Tag Archives: John the Baptist

In Whose Name Shall I Baptize You?

Posted on January 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Seeing you, O Christ our God, drawing near to him in the river Jordan, John said Why are You who are without defilement come to your servant, O Lord? In whose name shall I baptize you? Of the Father? But you bear him in yourself. Of the Son? But you are yourself the Son made flesh. Of the Holy Spirit? But you know that from your own lips you give him to the faithful. O God who has appeared, have mercy on us.

- by Anatolius. From the Great Service for the Sanctification of the Water.

Icon of the Theophany: The Baptism of Jesus

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Witnesses and Interrogators – A Sermon on John 1:6-8, 19-28; Advent 3B

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

The collect and readings for the Third Sunday of Advent may be found here. The following sermon focuses on the gospel, John 1:6-8, 19-28.

There are, today’s gospel suggests, two ways of approaching life and God’s presence in the world. One way is demonstrated by John. The other way is demonstrated by the priests and Levites. We are either witnesses or interrogators.

John was a witness sent from God. The priests and Levites were interrogators sent by the religious authorities. “Who are you,” they ask John. “Are you Elijah?” “Are you the prophet?” “Why are you baptizing?” They know neither themselves nor the one stands among them. They are in the dark. That’s how it is with interrogators. Witnesses, however, are different. They talk about light. They know the light.

John knows who he is and who he is not. He claims for himself neither too much nor too little. That’s what makes him a credible witness. He speaks the truth but he is not the truth. He is illumined but he is not the light. He is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness but he is not the Word of God. Everything about John points to the light and the life of the one who both stands among us and the one who is coming. John will bet his life on that one. That’s how it is with witnesses. They live and die based on what they have seen, heard, and experienced.

The real difference between witnesses and interrogators is this. Interrogators demand answers. Witnesses offer hope. More than ever our world today needs witnesses of hope. We do not need more answers or explanations. We have enough interrogators. We need to hear “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”

John’s is the voice of hope. His words echo through the wildernesses of our world and our lives. John’s, however, was not the first voice of hope. Before John, Mary was proclaiming the greatness of the Lord. She spoke of the one who shows favor to the lowly, offers mercy, and lends the strength of his arm. He fills the hungry with good things and comes to the help of his people.

Before Mary, there was Isaiah. The Lord anointed him to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. He spoke about God comforting those who mourn and rebuilding the ruins of their lives. They will be clothed in garments of salvation and wear robes of righteousness.

John, Mary, Isaiah. Each one is a witness of hope. They look at the circumstances of their life and world and see a greater reality. They each testify to a life and presence beyond their own. Within each of their voices is the Word that was in the beginning, the Word that was with God and was God, the Word that became flesh and dwells among us, the Word that enables us to become children of God (John 1). Everything that needs to be said was spoken in that one Word. That Word is our ultimate hope.

Think about the tragedies and difficulties of your life: the death of a loved one, an illness, an addiction, a divorce, guilt, the sin that separated you from God, others, and yourself. Answers and explanations did not sustain you. How, when, what, or why was not what you needed to hear. It was the Word of hope that got you through it all. Hope doesn’t make life easy. It makes life possible. Hope reminds us that it won’t always be like this. There is light and life coming to us. It is already here among us. The interrogators of the world, however, make it difficult to hear that other voice, the witness of hope. The interrogators clamor and compete for our attention. They often speak the loudest but the voice of hope has never been silenced.

Which voice do we listen to? Which voice do we follow? Those are questions we must answer every day. The reality of humanity is that we are a people of the wilderness. The reality of God is that God is the God of hope. Do we trust the voice of the wilderness or do we trust the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness? The voice we listen to is the voice with which we will speak. We will become either witnesses or interrogators. We choose who we want to be.

Hope is not easy. We must practice hope. It means we rejoice always, we pray without ceasing, we give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). These practices enable us to both hear and become the voice of hope.

