltered by their precious tax breaks and never call it by name. The longer we pretend it isn’t sin, the more complacent we become.
A wild desert man shouts: “Stop that!” There is sin in the world. It is concrete and real. It is ours. It is not there because society or some system fails, but because we have done nothing and allowed ourselves to become dull and selfish. We even like ourselves that way.
There will be no Silent Night. There will be no “Joy to the World” and nothing for Angels to sing about until we turn this around. There will be no peace on earth until we make it. The coming of Christ that John proclaims is a coming into our hearts and our lives not some pile of straw in a manger. And that coming is going to demand some sifting and sorting. John isn’t talking to someone else. His voice and his message do not come to us from the past. We heard it today.