1) In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2) during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3) He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4) as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5) Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6) and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' "
Advent in my church is like. . . a mass exodus to the nearby big city so everyone can shop rather than worship. This Sunday's gospel text is about John the Baptist. His function in Jesus' story is to "prepare the way of the Lord." He does this by challenging people to repent, receiving his baptism as a sign of this repentance. The forgiveness of their sins is dependent on this repentance.
Luke links John's work to Isaiah 40:3-5 which states that preparation of the Lord will happen like a highway is built. The preparer will raise, lower, smooth, and straighten so that the Lord's way will be straight and easy.
I struggle with the purpose of John the Baptist in the gospel. At times I think he's more of a crazy cousin who worms his way into the story than he is helpful to it. What is accomplished through him? How does he function in the story? What is the purpose of this character? Does the Lord need somebody to prepare his way? If all the sinners are going to get fixed before Jesus shows up, then why does Jesus need to show up?
I suppose one could take advantage of the preparation theme of this text. It does fit nicely with Advent. And one could hit hard on the theme of repentance. But is John the Baptist necessary for those themes?
Those are my suspicions. I want to focus on repentance (turning away from sin). It is helpful to link it with baptism. Luther wrote in the Small Catechism: Baptism signifies that daily the old person in us with all our sins and evil desires is to be drowned through sorrow for sin and repentance, and that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. I am intrigued by how closely linked baptism and repentance are and by how much they need each other. We give baptism priority since it is a sacrament; but where would baptism be without repentance? Repentance plays a huge role in shaping the baptized's day-to-day lives. Repentance is the big correcting work of the Spirit which helps to make us different from the world. It helps to give light to our souls so that they do shine before others. It helps the bearing of fruit. It allows us to love God and neighbor rather than just the self. In this way repentance is a gift and offers us hope that we won't always be such assholes.
Baptism without repentance is like those instances where some of our baptismal practices are a bit liberal. Have you ever had people in your churches ask you to baptism one of their relatives kids? They live in far off states and travel thousands of miles to have their kids baptized in our churches where neighbors won't see them. When they return home, who knows what life is lived. (Not that I've ever performed such a baptism. . . but. . .). I'd quote Bonhoeffer here by I loaned my Cost of Discipleship out; maybe one of you could.
If I preach on this I will need to get into an explanation of baptism for daily living as opposed to the typical discussion of baptism being adoption into God's family. Ramble away please. . .
17 comments:
One thing that comes to mind is this line in Luther for Armchair Theologians by Steven Paulson -
"Humans are not continually existing subjects of self-transcendence but are passive before God. They are killed and raised, and so they never advance beyond baptism."
This is in a list of things (that might have been put in two columns) in contrast to the way of the world, whereby "humans are continually... independent subjects, actively transcending themselves."
This jumped out at me this summer, after finding here a lot of talk about people who were "mature Christians."
Blech.
I like the suggestion in Paulson's read on Luther, that we never advance beyond baptism. . .
Perhaps a great theme at the beginning of the new year.
I don't know if this is elsewhere in Paulson's book, or if I take it from here, to suggest that for Lutherans, we are not progressing, we are always "beginning again."
• This might visit a bit with the sense of "self as project" that an esteemed colleague will speak about.
• I do not think well - or much - about repentance. When I do adjust my gaze in that direction, I wonder why I don't look more and think more clearly about it.
• Perhaps it is hard for us to hear the call to repent in terms other than hearing it as a further scold to eat right, exercise, spend time with your family, watch less tv, give more to your church, work more hours, visit those shut ins, and add this to the list, REPENT!
That is do we hear the word of repentanca as if it is a word spoken to the self that can improve and itself?
• A good question on whether we need John the Baptist for this.
Of course, it is nice to have the crazy cousin calling out the repentance theme, and not Jesus.
BTW: Will Christmas come if we don't prepare the way?
from a chat
Question:
one more thing
...is repentance turning away from sin, or is it turning to God?
