Hinting at Jesus

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday December 5, 2010, the 2nd Sunday in Advent.

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Meredith Kemp-Pappan is a recent Austin Seminary graduate working in the denomination’s Office of Evangelism & Church Growth. The other day her twitter feed offered this little tidbit about today’s gospel reading, “The more I think about it, John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck.”[1] This much is true, John was a thorn in the sides of many people, especially those who were the rich and powerful people in the Jewish community; and particularly Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of the region John called home.

John came from the wilderness of Judea, which meant to everyone who knew the formal politics of the region that he was nobody. Where is power focused? It’s in the cities, of course. Whether Austin for state government, D.C. for the federal, Louisville for the denomination, or even Dallas for the Presbytery and the Synod, the seat of power ends up being in the cities. It may not have happened in that order. Everyplace was nowhere before it became somewhere, so it could well be that the seat of power nested and the city grew up around it. Regardless, the wilderness is not where power comes from and it’s where John set up his operation. But hey, the wilderness was good enough for Elijah when he started in ministry, so it can’t be all bad.

There is another thing that Matthew’s gospel tells us that shows that John is a great big nobody, his clothes. I love driving through the square outside the Federal and County courthouses and looking at the people. The men and the women in their fine suits; you know who the people who have power are. You can tell by the way they’re dressed. You can tell by the cars they drive. You can tell by the way they carry themselves. The folks who are being accused, especially in the county courts, not so much, we often see them wearing jeans and a shirt. Their shoes aren’t shined. They’re scared of what could happen next.

The moneyed powerful have lunch at The Bakery Restaurant on the square. Those without power, prestige, and cash; it’s McDonalds if it’s not a bologna sandwich. Last Wednesday I stopped by The Bakery and as I walked around the square and there were more suits having lunch than you’ll find at a Tux shop before prom. Even the “Mother’s Day Out” crowd was dressed like they watched one too many episodes of “The Real Housewives” on Bravo.

So consider then as John comes wandering out of the wilderness and into a group of people. Some of them are the well heeled folks from the seats of power; others are rural folk trying to scratch out a living in the hinterlands. He doesn’t look much like either group. He is wearing camel hair clothes with a leather belt. In a fashion forward way, it sounds like he’s a sharp dressed man. In truth, the clothes he was wearing would look to us like a rough camel skin smock tied with a leather belt. There is no mention of sandals and certainly no mention of boxers or briefs. He doesn’t have the big bucks haircut and a comb would probably surrender the moment it saw his head.

He’s wild, he’s unruly, he looks dangerous, and he’s attracting crowds, crowds who have come to confess their sins and be baptized by him in the Jordan. The contrast between John from the wilderness and all of the people who came from Jerusalem and Judea to see him was deep, deep indeed, but there is one more thing that we must remember. The well heeled people came out to the wilderness to go see John. It’s like the Presbytery office heading out to deep west Texas because they heard there was a spiritual ruckus exploding around them, and they wanted to see what the hullabaloo was about and become a part of it too.

Style never goes out of style, and when a trend is to be followed; leave it to the trend setters to spot the good ones and latch on like a leech.

If the best defense is a good offense, John was the most offensive of all. He knows why they’re coming. He knows that they want to see the show and become a part of the show. The Pharisees and Sadducees figure that they’ll be able to tell their good friends and not-so-friendly rivals that “they were there” and “they saw it all” when John the Baptist was getting started.

Can’t you hear it now, “Oh yes, I was among the first to receive his anointing. You should have seen the scene! You should have been there!”

John of course isn’t having it. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the coming wrath?” He not only doubts their intentions, he invokes an animal which is associated with the fall of humanity from grace into sin and for good measure isn’t kosher. He not only calls them insincere and insignificant, he calls them unclean.

In my opinion, television shows, movies, music, and even sporting events get bluer and bluer with their screams and their insults. I say that the well crafted insult with a well placed word says much more with far less, and John demonstrates this today.

Then he even derails their first line of defense, who they are with the authority they receive from the synagogues and the temple. John cries out “Don’t say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father,’” You know they want to answer back “How dare he! Doesn’t he know who we are?” John warns them not to go there, not to invoke their status as the sons of Abraham because God can raise children from nothing. Their lofty status and their expensive suits and fine shoes mean nothing to John the Baptist. John may be the original king of “what have you done for me lately?” Yes, the leaders of the temple and the synagogues have been important to the nation, but what have you done for me lately?

John’s take, you are nothing, nothing to the kingdom of God.

Given that John thinks little of the temple elite giving lip service, er, glory to God in the highest; he tells them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. John tells them that a good tree will produce good fruit and the trees that are producing bad fruit are all ready marked for the fire by the ax setting at their root ball.

