What's the Point?

John the Baptist invited people to change their hearts and lives.  He offered a few examples of how.

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Transcript

Sermons from Mission Hills UCC

San Diego, California

 Rev. Dr. David Bahr

david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org

December 8, 2024

“What’s the Point?”

Luke 3: 1-6 – Common English Bible

In the fifteenth year of the rule of the emperor Tiberius—when Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea and Herod was ruler[a] over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler[b] over Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was ruler[c] over Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—God’s word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 John went throughout the region of the Jordan River, calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. 4 This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

A voice crying out in the wilderness:
     “Prepare the way for the Lord;
         make his paths straight.
5 Every valley will be filled,
     and every mountain and hill will be leveled.
The crooked will be made straight
     and the rough places made smooth.
6 All humanity will see God’s salvation.”

I love these lines:  Prepare ye the way of the Lord.  Every valley will be filled and every mountain and hill will be leveled… And all humanity will see God’s salvation.

This text is often read in Advent to announce the coming birth of Jesus, but in the gospel, this actually comes after his birth.  Just a few verses before, the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds had gone back to their flocks, and the holy family had walked back home to Nazareth where, Luke writes, “the child grew up and became strong, was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.”  

Next thing you know, he’s 12 years old and his parents have taken Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem, where he famously stayed behind causing his parents to look for him frantically for three days.  Upon finding him, Mary tugged him by the ear and they returned home and scripture reports, Jesus “was obedient to them” and “he matured in wisdom and years.”  

Nothing more is said until first we are introduced to his cousin John when both are about 30 years old.  John is out in the wilderness calling for people to change their hearts and lives and to show it by being baptized – not baptized, as we know it, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Jesus hadn’t started his ministry yet.  John’s baptism was a Jewish purification ritual, known as a mikveh.  Baptism is like a lot of Christian traditions in that it grew out of existing Jewish traditions.  We remember, of course, that Jesus was Jewish and wasn’t looking to start a new religion.  He was like the prophets of old who loved his religion enough to critique it.  

In fact, these wonderful lines are almost word for word quoted from the Prophet Isaiah: “A voice is crying out: Clear the Lord’s way in the desert!  Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God!”  This is Isaiah’s promise to everyone who had been living in exile in a foreign land.  It’s the same promise to everyone back living in this homeland but now under occupation by a different foreign adversary – as in, the 15th year of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, governors like Pontius Pilate and so forth.  And that’s where reading from the lectionary today stops.  John called people to be baptized and change their hearts and lives.  Prepare ye the way of the Lord.

OK, but what happened?  What’s remarkable is that people actually responded.  People actually wanted this and they streamed into the desert, some of them walking for days to experience it for themselves.

John shouted to the crowds, “No matter who you are or where you are life’s journey, you’re welcome here!”  Well, no he didn’t say that – at all.  John told the crowds who came to be baptized, “You children of snakes!  Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon?  Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and tossed into the fire.”  

Angela knew how to throw a good holiday party, down to every detail.  The last thing she did was to get down on her knees just before guests arrived to straighten the fringe on her Persian rugs to make sure every thread was perfectly straight.  No amount of “Mom, that’s not necessary” mattered.  “They’re just going to get messed up when people walk on the rug,” was of no concern to her.  Some might call her party preparations obsessive.  She would say, “love is in the details.”  Cookies came out of the oven at just the right time to fill her home with the aroma.  Punch was poured into the bowl at just the right time so the ice didn’t melt and dilute the taste.  Music was played at just the right volume to be festive but not intrusive.  She thought of everything.  

Is that you?  I just make sure all the piles of mail on the kitchen counter are moved into the bedroom and the dishes that have been in the sink a little too long are put into the dishwasher.

Angela also had a perfectly curated guest list.  For example, no conspiracy theorists that might awkwardly back another guest into the corner.  She had learned her lesson about guest lists one year when one of her friends brought a memorable “plus one.”  He was too loud and talked with food in his mouth; crumbs from the appetizers fell out of his mouth onto her perfectly coiffed Persian rug.  When he sat on the couch, he left a mess of stray hairs from his sweater, which looked, and smelled, like it had never been washed.  And his hands were sticky.  Everything he touched left sugary fingerprints.  Angela tried to remain cheerful instead of expressing her displeasure at his disruptive presence.  Until he went too far.  