Interrogators will look at and question the circumstances of rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks. Are the circumstances right for rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks? Is there reason for those things? They want answers, justifications, and reasons. Witnesses, however, look beyond the circumstances to the God who fills those circumstances. That is hope. It opens our eyes to see the one who is coming. It prepares our heart to welcome the one who is already among us. It makes straight the way of the Lord. Hope is not a feeling but an orientation and attitude of our life. It is a way of seeing. It allows us to recognize and know the Christ, already here and not yet here. Hope does not change the circumstances of our life it changes us and that changes everything.

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When Exile and Words of Comfort Meet – A Sermon on Isaiah 40:1-11, Advent 2B

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

The collect and readings for today, The Second Sunday of Advent, may be found here. The following sermon focuses on Isaiah 40:1-11.

“Comfort, o comfort my people.” These are God’s ancient words to his people; spoken through the prophet Isaiah in the 6th century b.c. Their relevance and timeliness, however, are not lost on us today. It is not hard to find people in discomfort, lives in exile, and a world in turmoil. God’s words ring true in every age, place, and life because exile happens in every age, place, and life.

Exile takes us to the wilderness. In the wilderness the mountains are high, the valleys are low, and the ground is rough and uneven. Many of us have climbed the mountains of arrogance, ego, and pride. Likewise we have descended into the valleys of despair, depression, and fear. We have travelled the rough and uneven ground of sorrow, loss, and pain. The wilderness is not so much about the geography around us as it about the landscape within us.

That’s not just a description of our lives and our world. That is also a description of Israel in today’s Old Testament reading. Foreign armies have defeated the Israelites, taken them prisoner, and carried them off to a foreign land. Their home land has been overtaken by others and their temple has been destroyed. God, however, did not do this to them. They did it to themselves. Their own choices, ways of life, and sinfulness have brought this about.

Every one of us could tell a story about a time when we were in exile, alienated from life, our self, those we love, and our God. Some of us may be in exile now. Exiles live in a foreign land: a land of guilt and regret, fear, sorrow, despair. That is never where God intended us to live. It is not our true home but sometimes that is where we are. Thoughts, words, deeds, things done and left undone are the roads by which we came to this land of exile. Sometimes we intentionally choose those roads for ourselves. Other times it seems as if we have no choice. We do the best we can at the time but we are ignorant of a better way, a different way; God’s way. There are many paths into exile but only one way out, the way of the Lord.

Like ancient Israel we long to hear words of comfort. We want to know that one more powerful than us is coming. Not the one who overpowers us but the one who is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We want someone to love us, forgive us, heal us, and take us home.

Imagine the darkest place of your life; the fear, the anger, the hurt. Wondering when, or whether, it will end. You carry guilt and regret like a worn out suitcase wherever you go. The days are filled with “should’ve” and the nights with “if only.” Over and over the past is replayed to the point that you can see no future. Exile, alienation, wilderness.

That is the situation into which God speaks words of comfort. Even when you see no way out, no hope, and you think that all is lost God cries out to you, “Comfort, o comfort!” Those are not sentimental patronizing words. God does not put his arm around us saying, “There, there. Feel better.” They are words of God’s presence, encouragement, and strength. They make possible what God asks of us. In those words God says, “I have never forgotten you. I heard your cries. I saw your need. My heart broke for love of you. I am sending one to bring you home, one who is more powerful than you.”

God sends Isaiah to carry his words of comfort to Israel and to us. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” he instructs Isaiah. God knows that life in the wilderness is fragile. This is not a time for condemnation, judgment, or ridicule. Sometimes exiles are holding on by a thread. They need words of comfort, encouragement, and hope. Isaiah is to speak softly to their heart. He is to call them home. That is after all what repentance is about. It is about coming home. When John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance he was echoing Isaiah’s words. “It is time to come home.” Repentance prepares the way of the Lord. It prepares the way home.