Reply:
I think it is turning away from self (sin) to God
Reply to Reply:
hmmmmmmm
The biggest trouble with repentence and the way we usually understand and preach it is that it is (here it comes...) just one more example of "self as project." It is about what I have to do. But, if repentence is a "change of mind/thinking" that suggests that there is,or has been, an encounter with something that transforms the way I think. My world view has changed. I care about different things now. Perhaps a daily dip into the water helps my mind to think more clearly and truly about my world and my self (clearly and truly being about grace and loving the neighbor and such). It is for sure that one day of living in this world, this culture, shoots my whole understanding of grace and makes me think I have to make myself a project again. So if a return to baptism is a return to grace and to the cross that would be what I need. How can we ever grow beyond this? (by being filled with our own sense of piety and righteousness, that's how. )
My own thoughts on the text so far have centered around the juxtaposition of the "power structures" in these verses with the startling and unsettling cry that inserts itself into that (this) world. Vincent Miller (Consuming Religion p.131) speaks of the destabilizing power of the Messianic sense of time. I like the notion that something destabilizing is occuring. Perhaps it is the gospel that destabilizes the world of law. This could happen in our world if it is not kept in check or eliminated (kill Jesus here) and this could happen in our own hearts and lives as grace destabilizes our spiritual projects and renders them pointless or worse, destructive of the grace God means to give. (kill us here)So now a different reading of reality will be required. It will not be the one offered by the power structures of our day, whether political, religious, or economic. It will be the one to which we are awakened by the voice of one crying out (etc.).
We’ve probably all seen this definition of repentance from Frederick Buechner, but it is worth revisiting:
To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying "I'm sorry," than to the future and saying "Wow!" Wishful Thinking - Frederick Buechner
I really like the insight that repentance is - at its core - a new vision of reality and of God. This in turn, might well mean a new vision of God and of life.
WOW!
Perhaps John is needed, because we will best hear the depth of the call to repentance from someone who looks a lot different from us.
My spell check does not recognize Buechner, but suggests Buccaneer.
Ahoy mateys, WOW!
I smell a Forde.
Thanks for the comments. Repentance is very attractive to the Old Adam.
The case for repentance as new vision or re-orientation or change in way of thinking as opposed to actively turning away from sin can be made from this Luke text. As I re-read it John the Baptist "proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." Luke (and Mark)does not say that he comes out and specifically says, "Repent!" as he does in Matthew 3:2. Luke's description is of John preaching in such a way that this new vision or change of thinking happens. Through the proclamation repentance happens in such a way that God gets into people's lives and hearts-- the way is cleared out-- sins are forgiven-- faith happens.
But then we have Luther's use of the word repentance (from the Sm. Cate.)in relation to Baptism (see the original post). How would you all describe his use of the word? Repentance as "Stop sinning you poohead!" (Matthew 2) Or Repentance as "New future, new vision, etc." (Luke 3 and Mark 1)? Troubling is that Luther connects repentance with sorrow for sin.
Is that a Forde you smell or the sweet scent of the Gospel?
It seems to me that Luther's understanding of repentence is pretty much shaped by the middle ages of which he is a part. He connects it to grace, however and the sheer joy of forgiveness. (Remember private confession's usefullness as private absolution.) To the extent that our own faith and piety is still shaped by the middle ages (very much I would say) keeping repentence and forgivness connected is important. But the logic of it works in reverse, I think. Because of forgivness, I repent. It is not that I repent in order to receive forgivness. (unless repentence is that awareness that makes it possible for me to hear that I am forgiven, and otherwise I cannot)It is the promise of new life, the dawning realization of a new way of things, that I realize about myself, how wrongheaded and mistaken I have been. In the common usage of repentence there is a heavy dose of self awareness. Self awareness is not necessarily the same as self improvement or some other spiritual project. It might mean that I become aware of my incapacity to engage in spiritual projects without grasping for a righteousness that I can claim as my own. What say we hammer the crap out of people for thinking their own repentence is what saves them?
Sorrow for sin might well be understood as sorrow for our idolatry of placing ourselves at the center. . .
Further, would sorrow for sin require action, or might it open us to receive the gift given? Is sorrow for sin a "work" or a response to the Word proclaimed?
apropo of nothing: I've been thinking about something... there is the first use of the law, and the second use of the law, is there a "worst use of the law"?
This comes from the fact that I took down a sign that was in the library. Now, apparently, someone misses it. The sign? "God loves you just as you are, BUT God loves you too much to leave you there."
I call that Worst Use.
Is that crap even a use of the law? I mean, it's certainly not gospel, but does it drive people to Christ? Could there be a use of the law that makes people atheists (that's the effect of the library sign on me)? Maybe you should put up a new one to replace it. What could it say? "God loves you enough not to set fire to this hole of a library" ??
