December 8, 2013
Matthew 3: 1-12
May
the Words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your
sight oh Lord our strength and our redeemer.
There
is a lot going on in today’s Gospel lesson.
It deals with issues of redemption, judgment and even baptism. This is a bit surprising considering that
Jesus does not make an appearance in it.
Instead we encounter John the Baptist, crying out in the Wilderness
“repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Perhaps for us the call to repentance has
only negative connotations and is too often associated with a very harsh, and
unrelenting way of thinking, of a vengeful god who cares more about rules than
love. It evokes images of excessive
guilt and shame. Repentance is not a
comfortable word, when I hear it I start to squirm, as I probably should. Repentance is not merely about feeling guilty
for your sins, or turning toward God in some non-descript way in order to avoid
punishment. It is actually more
difficult, requires more intentionality. Perhaps it is an issue of translation,
because it is clear that what John is telling the people to do is have a change
of mind, he is not calling anyone to sit and wallow in self-loathing, but we
are actually being asked to recognize in ourselves our priorities, our habits,
our outlook on life, and ultimately, to change them. Because , and this is the really wonderful
news, “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
God has come, he is in their presence, and without repentance, without a
change of heart and mind, how will anyone be able to see him, without a change
in the way we think and act how will we ever be able to feel at home in God’s
kingdom? Repentance is necessary
preparation, because with God’s kingdom comes a completely different way of
life.
John’s
message is not an easy one for any person to hear, but he is particularly hard
on the Pharisees and Sadducees who come to John for a baptism as well, but it
seems they do not come in humility. John
has only harsh words for these leaders of Jewish society. He seems to suspect that they are not being
totally sincere in their repentance.
‘You brood of vipers’ he says to them, and he tells them that they
cannot rely on their lineage to save them.
They set their pride on having Abraham as their ancestor, but their ancestry
will not protect them from God’s judgment.
“Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore
that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” We would be amiss if we did not take this
warning to heart. As Christians we too
are guilty of thinking that we will be spared God’s judgment, but John is
pretty clear that we will all face Judgment, that we will all be judged
according to our “fruits of repentance.”
While this all sounds rather harsh, it is indeed good news, God’s reign
has come near and in Christ we are faced with the reality of that reign.
John
speaks of one who will bring a baptism by fire and the Holy Spirit, a baptism
where the main tool is not water or oil but a winnowing fork, a tool used to
scrape the chaff, or husk, separating the usable portion of the wheat grain
from the unusable which is immediately thrown into the fire. This is neither a peaceful nor a particularly
comforting image. But John knew what it meant to be a disciple; he knew that
inviting God’s Grace into our lives is an invitation to be constantly formed
and made new and that that is not necessarily something that always brings us
ease or comfort. But rather we are
asking the Holy Spirit to set us ablaze, or to paraphrase John Donne “to burn
off the rust and deformity and restore Christ’s image within us.” God became incarnate in the world to show us
the Kingdom of God, and also prepare us to live in that kingdom.
The
verses following today’s gospel story
reveal that as the broken and world weary masses gathered at the edge of the
Jordan river in the hope that they might find healing and renewal in baptism, Jesus,
that very same healing ointment and hopeful renewal they were looking for was
right there in their midst. He did not
set himself above or apart from this crowd of lost and lonely sinners like the
Pharisees so often did, but stood among them, as one of them. Our own baptisms call us to do the same. To be marked as Christ’s own forever does not
separate us from the world, but places us right square in the middle of
it.
And
the world is not an easy place to be in the middle of, because it is a world
twisted with sin. The very fabric of
human society is run through with corruption and even our attempts to overcome
imbalance and injustice in the world is often met with resistance. As we become more aware of how our food is
grown or our clothes are made it becomes clear that in one way or another we
rely upon a system that is built on sin.
Often times our instinct is to try and separate ourselves from the sin
we see in the world, more often though we try to ignore it, pretending
everything is just fine because it is too difficult to live in this broken
world as if we were already living in God’s kingdom. We try to put off changing too much, but we
cannot let ourselves off the hook.
Dietrich
Bonheoffer writes, “Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin
than about courageously and actively doing God's will.” As baptized members of the body of Christ we
are asked to follow Christ which means living in the world as Christ lived in
it. But without true repentance we will
surely lose our way, without a true change of our priorities we will forget to
live as Christ and the kingdom of God will only be that much harder to see.At
our baptism we are handed over to God, we acknowledge God’s love for us and are
committed to being a reflection of that love in the world. The waters of our baptism commits us to
following the path that Christ set for us allowing God to winnow and burn away
the chaff of our lives, continually renewing Christ’s image within us. And just as Jesus stood with the newly
baptized on the Jordan River so too does he stand with us, As it says in Isaiah
“for when we pass through the waters God will be with us and when we walk
through the fire the flame shall not consume us.”
Today
on this second Sunday of Advent we are faced with the very difficult topic of
judgment and what that means for us who call ourselves followers of
Christ. We should be careful and never
put limits on God’s love by assuming that we know who will be counted as one of
God’s children and who will not. In
truth I believe that everyone is a child of God, that Jesus came to save all of
humanity, all of it. I recently heard
someone say that “hell is not being able to let go” It is for us, as
Christians, to be signs of that love by being living testaments to God’s kingdom.
By showing people that letting go of the trappings of this world frees us. Bearing fruits of repentance, that is,
showing the world what a truly changed mind and heart can do - this is how we
must live our lives.
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