Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

December 13, 2009

Third Sunday of Advent

 

GOSPEL: Luke 3:7-18
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin 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. 9Even 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.”
             10And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
             15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

             18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Deux Jeannettes La Baptiste (2009)

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

Into human history, into the 1^st Century CE, into the Middle East country of Judea, into the time of occupation of the land by the Roman Army under the authority of Tiberius Caesar and the local authority of Pontius Pilate the Roman Proconsul, when Herod the ruthless local King was in charge of Galilee, having been placed there by Rome and given the title “King of the Jews” …

… into that time, we are told by the Gospel Storyteller Luke, it so happened that a man appeared with a message.

He tells us that this is not just any man, but happened to be the son of Elizabeth and Zachariah, and therefore the cousin of Jesus of Nazareth.

And Luke tells us that the message of this man, this John the Baptist, was spoken by him after he had spent time in the wilderness, in the desert around the Jordan.

Perhaps it was just south of Jerusalem in a cave that is near the present day Kibbutz Tzuba (a cave I visited three years ago), perhaps (as some scholars have insisted) it was out of the community that was living near the Dead Sea, in the spiritual and austere community that gave us the Dead Sea Scrolls, and perhaps he just wandered into the nearby wilderness seeking a vision, seeking the presence of (as he would have called the Divine) Adonai Elohenu, seeking God’s insistence that he was indeed a Prophet and that he had a prophetic message, a holy message to share.

He wasn’t the only local Prophet of his time – for we sometimes think of the Prophets as living and preaching centuries before in the stories that we read in the Hebrew Scriptures – no, Luke reminds us with a little line in his Gospel that is hardly every read in worship aloud … that after Jesus was born and Joseph and Mary are marveling in his birth, that eight days after his birth when they had him circumcised in the Temple at Jerusalem, after a local holy man named Simeon came up to them and took the baby in his arms and blessed him, we read this:

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty- four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.[1]

John the Baptist was not alone, Luke tells us, among the prophetic voices of the moment and the region who were seeking to bring a message of hope and salvation in a time of oppression and despair.

But, says Luke, he was the loudest and the most fervent and he was, after all, aligned with his cousin, the one from Nazareth, Jeshua Emmanuel … Jesus.

And his message was one of hope and healing, a message where no one would ever be excluded from the love of God.

It’s a bit odd when we read his first public words, spoken (we are told by Luke) to the crowd:

γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν

“Brood of Vipers …!”

It made little sense to me all these years of reading this part of the Gospel, until I read the comment by Norman Beck, the Biblical Scholar who teaches at Texas Lutheran University, who reminded that these words are implicitly directed in Luke’s Gospel to those who had given in to the occupation of Rome, who had sympathized with the Romans, who had given up their own belief and hope in order to make life more comfortable and just so perhaps survivable.

Ah, now it makes sense!  You den of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come!  John labels them as they come to hear him preach, and come to listen to yet another prophet …are they there because they want to be entertained?  Do they seek him out because he is an oddity?

Was it something like: “Ok kids, get onto the Camel and behave yourselves, we’re going to see John the Baptist this afternoon, down by the Jordan River … we’re taking a picnic lunch, and Ishmael … stop teasing your brother!”

But they come to him and he speaks and what he has to say is bound up in the words of another prophet, Isaiah, who spoke of the coming of a Promised One who would lead God’s People not only to God, but to each other, and in that leading the valleys would be filled, and the mountains be leveled and everyone would see what it was to love God and love neighbor as oneself.

But John says it this way, “You want to repent?  You want to change your life?  You want to make a difference? … Then act like it!”

And in response to their inquiries, because repenting people – it is noticed – frequently cannot figure it out for themselves how to love, how to act, how to change the world, how to make it better … they are always asking things like “Well, does this mean I have to give up something?” or, “Do you mean every day of the week?” … in response to them, John gives some concrete suggestions:

“You have two coats?  Give one to someone who doesn’t have any.”

“Tax Collectors … be satisfied with your pay from the Romans, and don’t try to add anything to it and take advantage of your neighbors.”

“Soldiers, be satisfied with your salary, and stop pillaging and threatening everyone just because you have weapons and the authority of Herod.”

And other things as well.

And then a remarkable thing began to happen, says Luke, the people walked with John into the Jordan River this large flowing mikvah (in Hebrew, the place of washing and being cleansed) and they were washed, dipped, put under the water and brought up again in a ritual cleansing … the Greek word for all that is baptidzein … which is why we call John, John the Baptizer.

