Here is a short conversation you would have heard in our home yesterday afternoon:
“Micah, it’s time for your nap. Now I don’t want any fussing, I want you to go to your room and rest for one hour.”
[Calmly] “Daddy, I will always love you, but I don’t like your behavior right now.” [pause]
At Bible study on Monday night, we tried to think of modern-day John the Baptists…
And one suggestion that was made, was that now, there’s nothing new about a being a little crazy living out in the wilderness and shouting strange admonitions. This person suggested that we may do well to look, not to the big sensationalists to point us to Jesus, but rather to the smaller ones. The every-day ones. Perhaps to our children.
I was reminded of this fascinating idea yesterday when Micah said to me, “I love you, but right now I don’t like your behavior.” A little John-the-Baptisty, I think?
The context is different, of course, but Micah’s words—after an initial chuckle—got me thinking about our texts for this Sunday…not just the Gospel text, but all of them.
I believe that, “I love you, I just don’t like your behavior right now” is actually a wonderful summation of Isaiah, Romans, the Psalms and Matthew. And it is an important—and somewhat jolting—thing to hear in this season of Advent. “Excuse me?” kind of like I responded to Micah.
“I just don’t like your behavior right now” sounds particularly like John the Baptist, only he would say/yell, “Repent!”
…because “repent!” doesn’t mean “feel bad” or “live like there’s a cloud over your head”. ([depressed] “you’re right, I’m a sinner.”)
“Repent,” when John the Baptist decrees it in Matthew, means to “bear fruit.” This is a theme throughout the book of Matthew…this is a foretaste of Jesus’ core message. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” says the Baptizer. “Let me see how you’ve changed by your words and your actions…i.e. by your behavior.”
I’m learning more about fruit trees and grape vines living in Southern California. Before I would have thought that to go into the back yard or the vineyard with a clipper was just evil. But these things must take place. John says that Jesus will separate the wheat and the chaff with a winnowing fork. This is not evil or threatening, it’s just what needs to happen. And we’ve got both in us – wheat and chaff.
Advent is the season for clearing out—contrary to what we might see advertized all around us: “stalk up!” We can/should try our best to do the clearing, but we fall short. God comes to us this Advent season, “the Kingdom of heaven has come near [not will come near],” to clear away all the extra in our lives – all the overgrowth, chaff, the junk. What’s blocking you up, the cheese? What cataracts are clouding Isaiah’s vision?
Wolf lying down with the lamb – Nancy Pelosi celebrating Christmas dinner with Sarah Palin. The Limbaughs and the Obamas exchanging gifts. Anti-abortion and pro-choice activists singing carols to the elderly. Atheists and Catholics serving soup to the needy. Muslims and Christians consoling one another at the graveside of a shared friend. Visions of peace, friends! God comes to clear our eyes at last to “see it together.” Even with all physical evidence to the contrary. In our baptisms we are given the eyes of Isaiah, not the physical eyes: the spiritual eyes, the Gospel lenses!
Kelson is receiving the gift of sight today. We have that gift as people of God. Isaiah wasn’t writing, the “wolf shall lie down with the lamb” during a time of prosperity and peace. He wasn’t writing what he saw with his physical eyes. The Assyrians where literally burning, pillaging, killing his people and destroying his beloved countryside of Palestine! He probably wrote this text with the sound shrieking in the distance, but not so far away. [pause]
Now we read these texts today with pain, not so far away. With struggles, bitterness, violence, sorrow, both in our worlds and in our hearts. And yet God chooses to enter this world and our hearts anyway. God invites us this Second Sunday of Advent to start clearing away the overgrowth [pause], using John the Baptist, the man who lived on nothing much, to inspire (breathe life into) our clearing. “Repent, clear away, change your behavior, for the God is here to do the rest.”
The rest? One commentator interestingly points out, that John the Baptist’s sermon, that we hear today, is not God’s entire sermon. Maybe at the end of the reading I should have said, “This is half of the Gospel of the Lord.” One of the reasons I was so struck by what my son said yesterday, is that he first said, “I love you.” It all starts with “I love you.” God doesn’t grant us forgiveness and salvation after we’ve changed our behavior, done our chores. It’s not like the conditions we set with our children: “When you’ve finished cleaning your room, then we can read a book together.” God says, “I love you” first. This is why we baptize babies. It’s a visual for us all that God says, “I love you” first, before we have anything to say about it.
God comes to us and says to us, I love you, first. That love casts out sin, clears away our eyes and our hearts. And now we bear fruit worthy of repentance. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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