United Church of Christ pastor Mark E. Yurs recently wrote, “John’s wilderness preaching brings to mind a memorable line from Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. …They write, ‘Indeed, one of [the two] us is temped to think there is not much wrong with the church that could not be cured by God calling about a hundred really insensitive, uncaring, and offensive people to ministry.’”[2]

On a side note, this speaks to political correctness. In the early 1990’s, when this Hauerwas and Willimon quote was written, political correctness was beginning to define itself. As for me, when political correctness was about treating others, particularly those who are different, with respect and dignity; I could get behind that. It reminds me of a step toward Christ’s invocation to love one another. Of course, when PC morphed from respect and dignity into not only people trying not to offend one another but legislating words and thoughts of offense, I became more and more leery. You could say I love the concept and the motivation, but I’m not much enamored with the execution or what has come from it.

John the Baptist would have nothing to do with the concept of not offending someone. He downright knew how to offend people for the kingdom of God. That being said, along with Hauerwas and Willimon, I can’t imagine the Church universal being able to handle more than a hundred John the Baptist’s at any one time.

Meredith Kemp-Pappan has a point, “The more I think about it, John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck.”[3] If the Reverend Kemp-Pappan threw this quip to the universe as a random thought in a tweet, she should be affirmed that Hauerwas and Willimon thought enough about that sentiment to publish a similar thought twenty years ago. Yes, John’s a pain, but he’s the kind of pain the Church could use from time to time.

Then, at this point in John’s wilderness sermon, I imagine he drops his voice to a different level as he tells the world what’s coming next. He hints that there is a change on the way. He hints that someone who will do the work of redeeming creation is coming. He is coming with the Holy Spirit and fire. The name is unknown, the person is unknown to John at this moment, but we know who he is hinting at, he’s hinting at Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus who is the Christ.

He hints that while the baptism he celebrates is a ritual bath cleaning us for repentance for sins. The baptism that is coming will serve as a refiner’s fire. The baptism of the one who comes will separate us from our impurities like the flames eliminate the chaff from the wheat leaving only the kernel of truth behind. He tells us that the fire is unquenchable, but the wind that blows, the Holy Spirit of God, we know that this wind will never quit blowing either.

So what does this tell us for today?

The first thing is that as John speaks truth to power, we are to speak truth to power. Folks who are so impressed with their own power and prestige have no place for God in their lives. People who are full of themselves have no place to be filled in Christ. According to scripture, over the course of the next few years the elite would show that they have no place for Jesus in their lives. The power elite of this age don’t seem to be much different.

At that, in many ways, many of the power elite of the church (lower case “c” here) seem to have been co-opted by truths that are not the truth John brings from the wilderness. It’s a metropolitan, cosmopolitan truth that has more to do with power and lunch than with the authority of God and bread of life. It is up to us to speak truth to this power. It’s not a comfortable place to be, and it’s not a comfortable thing to do, but John the Baptist was not about comfort.

So what is that truth we are to speak? Jesus is coming, that’s the truth. As he was coming 2,000 some years ago, he is coming today. Thy kingdom, the kingdom of God is coming. I always got a kick out of that old bumper sticker that said “Jesus is coming, look busy” because that’s hardly necessary. Jesus knows who has been busy and what they have been busy with. If we have been wrapped up with ourselves he will know. If we have been wrapped up with his people, he’ll know that too.

I am not saying that we are saved by our works, but we will be judged by them. All of the things that seem so important in this life which are not holy will be burned away by the refiner’s fire like so much chaff from the wheat. The branches, limbs, and even trees that bear poor fruit, or no fruit at all, will be introduced to the ax and thrown to the flame. No, we aren’t worthy to carry his sandals, but we are to carry his Word into the world.

Finally, John’s faith is dangerous. We all see where it got him. He spoke the truth to Herod Antipas and met his maker face to face for the trouble. To speak the truth to the world, we will not always be loved. Then again, this is the way of all the prophets.

Now, I’m not saying that we should go out there and bust chops in the name of the Lord. As the old English saying goes, it’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. But sometimes, the vinegar is what’s necessary to clean up sticky theology when too much honey has been poured. The world may have a place for a hundred John the Baptist’s, but I don’t think even Texas is big enough for that much unvarnished truth at one time

So friends, beware the yeast of the Pharisees so that we aren’t lifted up in our own importance. Listen to the truth around us and know that some days will be better than others. Let’s know that John the Baptist was a real pain in the @#%* neck and know that his rough edges are sometimes necessary. It’s the rough edge of sandpaper that smoothes the surface of the wood. Let us prepare for the coming of Jesus, because yes, advent means coming. And that’s John’s message, Jesus is coming.

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[1] Meredith Kemp-Pappan, Twitter Feed, 8:17 AM, December 2, 2010. The word I mumbled through in worship is “ass.”

[2] Hauerwas, Stanley, and Willimon, William H., “Resident Aliens.” Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, page 167 cited by Mark E. Yurs, “Feasting on the Word” Volume A.1. Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown, Editors. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, page 45.

[3] Ibid Meredith Kemp-Pappan.