And in the baptizing he continued to speak to them, announcing that this was not the end, but just the beginning …

+++

Every year, for more years than I can remember right now, John the Baptist appears to me.  He seems to be the current incarnation of his earlier brother.  He has appeared mostly to me in our city, usually on the street … but once he appeared to me in Venice, Italy, and a few times he come inside … I recall a memorable visit from John the Baptist that took place in K-Mart™ one year.

The one thing I can safely say is that when he appears, I am never looking for him, and he always seems to come in what I tell my Greek Class is in the time of Biblical Greek that is called kairos … which means “time that cannot be measured as with a clock (the Greek for that time is chronos” or “the most opportune time.”

John, I have found, lives in the kairos.

There were two encounters this year, one took place on January 19^th (Martin Luther King Day) and the other on April 14^th (the 3^rd day of Easter).  Both John the Baptists (because I have learned that there can indeed be more than one!) were female … that’s why I entitled this sermon Deux Jeanette La Baptiste … because when I think of both of these encounters, I think of these women as being English Speaking French appearances.

La premiere Jeannette La Baptiste happened this way.

Beautifully and expensively dressed in leather and furs and wearing large sunglasses, she was having coffee at Plaza Bakery when I arrived.  I sat down at the table next to hers.  I removed my balaclava, sunglasses and bicycle helmet, took off my jacket, removed my shoulder bag, put everything on the table and ordered my coffee “small, one cream please.”

I had just begun doing the crossword puzzle while waiting for Fletcher when she leaned over the divider and asked me whether someone in a doctoral program at a university would have a better chance of obtaining funding grants than someone with a masters’ degree.  I told her that I thought it would.

“Do you live here in town?” she continued.

“Yes,” I answered.

“What do you do?” (Always a question that causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble ... but I've found that the best way is to be forthright and just say it.)

“I'm pastor of a Lutheran Church.”

“Really?  What's the difference between the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Episcopalians?”

I did my best to summarize, ending up with what seemed to satisfy her saying, “We're all First Cousins.”

She then went on to tell me that she was a ghostwriter, and that she had written the songs for Eric Clapton, the Beatles, Cat Stevens and many others I can't recall ... reciting verses upon verses as she went of major hit recordings.

And, she told me that she had ghostwritten the acceptance speech for President Clinton when he was inaugurated,  but that he had declined to use it.

And then she began to recite a poem entitled Confession ... a lovely, haunting, poem which, although I could not hear every word, went on for several verses.  Later, when I did an online search for the poem, I discovered that it was actually Rock Singer Richard McGraw's lyrics she had memorized.

And then she began a poem partially in Gaelic which she had written in memory of John F. Kennedy … it was indeed beautiful, and I wish I could have understood its words, or even remembered a line or two from it … but it was in the reciting that I found her presence comforting, hopeful, sincere …

Fletcher arrived.  She got her things together and began to leave.  "Take care," I said.  "Thank you," said she.  And she was gone.

Fletcher agreed that it had been a visit by La Baptiste.

She appeared at the very time in January when I am most depressed, most hopeless … I suppose a lot of it is the weather and my yearning for the warmth and the sunlight.  In that hopeless time, Jeannette La Baptiste, brought light, and hope, and promise.  She turned me toward the light, and brought me back to poetry, which is, I am convinced, the language of faith … and most of all, she entered into our community and made community happen.

La Deuxieme Jeannette La Baptiste appeared not in the cold of Winter, but in the warmth of Spring … the 3^rd day of Easter.  We had just celebrated the Resurrection of Our Lord, the long period of Lent was over, the rigors of Holy Week, the Three Days, and all the preparation thereunto was ended, and it was for me, as with most Clergy … a bittersweet time, one of feeling some accomplishment, but mixed all too closely with a feeling of inadequate ministry … knowing that the crowd that had appeared on Sunday would disappear for another year.

And then she appeared.  Again, I was bicycling downtown in the morning to my daily rendezvous at the Plaza Bakery when a woman walking on the sidewalk toward me, long coat, long black hair, waved to me with her gloved right hand and holding a large Starbucks™ cup of coffee in her left hand exclaimed,  “Happy Easter!”

“Happy Easter to you!” I returned the favour.

And then she almost hollered, “Jesus loves you!”

And in that moment I knew it was John the Baptist, Jeannette La Baptiste … reminding me, and perhaps all of us what we need to hear most in any season of the Church Year.

Jesus loves you.

  +Deo Gratia

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III

Pastor