God’s promise is that the mountains will be made low, the valleys will be lifted up, and the rough and uneven ground will become a level plain. The way will be prepared. This is not so that we might get out but so that God in Christ might get in. God is always coming to us. There is no situation in which God cannot come to you. Isaiah (sounding a lot like Diana Ross) reminds us that there is no mountain high enough, no valley low enough, no ground rough enough to keep God from coming to you.

“Here is your God,” Isaiah exclaims to Israel. In the foreign land of exile “here is your God.” God comes to us in the worst places imaginable. He gathers us in his arms and carries us in his bosom. God’s words of comfort come to us in our exile. Our wilderness is the geography of new beginnings, reconciled relationships, and salvation. It all starts with repentance.

Repentance is not so much about the guilt of our past but a present hope that reveals a new future. Love and new life cannot be sustained by the same old ways, the ways that took us into exile. There must be a conversion, a change of heart. If new life and love are to last we must call into question our usual ways of being and doing. We must be willing to grow and change. We need to orient our life in a different direction and live at a new level of consciousness. We must face the truth of our life; not as the final judgment of our life but as the foundation for our hope, expectation, and longing for the one who is more powerful.

Name the places of alienation and exile in your life and your will also name the opportunities for repentance and homecoming. Repentance happens when exile and words of comfort meet. We do not repent so that we can hear God’s words of comfort. God speaks words of comfort so that we might repent. “Comfort, o comfort my people.”

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Expectations, Prison, and Jailbreaks – A Sermon on Matthew 11:2-11

Posted on December 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

The collect and readings for The Third Sunday of Advent may be found here. The appointed gospel is Matthew 11:2-11.

2When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

7As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

 

We are a people of expectations. When we go to bed at night we expect the sun to rise in the morning. We expect others to stop at the stop sign. We expect it will take about an hour and a half to drive to San Antonio. We expect the church to be open on Sundays, the lights on, and Eucharist to be celebrated. We have expectations for what is appropriate behavior for ourselves and others. Our days are full of expectations. They offer some predictability and order to our world and lives.

There are other expectations, however. They affect us more profoundly than the day to day expectations. Sometimes they are expectations of hope and other times they are expectations of dread. Either way they have the power to imprison us.

Expectations of hope create a framework for how we think the world and life should be. They are often the ideals and dreams that carry us forward. They, in some way, describe our world vision and what we want. There are also expectations of dread, the things of life that we fear and want to avoid. Whenever we speak about wanting to simply get through the next day, the week, a particular aspect of our life there is an underlying expectation of dread.

The thing about expectations is that they pull us out of the present moment into a future we do not yet have, except as it exists in our head. Pretty soon we begin to act and speak as if our expectations, either of hope or dread, are the reality of our lives. We allow those expectations to shape our attitudes, our beliefs, and the way we relate to others. Those expectations even shape our image of who God is, where God can show up, and how God should act. If God does not meet our expectations we are often too quick to question God rather than ourselves. We trust our expectations of what God should be doing more than we trust what God is actually doing.

John the Baptist is a man of expectations. Last week’s gospel showed John to be a voice crying out in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” He expects a new kingdom and a new ruler. He expects wrath, fire, axes. He expects one who is more powerful. John’s expectations have given him the confidence and ability to turn his back on the religious establishment, to go the desert, and to seek God in the wild and untamed places of life.

Today, the gospel offers a very different picture of John. Today he is a prisoner with a question, “Are you the one, or are we to wait for another?” So what happened? How did John get from the vast wilderness expanse to the confines of four walls? How did he go from being a prophet with all the answers to a prisoner with questions?

At one level it started when he criticized King Herod. “It is not lawful,” John said, “for you to have your [brother's wife]” (Mt. 14:1-4). So Herod arrested, bound, and imprisoned him. That’s the historical answer but holy scripture always invites to see and listen more deeply, to discern the spiritual meaning.

