I found it amusing, and then a little sad, that I heard once a priest said that: Among all the saints, John the Baptist is not one to be imitated. Well, indeed, I am not sure about wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts, but I don’t think it was about that. I think what that priest meant was: Don’t go around telling people to repent because the end of times is near and that surely they are under God’s judgment and God’s wrath. And I get it, doing that can seem quite annoying and a little crazy. But I am confused though: If John the Baptist is not to be imitated and his message not to be shared, then why would we even listen to him? The four evangelists though cannot stress enough his importance as Jesus’s forerunner, he is the one who, as self proclaimed, prepare the way of the Lord, and make his path straight. Actually, in every single of the four Gospels, we meet John before we are allowed to encounter Jesus. I don’t think this is only for dramatic effect, to keep us waiting and to keep us in suspense.Truly, John prepares us to meet Jesus, and he opens a highway that is called repentance– a word we’re not so sure about today, so I think it’s worth spending some time today about what it’s really about, in the context of this passage rather than what we have ended up makingof it.
– Repentance in the proclamation of John is about “turning” (The original Greek word), a return. It’s important to know that this is an image taken from the exile, at a time where people felt separated from God in a foreign and pagan land, and they wanted to go back to Jerusalem, to their Temple and their faith. They missed their God and they regretted having ignored his commandments. The highway in the wilderness is actually what it is about. Before being an image, a metaphor, it is a concrete road that would lead the people in Babylon back to Zion. What is also worth noticing is that, in Isaiah’s prophecy it’s not on the people to make a path, rather, God himself is opening a highway for people to go back to God:
Isaiah 43:19 – “I will make a way in the wilderness…”
Isaiah 11:16 – “There will be a highway for the remnant…”,
Isaiah 35:8 – “A highway shall be there… and it shall be called the Way of Holiness…”
The call to repentance is a call of love, a call to long for God, and to hear God longing for us. So it’s much deeper and more beautiful than the “feel bad about what you did” we have decided repentance is about. We talked about that last week how we can get trapped in our desires, caught up in everyday lives, and we don’t really pay attention to God anymore, take the time to listen and to do what God invites us to do. In those condition indeed, how could we encounter Christ, if we don’t even desire to grow in relationship with him? I like it that someone noticed that people in the wilderness were “hunting” for God when they came to hear John. They had left their local synagogues and the Temple to hear something new, to seek something more compelling. I think it takes spiritual courage to do that. I am not saying that we should all leave our churches (!), but Advent could be a good time to add a devotion that feeds us, we could take the risk to read a book or have a conversation with someone from another faith tradition, we could ask questions about the things we take for granted (We’re going to do just that after the service, speaking about the core beliefs of the Episcopal Church).
– Now repentance is of course also turning back from our sins (confessing their sins, see v6). If we want to have a relationships with God, we have to leave behind the other things that takes our time, our energy and fill our hearts, for better or worse. We don’t have to do it alone though. John baptized people as a sign of cleansing (I baptize you with water for repentancev11), making it clear that it’s God who does the cleansing, we don’t have to do it on our own. It’s interesting that John quoted Isaiah and changed the quotation a little bit, as we have come to know it: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.”. Yes, God will make a way but we also have to show our good will, our desire to receive God by the water. Then Christ will bring the fire, the Holy Spirit that can sanctify us. Now repentance is not just about inner disposition. John told the people they had to produce good fruits, or rather fruit worthy of repentance (v8). Our repentance must be made manifest in efforts and small sacrifices. If you’re impatient, you may complain all you want to God to make you more patient, but you can also decide today to let let this person cut you in line and be okay with it. If you’re angry against someone, you can ask God to make you less angry, and you can also decide to send them a Christmas card anyway, even if it costs much to take the first step. If we persist in small sacrifices, I believe God will help us to change, but we have to open the door, not just with our lips but with our acts. That’s a consistent teaching in the Bible that God never forces us to believe, to accept him, to change.
