December 05, 2010 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Isaiah 11: 1.10 + Psalm 72 + Romans 15: 4-9 + Matthew 3: 1.12
It is easy with this Gospel passage to pay more attention to the messenger than to the message, but Matthew does not want that. He tells us nothing about John except what he wears, what he eats, and where he is. Stark details that for John’s immediate audience made them think more about Elijah than the son of Zecharia and Elizabeth. It is his message that matters, not who he is.
And then it is easy to sit here and think John is talking back in those old days to crowds of people who came out to the desert to see and hear him. With that kind of thinking, we disconnect from the message, and we become spectators in a sort of Biblical drama that has a wild man ranting and raving at a crowd of locals who with nothing better to do walk out to the desert to what all the fuss is about. Let’s be real about this. In those days, there was no cable TV, no WII, no golf course, no entertainment what so ever. Of course they went out there, what else did they have to do? But this isn’t about them nor about him. There is a message here and it is about us.
The message is still relevant and proclaimed every time we open the third chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. The message is timeless and appropriate for anyone who might be living with some anticipation that Christ will come again. To begin their renewal, to begin Israel’s rebirth conversion, John takes them away from the power of the city with its Temple and Palace. He takes them to the desert, that desert where it all began for them.
There he spoke about lives of integrity of relationships rooted in honesty and respect. He spoke up against presumption arrogant reliance upon one’s presumed sense of privilege, against complacency, the shirking of responsibility and disinterest in the welfare of others. What’s old about that message?
John’s voice and his message still cry out to all of us who are tempted to compromise our principals in favor of looking good or being popular, where we are taught to get what we want with the least amount of effort, where we are encouraged to disregard the needs of others while we take care of number One, and where getting caught is a bigger shame than what we are caught doing.
The message of John proposes that authentic seekers of what is to come will bear good fruit, fruit that comes from repentance. The prophet Isaiah put before us examples of that good fruit today: wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. But what is the fruit of our age? It isn’t hard to recognize: anger and pride, resentment and jealousy, ambition and greed; and an arrogant disregard for human life. Look at this half empty church, and don’t tell me it’s half full. Some of you were not here last week and some will find an excuse for not being here next week. Bearing witness to faith and giving public praise and thanks to God has become in this age a matter of convenience. We resent obligation and duty and pretend that some kind of private spirituality is as good, fruitful, and worthy of us as religious faith practiced proudly and openly.
The call to repentance has serious and immediate consequences. A little cleansing with water (John’s Baptism) is not enough. It’s time for more than that. It’s time for real purification by Fire. No shallow and superficial change of face will do. There must be a change of heart, and that will mean a change of life in which one’s values and vision, hopes and dreams are completely altered. No more dreams of a rich and comfortable life free of demands and worry. Now there will be a dream of sacrifice and service in which the only question is not what am I going to get out of this, but what more can I do for God and my neighbor. Gone will be a sense of privilege that suggests that we deserve anything replaced by the truth of obligation and duty with the conviction that everything we have is ours to give away like God and everything we have brings a responsibility for others.
This is something new. This begins to suggest that the Gospel is not merely an ideal to which we should like to aspire, but a practical, even though difficult, way of life that witnesses to the Prince of Peace – the one who is to come.
This day, this week of Advent, this season and it’s great prophet propose that we take a serious look at ourselves and the fruit of our lives here. Only when we shall we have begun to hear and heed the message of the prophet who has spoken to us this day and in this place.