Herod may have put John in jail but John’s own expectations have imprisoned him. Herod’s jail, the historical bricks and mortar, is an external symbol of the inner prison in which John now waits. It is the interior prison of disappointment and disillusion. He is confined by his own unmet expectations. He has heard about all that the Christ, the Messiah, is doing but where is the ax, the fire, the winnowing fork? Where is the wrath in the midst of cleansing lepers, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead? So John sends a message, “Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?” It’s as if John is saying, “You, you’re the one? Isn’t there someone else? Perhaps someone who better fits my expectations?”

John has been incarcerated by his own expectations of who the Messiah is and how the Messiah should act. His vision of the kingdom is too small, his expectation of the Messiah too narrow. That is the danger of holding our expectations too tightly. Whether they are expectations of hope or expectations of dread our own expectations often blind us to the one who is coming, to the one who is more powerful. We imprison ourselves with a view of God, the kingdom, the world, our own lives that is too small, too narrow. We try to confine God’s work and life to our expectations. But that is not who God is or how God acts.

We thought God would make our lives easy and instead he calls us to live more deeply. We wanted God to eliminate our suffering and instead discovered God standing with us in the midst of our pain. We expected God would make us number one but he called us to identify with the least, the last, the lost. We wanted him to make us strong but he called us to discover his strength in our weakness. We hoped God would destroy our enemies but he commanded us to love them. We wanted to be the leaders but God told us to servants.

Every time one of our expectations is unmet our prison walls crumble. The way has been prepared and we must decide, will we escape or simply rebuild the walls? It would be so much easier if Jesus would just come, do, and be as we expect. But he won’t. He won’t leave us in our cells no matter how comfortable or safe they might seem to us. He loves us too much.

There is a part of us, however, that persists with our expectations and our question. “Yes or no, are you the one who is coming? Or are we to wait for another? Just answer the question Jesus.” He does not do that for us or for John. A simple yes or no answer will not release us from our jails. We will escape only when we let go of our expectations. We will escape when we open our minds and hearts to bigger kingdom. We will escape when we trust God more than our ideas about God.

The Season of Advent is the season of jailbreaks. It is the season of escaping our expectations of God. It is the time in which the falling apart of our worlds is shown not to be the end of the world; when wrath, axes, and fire are about love and healing rather than punishment and destruction; when God is as quiet as a thief in the night.

So I wonder, where have you imprisoned yourself with expectations of hope or dread? In what ways do you work to rebuild your prison walls? How have you isolated yourself from the love, healing, and life God offers?

The door of your cell is locked but only from the inside. Open the door and flee the confines of your expectations. A new world awaits you. What will you see and hear? The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. That would be us. God is always coming to former inmates.

 

 

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Who Cares? A Sermon on Matthew 3:1-12, Advent 2A

Posted on December 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

The collect and readings for the Second Sunday of Advent may be found here. The appointed gospel is 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 the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 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; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; 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.”

Did you hear what John said? The wrath of God is coming. It doesn’t matter who our family is. The ax is out and ready. Right now the blade is against the tree. And the chopping is about to begin. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is being cut down and burned. The unquenchable fire is raging, waiting to be fed the chaff. And that’s just the beginning. He said a greater one is coming, one more powerful than himself is on the way.

After listening to John it’s tempting to look at the advent wreath, with its two lit candles, and see the season of Advent as merely the countdown to Christmas. Let’s leave this wild man behind. We know Christmas came last year. It will come again this year just like it has for almost 2000 years. It’s only a few more weeks away. So maybe we can dismiss John’s message as allegory, metaphor, or symbolism. Maybe it’s the rambling of a guy who’s spent too much time by himself in the desert eating grasshoppers. Or perhaps we hear the message and think about all those other people to whom it applies. You know, the Pharisees and the Sadducees; someone other than us.

But we can’t do that. The Church says this viper sermon of John’s is the gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. For most of us, though, threats, anger, and judgment are not good news.

