Our second reading for today might not seem all that related to this week’s theme of ‘peace,’ but don’t worry, we’ll get there.
It comes from the gospel of Matthew, and it’s actually about John the Baptist’s ministry, preparing the way for Jesus.
Scripture: Matthew 3:1-12
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.’ ”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John the Baptist, even by ancient standards, was a weird guy. He lived in the desert, away from the resources and protections of a town or city, he wore very particular clothes, and he ate a very…limited diet of locusts and wild honey.
He was also identified as a prophet – in line with the prophets of the Old Testament like Elijah and Isaiah – and prophets were allowed to be a little weird.
John was absolutely single-minded in his mission to proclaim the coming of the Messiah and as we find in Isaiah, “prepare the way.” To get the people ready for what Jesus is about to do and say.
He preached both repentance and forgiveness, and he promised that the kingdom of heaven had come near. He baptized, immersing the people in water to represent the cleansing away of sin, and promised them that someone even greater was coming, who would baptize them with fire.
Also in line with the prophets before him, he then goes on to threaten a bunch of religious leaders and calls them a brood of vipers and hypocrites to their faces.
Super calm, peaceful guy.
If you watched our online service last week, you might remember that I said Advent is the time when we recognize that we live in the messy middle – in between Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and the fullness of God’s kingdom.
We got a glimpse of that kingdom in what Linda read for us – another vision from the prophet Isaiah that describes a kingdom where everything and everyone lives in peace and harmony.
What we see from John the Baptist in Matthew is what happens when that Isaiah’s vision comes crashing up against the world we already have.
If we’re going to live in that peaceful kingdom, then we need to deal with some things in ourselves before we get there. John’s cry for the people to repent is not a condemnation – in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s an invitation to try again, and again, and again, to be the people who will thrive in God’s kingdom.
Repentance has become a somewhat negative and nebulous concept, thanks to angry people with hateful signs, preachers who wield the word like a weapon, and the general existence of the internet.
What does repentance in the Bible actually mean, actually look like? Is it just ‘I feel bad about myself?’ Is it ‘I feel guilty after doing something wrong?’ Is it making amends or forgiveness or just trying to be a better person, or something else entirely?
The Hebrew word for repentance is ‘Teshuvah’, which also means ‘turn around’ or ‘come back.’ In Greek, the word is ‘metanoia’ – or simply ‘to change one’s mind for the better.’ It’s a returning to God and to ourselves. It is the process by which the Holy Spirit realigns our hearts with God’s heart, our living with Christ’s life.
But when John noticed that the religious leaders of the day were coming to be baptized, he sensed that they had not done the inner work that went along with the physical cleansing of baptism. They had no intentions of changing anything about their hearts or their lives. They simply wanted to be seen doing the same thing that so many others were doing – they wanted to join the trend.
That’s when John gets angry and calls them snakes.
There can be no repentance if we refuse to acknowledge that anything’s wrong. That we’re imperfect people in a messy world, with plenty of room to grow into the life and love of Christ.
Throughout Scripture, from the very beginning, God has always been willing to welcome with open arms the people who know they’ve messed up. Think of the prodigal son, the people of Ninevah in the book of Jonah, Zacchaeus the tax collector.
The people God goes toe-to-toe with are the ones who think they’re doing just fine on their own, who think ‘I don’t need to change; I don’t need any help.’ Paul, a Pharisee who was actively persecuting the followers of Jesus, is confronted by the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Jonah, who is upset that God didn’t destroy Ninevah, gets a sermon complete with an object lesson directly from the very mouth of God. The false prophets and corrupt kings in the Old Testament are eventually brought down by the words of God’s prophets and the might of neighboring empires.
When I was an undergraduate (several lifetimes ago), I majored in International Relations, and had minors in Religious Studies and Journalism. Basically, I was a walking encyclopedia of everything you weren’t supposed to talk about in polite company.
Through those studies, I learned that there are many approaches to “peace-making.” On an international level, some nations believe the only way to true peace is by wielding absolute power, conquering their neighbors until they bump up against someone with a bigger missile silo. Others focus on cultural uniformity as the way to peace, policing everything from language to how holidays are celebrated to the kind of job you’re allowed to have, so no one has differences to fight over. Some others believe they will achieve peace by spreading their doctrine throughout the world, and only when everyone agrees with them will we all get along, while others practice isolation, saying ‘not my problem.’. Still others see the world only in terms of raw power – military, economic, political – and they usually don’t seek peace at all, because that’s not very powerful of you.
Even on a personal or community level, we grasp at peace in the same ways: we seek power over others; we seek uniformity, not unity; we try to convince everyone that we know the one right way; we try to use money, influence, and violence to get our way, or we isolate ourselves from anyone or anything that makes us uncomfortable.
What Isaiah and Matthew come together to teach us is that there is no true peace – individual or international – without repentance. If we try to create peace without acknowledging and rectifying our personal failures and the deep-seated injustices of our world, we will be putting a spiritual band-aid over a bullet wound.
Y’all, we cannot satisfy ourselves with cozy blankets and candles and assurances that ‘it’ll be fine!’ and call that peace.
I tried to find a national example this week of something that we could all look at and say ‘that’s not okay!’ and talk about how we might repent and pursue peace. But that exercise gave me spiritual and literal heartburn, so I thought I might look closer to home.
One of the greatest struggles for the big-C Church over the past couple centuries is the question of who is welcome to participate in the life of the church, and to what extent, and why. Who is allowed to attend Sunday worship? Who is allowed to participate in the sacraments? Who is allowed to lead, up front and behind the scenes?
There are a lot of thoughts out there about all of that, and in the past and in the present nearly all traditions, denominations, and congregations have chosen to draw lines in the sand that exclude folks from the life and ministry of the church, for one reason or another.
But over the last few months, the Session and I have been working on a policy for this congregation that focuses on how we can express our commitment to radical welcome. We looked at what we believe to be true about God, what the Book of Order says, what our safety and staff policies say, and we started to craft a ‘Radical Welcome & Anti-Discrimination Policy’ that will hopefully put on paper the kind of welcome we already strive to practice while still maintaining our need for ‘all things decently and in order.’
It’s not quite finished and approved yet, but when it is we’ll let you know.
But this is a teeny-tiny example of the kind of peace-making I’m talking about. We recognize that something isn’t quite right with the world. We get together and decide not to do that. We take concrete steps to make change. As we practice God’s love, we continue to be transformed by God’s love.
Peacemaking is both incredibly complex, because it involves humans who are complicated on our best days, and mind-numbingly simple, because it begins with the simple exercise of seeing who and what is not okay.
As Meredith Anne Miller writes:
“Christmas is not here to offer a four-week escape from the pain of the world with a paper-thin layer of twinkle lights. It is not here to anesthetize us with bows and eggnog lattes. Christmas is not offering us the chance to escape the ache of life through piles of presents.
Christmas is God saying: ‘Yes, this pain is too much. Yes, it is too sad. Yes, the ache is too great. Hang on. I’ll come carry it with you.’
Beloved people of God, believe this good news and live in its peace.