So Pay No Toll, I'm with you here. I just can't imagine John the Baptist beginning his proclaiming with the forgiveness of sins. Sunday School has taught me to think of him as a gruff preacher of the Law. Maybe my assumptions regarding old John have been wrong.
Actually though, most preachers of the law wouldn't suck on grasshopper legs. Can you imagine a mega-church pastor dressed like an eccentric, smelling like he's been backpacking for weeks? Preaching forgiveness is counter-cultural; counter to this world.
Notice my generalization about mega-church pastors. I hope BRAD doesn't read this!
Here is the thing about John the Baptist, I don't think he really gets it. He does his work of preparing the way, but I just don't think he really understands what he is preparing people for. Yes, there is talk about forgiveness, but John doesn't actually deliver it. He is a preacher of the law as he is described in Luke. We see this especially next week. (preview: that is why they thought he was the Messiah, we ALWAYS think an engaging preacher of law is the ultimate thing. But he points to another, one he doesn't even get, who is the bearer of grace.)So I suppose I will burn for saying this about John, but in my mind he doesn't bring the Gospel, he just runs ahead of it screaming, so we look over in time to see what/who is coming after him.
True, John doesn’t get it.
Neither do I.
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
I smell a Forde, and get a clear whiff of the Gospel as I begin to wonder at this: somewhere, somehow, it gets me. . .
What do we make of John the B?
Yes, we do think the engaging preacher of the law is “it”.
So many of them, however, in the end, point to themselves. Buy my DVD, and get a free copy of my book and give some money to my ministry.
John points to Jesus, whom he does not understand, but who has come to make him free.
When you point out that John doesn’t get it, that only makes the whole thing more complex. . .
or, does it free us from having to get it right ourselves, and free us to receive the gift proclaimed. . . and to repent?
One more thought on the subject of repentence, this focusing on repentence as "change": change one's mind, change ones' life, etc.
It seems to me that it is the Advent itself that provokes the change (calls forth the change). I am thinking of the advent of a child in a family for instance. Lots of changes occur because of that new situation. Or the advent of someone's death can be the occasion for a family to speak more openly and honestly with one another, as that person dies. Or the advent of love or the person we come to love likewise is the event that calls forth the changes. We don't change so that we will meet the woman/man we fall in love with. (well, its true we might decide to shower more often and quit farting in public for awhile) It is in meeting and getting to know this person that our hearts are opened and our lives are led in new directions and our minds can't quit thinking about this person, etc. etc.
So I am thinking now about the connection between Advent and repentence, instead of the connection between forgiveness and repentence. Maybe I'll save that one for Lent.
Advent and Repentance.
I like that....
Especially the falling in love metaphor, or the child born to a family metaphor. TRUE TRUE TRUE and a very RICH reading!!!
Thanks!
In preparing for our Choir program, I am choosing texts to read between songs. . . I've decided to pull the texts from Luke, since, well, you know.
The Benedictus - Zechariah's song of praise at the naming of John - seemed fitting, and I wondered at how the praise of Zechariah, and his words about his son John, and the one whose way he prepares set the direction of the Gospel of Luke...
There is an emphasis on forgiveness that gives me confidence that I can still find fruit in Dr. P. Basement's nice read that repentance may well spring forth from the proclamation of the coming one...
"Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
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."
THIS IS FROM JOASH, who can't get his ash together enough to get a password. . .
I was thinking about John the Baptist and his preparing the way for Christ. It's like playing second fiddle -what conductor was it that said, "I can always get someone to play first fiddle, finding someone to play second violin or chair with passion and expertise is the problem." Like John we are called to play "second fiddle" pointing to Christ. The reference in Luke to the "tender mercy of God " literally means "from the bowels of compassion!" A spiritual "colonoscopy" - that's what repentance & John is about! ha!
Change is often a pain even when it is good. I agree that it usually happens when the circumstances change. What a wonderful way to think about Advent and Repentance. My thinking of repentance has repented!
So perhaps the preacher's task here may be to describe the new situation which the Advent brings in such a way that people's eyes are opened to the new. I need still to figure out how to connect it to John the B.
Joash
Nothing is beneath me!
Dr. Basement
Must you fit John the B in?
Or do you go from his preaching to the Advent of the promised one, and there show forth the path to repentance that not even John the B could fully understand?
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