We would rather hear and think about sweet baby Jesus. But John’s not preaching a Christmas sermon. John doesn’t mention a beautiful night with a bright shining star to guide us. There are no humble and gentle shepherds guarding their flocks by night. No wise men bearing gifts from afar. John’s not looking at a manger scene where the little Lord Jesus lays down his sweet head. He seems to have forgotten the innocent but faithful Virgin. And the name Jesus isn’t even mentioned in today’s gospel. This is Advent, the season when wrath, axes, and unquenchable fire are talked about as good news.

John is looking for God to do something drastic right now. John’s message is, “Repent – turn or burn!” His refrain is, “Wrath, axes, and fire. Wrath, axes, and fire.” God’s coming and God’s going to get you.

I suspect that part of our discomfort with John and his name-calling, his preaching of wrath, axes, and fire is, or at least should be, that at some level we know he’s right. When we look around our world, read the newspaper, watch the evening news, or examine our own lives we’re confronted with the reality of John’s sermon. Our world and our lives are not as they should be, as they can be, as God wills them to be. We could each name the sinful or broken places of our lives and world: anger, violence, greed, poverty, homelessness, war, lives controlled by fear, years of guilt that have crippled us. The list could go on and on.

There’s only one sin worse than the evil itself and that is indifference to that evil. Indifference is more insidious than the evil itself; more universal, more contagious, and more dangerous. Often we live such busy, exhausted lives that we have become indifferent to what is happening in the world, indifferent to the needs of another human being. Maybe our world view, even our church view, is so small that if something does not directly affect our lives or those we love then it is of no consequence to us. Sometimes the pain and fear in our lives causes us to be indifferent to those relationships that need forgiveness and reconciliation. Maybe you have become indifferent to yourself and can no longer see the original beauty with which God created you. Perhaps indifference has convinced you that your life is meaningless. Indifference comes in many different forms. It is always sneaky, often disguising itself as freedom or independence.

John’s cry of repentance is the call to turn away from our indifference to engage, at a life-changing level, the coming kingdom and the way that kingdom reorders our relationships and priorities. John’s words are words of interrogation. Do we care enough to change our lives and the world in which we live? Do we love enough to get angry about the suffering and plight of other human beings – even if we’ve never met them?

God does. That’s why divine wrath, axes, and fire are good news. God loves enough to get angry. The good news is that our God is not indifferent. God is not indifferent to creation. God is not indifferent to the evil and suffering in this world. God is not indifferent to God’s people. God is not indifferent to your life or my life.

God’s concern and love for creation are the source of God’s anger. Anger is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. The last thing we need is more indifference. The last thing we need is to hear from another that our very existence is meaningless. And God forbid that we should ever say or act as if another’s very existence is of no consequence to us.

God’s anger is the rejection of indifference. God is paying attention and present in this world, in our lives. The anger of God is a form of God’s presence and love in this world. God’s anger is not offered as a punishment but as an encouragement to change, to turn our lives around. That can be frightening and even painful. But there is an agony even more excruciating. That is the agony of being forsaken, discarded, rejected, and abandoned. It is the agony of being the object of indifference.

God’s anger is never the goal. The goal of divine anger is not punishment and retribution. Divine anger is the means, the instrument. The goal is love and relationship. Divine anger recognizes and celebrates the existence, the sacredness, and the value of every human life.

Divine wrath is God’s expression of longing for us. It is God saying to you and me, “You are worthy of my time and attention. Your lives are worthy of being judged. I care and love you enough to get angry when you settle for less than I am giving you, when you accept being less than you are called to be.”

Wrath, fire, and axes are God’s calling us to turn away from, to repent of, our indifference. Where does indifference rule our lives? How have we become indifferent to ourselves, to others, even to God? In what ways does indifference deny you the Kingdom of Heaven?

Wrath, fire and axes are not about destruction or punishment. They are about life, love, and relationship. The unquenchable fire of God’s love burns away our indifference. The healing ax of God cuts away all indifference. The wrath of God reminds us that God cares and we matter.

To name the places and ways of our indifference is the beginning of repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven has come just a bit nearer than it was before.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

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