On his fourth trip to the table for a handful of shrimp, he looked around and blurted out, “What’s the point of all this?”  Angela stormed out of the room and slammed the door.  How dare he.  After a few days, however, she calmed down and what felt like a hurtful accusation about her motivations became a persistent question.  Indeed, was there a point to it all?  All the perfection.  Was it really love in all the details?

Back to the gospel, surprisingly, the crowd’s reaction to being called children of snakes wasn’t to pick up their belongings and go back home.  Instead they asked, “OK, what should we do?”  And John broke it down in as simple terms as he could.  He invited people to be baptized and change their hearts and lives.  And then said, this will be the evidence:  “Whoever has two shirts must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same.”  John didn’t say anything about believing the right things, saying the right words, performing the right rituals.  The evidence of your baptism will be the practical application of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Then a group of tax collectors approached.  As they came forward to John, mouths in the crowd dropped as they watched this group of despised individuals.  They’re the ones who take the people’s money to give to Rome for the purpose of oppressing them.  How dare they.  But touched by John’s invitation, they asked, “Teacher, what should we do?”  John replied, “Collect no more than you are authorized to collect.”  

And then another group, even worse than tax collectors,  approached him.  Who could be more hated than tax collectors?  Soldiers charged with enforcing the Roman Emperor’s brutality.  The so-called “peacekeepers.”

In a sermon in 1956, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told about a federal judge who had just handed down an edict that the University of Alabama could no longer deny admission to persons because of their race.  And with that, the first Black student was admitted, a brave young woman named Autherine Lucy.  But as soon as she arrived on campus, a mob jumped on top of the car in which she was riding.  Eggs and bricks were thrown at her.  Crosses were burned.  After three days of this, the president and trustees of the university asked Autherine to leave for “her own safety” and the safety of the university.

 The next day, newspaper headlines across Alabama proclaimed, “Things are quiet in Tuscaloosa today.  There is peace on the campus of the University of Alabama.”

Dr King preached, “Things were indeed quiet in Tuscaloosa.  Yes, there was peace on the campus, but it was peace at a great price.  It was peace that had been purchased at the exorbitant price of succumbing to the whims and caprices of a violent mob.  It was peace that had been purchased at the price of allowing mobocracy to reign supreme over democracy.  It was peace that had been purchased at the price of capitulating to the forces of darkness.  It is the type of peace that is obnoxious.  It is the type of peace that stinks in the nostrils of the almighty God.”[1]

That was the kind of “peace” enforced by Roman soldiers.  Rome’s idea of peace was to crush resistance.  It was the absence of agitators, put down by any means necessary, to enforce a social hierarchy at which they were at the top.

But John got to them.  After the tax collectors, a group of soldiers approached him and asked, “What about us?  What should we do?”  He answered, “Don’t cheat or harass anyone, and be satisfied with your pay.”  This practical application of a changed heart and life will bring a different kind of peace to your life.  The teaching ministry of Jesus about to begin would repeatedly contrast the kind of peace enforced by soldiers of the Empire and the peace of God’s Kingdom.

In El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero spoke of this about the right-wing military government.  “Peace is not the product of terror or fear.  Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.  Peace is not silent revolt of violent repression.  Peace is the generous contribution of all to the good of all.”

Ralph Bunche was the first African American winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, resulting from his work with Arabs and Israelis.  He wrote “to have meaning for many who have only known suffering, peace must be translated into bread and rice, shelter, health, education, as well as freedom and human dignity.”  Peace is not an isolated emotion but the means to and the condition of wholeness for everyone.

John offered three examples that provide evidence of a changed heart and life.  To the crowd, to the despised tax collectors, and to the hated soldiers.  John didn’t ask them to leave their professions, about which they may have actually little choice, but to act with integrity within it. 

It starts in the heart but doesn’t end there.  In fact, it isn’t the end but it is now the way.  A.J. Muste, head of the Fellowship of Reconicilation during the civil rights movement, said, “There is no way to peace, peace is the way.”  And as Thich Nhat Hahn proclaimed “peace is every step.”

Before John called people to baptized in the wilderness, his father Zechariah announced about the birth of Jesus, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  

I have no doubt John would have something to say to every group who approached him.  What evidence do you suppose John would ask from you and me?  Angela got it.  She stopped holding lavish parties for select guests in her home.  She rented the community center and handed out flyers to everyone she met, telling people to bring a plus one.  Preferably someone memorable.

[1] MLK, “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious,” preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, March 18, 1956