12/13/2009
Surely!
December 13, 2009 Isaiah 12: 2-6 Luke 3: 10-18
Rev. Catherine Purves
N.T. Wright begins his reflections on our Luke passage about John the Baptist’s continuing call to repentance by describing a cartoon. In this cartoon, there is a skeptic who is looking up at the sky, and he shouts, “God! If you’re up there, tell us what we should do!” (the same question that the crowds asked John). Back comes a voice: “Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice.” The skeptic suddenly looks alarmed. “Just testing,” he says. From heaven comes the reply, “Me too.”
Have you asked that same question that was repeatedly voiced by the crowds who surrounded John the Baptist: “What should we do?” It seems an honest question and an appropriate question. But it begs another question in response: “Do you really want to know?” Like the skeptic in our cartoon, are you just asking to find out if there is an answer? Are you just testing to see what is expected with no real intention of actually doing what God commands? Do you really need to be told that faith has consequences, that God wants to use his people to do good, and that there is a Christian agenda when it comes to how we live our lives?
If we are Christians, then our marching orders are fairly obvious, and I can imagine John the Baptist’s growing impatience as he had to answer first one group and then another. I expect him, at any moment, to turn on his eager questioners, and to shout, “Can’t you figure this out for yourselves? It’s not all that hard to imagine how you must change. Or are you just testing God to see how little you might get away with doing?”
That’s what I’d be tempted to say, but instead, John answers every inquiry simply and honestly. If you have more than you need (who doesn’t?), give away what you don’t need to the poor. If you are a tax collector, or involved in any kind of business (aren’t we all, in one way or another?), don’t lie or cheat so as to make yourself richer. If you are a soldier, or in any position of power (and all of us have power over someone), don’t misuse that power or treat people unjustly. These are simple rules of thumb for those who are really interested in God’s answer to the question, “What should we do?” Surely, they could have figured that out for themselves, but John spells it out for them (and for us) anyway. He is quite eager for them to understand that their baptism of repentance must result in a changed life.
As wild, and wooly, and in-your-face scary as John was, it seems as if the crowds were happy with these answers and flocked to be baptized by John. In fact, some began to speculate that maybe John could be the Messiah. Perhaps those simple, straightforward instructions that directed them to do this and not that made them think that he would make a predictable and a relatively safe messiah. But John was quick to correct them, and to draw a sharp distinction between himself and the One who was to come. What follows is a description of Jesus that is, I expect, somewhat uncomfortable for us in its severity and its implied threat.
John the Baptist was no push-over, but Jesus sounds like a veritable whirlwind of divine judgment, baptizing with the Holy Spirit and fire and wielding a holy pitchfork to divide the wheat from the chaff that would be burned in unquenchable fire. In the face of such a Messiah, the crowd’s question (and our question), “What should we do?” seems even more urgent and appropriate. And, remembering N.T. Wright’s cartoon, God’s final response seems that much more ominous. In fact, maybe it’s not even funny that the skeptic’s feeble remark - “Just testing” - is followed by the divine disclosure, “Me too.”
What are we to make of that “Me too”? If God is testing us and if Jesus will ultimately be our judge, how then does Luke conclude this description of John’s fiery proclamations with these seemingly incongruous words: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Good news? If that doesn’t sound like good news to you, then we must be misunderstanding that punch line, “Me too.” How else could we understand it? How and why are we tested? How and by whom are we judged?
Let’s come at this from another angle. When teachers test their students, they don’t do it because they want to fail a number of them. They do it ground them more strongly in good learning, that is, in what is true. The testing is part of the teaching, part of the growing, part of the learning.
And when a farmer takes a pitchfork and tosses grain into the air so that the chaff, which is lighter, will blow away and the heavier wheat then fall to the ground to be gathered in, the farmer doesn’t do that because he gets a kick out of toasting chaff in unquenchable fire. He does it because the grain is precious and must be separated from the useless chaff that surrounds it.
What I am suggesting is this: these images that John is using should not be taken to mean that God’s primary purpose is to judge, condemn, or toast us in unquenchable fire. Surely, God’s purpose is to save. That is why Jesus was sent into the world. Surely, God’s desire is to change us and enable us to live more faithful lives. That is why Jesus baptizes not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit. Surely, God’s will is that we would be separated from our sin, as the wheat is separated from the chaff. That is why Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross. Surely, God’s coming in and as Jesus Christ means that God’s power to put things right again has been unleashed in the world for good. And that is why what John proclaimed was, surely, good news.
The choir will soon be singing what has come to be called the First Song of Isaiah. Nancy read that same text for us earlier. It is a prophetic song of hope that anticipates God’s unilateral act of salvation. It shows that our opening question, “What should we do?” is a second order question. It is not an unimportant question, but our salvation does not depend upon it. In other words, what we do does not save us. In the words of Isaiah, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.”
God became our salvation when God became flesh and entered the world for us as Jesus Christ. At that point in the long history of humanity’s relationship with God, the Law (which answers our question, What should we do?) was transformed. Our relationship to the Law was changed when Jesus fulfilled the Law for us. “What should we do?” was not then a desperate question related to how we might be saved. Instead, it became a question of how we should respond to the salvation that was ours in Jesus Christ. Living the answer of that question, according to Isaiah, is a matter of joy, giving thanks, proclaiming what God has done, and singing praises to the Holy One in our midst.
Surely, this should be the spirit of our Advent preparations and our Christmas celebrations. And this is why John’s proclamation was good news. It is very different when a person of faith, and not a skeptic, asks the question, “What should we do?” Then the obvious answers which direct us to participate in God’s putting the world right by acting justly and compassionately come as no surprise. As people of faith, we can receive them with thanks and not with fear. And as we seek to live that life to which we are called, which will test us and stretch us and change us, we know that in all things it is not God’s will to judge or condemn us; it is God’s will to save us. Surely, God is our salvation! Surely, Jesus Christ is our Savior.