– Now back to our first question, should we preach repentance and the wrath of God as John did? Well, yes and no. Yes, a lot of priests and ministers preach repentance to their people, but if you pay attention – especially in Matthew’s version – this is not exactly what John is doing. He is mostly calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees, and we know that later he will call out Herod. He is preaching repentance to people who are more powerful than him, wealthier, more educated, leaders who have authority over people. John wasn’t overburdening people who were already struggling or afraid! (See in Luke 3, rather he gave them advice to do better, and start making small sacrifices). John was not condemning struggling people, rather he was calling out hurtful people he should have been afraid of – and we know in the end he will be killed for it. And it makes a big difference, no? I don’t know if we’re supposed to go that far and be ready to get ourselves killed, but certainly the way it would look like for us imitating John would be more like the priest asking their bishop to repent of entitlement, rather than the priest guilting their own people into giving more money to their church! Being like John would be as if you were to point out to our boss their injustices, instead of pointing out the mistakes of the person who’s working under us. That’s why and how we can imitate John: Give tactful advice to those who struggle and ask for help, and be bold in denouncing what’s wrong in our workplaces, churches, and even families when there are abusive patterns and abusive people. Simply put: Ask the one you’re afraid of or on whom you depend to repent, but don’t guilt or burden the one who’s already afraid of you or dependent on you. That should keep us fair and honest.
– As far as keeping us fair and honest, we can also notice that John was the first to practice repentance before he asked people to so the same, and his discipline was much harder than what he asked the people to do. We’re legitimate to ask people to change if we are the first to put in the effort and to manifest our desire to change. It’s also important to realize that prophets and saints as well as ourselves can repent on behalf of the people. It also open the door, build the highway. Think about it when we say the confession of sins. Don’t say it for yourself only but on behalf of the humankind. God always look for people through whom he can channel his grace. We can offer ourselves to God to bring reparation in the world. If there is something you’re very concerned about, instead of asking God to fix it, offer yourself to God so God can bring healing to this situation, and watch what happens.
– When we talked about John with the students I do Campus ministry with, I was surprised that, far from shying away from him, they expressed they were actually blown away by his passion for God, his courage, his honesty. Indeed, we really need this kind of truth telling, no nonsense message. We have to care for the people, but it’s not about telling them only what they want to hear. Our kindness and our way of expressing our care for the people should come in saying the truth instead of letting them delude themselves. The truth of the Gospel is that judgment is certain and judgment is coming. Now God’s wrath John describes is not about God being mad and letting it all out no matter the consequences. Jesus describes it himself in a parable how the chaff will be carefully separated from the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). What John announces is that certainly God will bring back the justice that was intended from the beginning, God will bring the peace and harmony Isaiah describes in first reading we have just heard (11:1-10). We are to take God seriously and the way we treat each other seriously because God will surely destroy evil and then what will happen to the evildoers? That’s why repentance is needed. There won’t be room in God’s world for those if who thrive on anger, competition, destruction, or even fall into apathy and indifference. Now again, all God needs is our desire to be better, not our actual performance or perfection. All God needs is our desire to do better and showing concretely our intent to do so. The way I see it is that if you’re afraid of the judgment, then you probably shouldn’t be, but if you’re not afraid of the judgment, then maybe you should be. This may sound like a pun but I think it also makes sense.
– A last take away for us today, is that I really like about John is presented as a forerunner: He goes ahead of Christ, when in our churches the only thing we hear about is to follow, to be followers of Christ, which can make us rather passive: We sit in the pews or even stand behind the altar and we expect that Christ will come to meet us. How would it be like though if we saw ourselves as forerunner too, going ahead of Christ to meet him, or to prepare the way for him in our world, in our neighborhood, in our families? How would it look like to try something new, to take initiatives, to go meet new people, to start a new ministry? Christ only had followers so they might become leaders, we shouldn’t be contented with being “lifelong students” of Christ. How do we make disciples too?