Sunday, December 8, 2013

Second Sunday of Advent

Matthew 3:1-12

Jason Smith

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If you visit Harper’s Ferry, a beautiful little town nestled in the Shenandoah mountains between West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland, as you’re walking through the quaint town, you’ll notice a stone obelisk, that reads: Monument to John Brown. On October 16 1859, over a year before the start of the American Civil War, John Brown, an ascetic Congregationalist and militant abolitionist led an ambitious raid on the US armory at Harper’s Ferry.

Brown led a group of 21 men, some freemen, freed slaves, and one fugitive slave. Brown’s aim was to capture the ammunition and weapons at the armory to provoke an aggressive, heavily armed slave rebellion throughout the South. While a 36-hour battle ensued, the group would be suppressed, Brown would be put in jail and sentenced to hang by the neck for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Days before his execution, Rev. Michael Costello, pastor of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Harpers Ferry who watched and listened to the events from a nearby hill, visited Brown while he was in prison. In a letter describing the events, Father Costello writes that , “Brown would not receive the services of any minister of religion, for he believed that they as apologists of slavery, had violated the laws of nature and of God, and that they ought first to sanctify themselves  by becoming abolitionists, and then they might be worthy to minister unto him.”[i]

Well today marks the second Sunday of the Season of Advent, where we are in a time of careful listening, waiting in expectation, preparing for the coming of our Lord Jesus. And today is the Day of Peace. Our Gospel lesson emphasizes how the People of Israel were waiting for a fulfillment of prophecy, waiting for a King, waiting for a peaceful age to come.

Now the person who Matthew believes is leading the people from the new age to the next is John the Baptist. So who is John the Baptist?

We have this image of John wearing camels hair, an ascetic figure, who lived out in the desert living off locusts, or also understood a wild cakes, and wild honey. And we understand that John the Baptist was “in your face” about his message.

If you will, read with me in Matthew 3 the writer’s account of John the Baptist’s preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Now as biblical scholars, when we look at the Gospel of Matthew as a whole, we know that this account of the good news is intended to make us very uncomfortable. We also know that Matthew was writing specifically for a Jewish audience—Matthew quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures over 60 times, trying to show us that scripture is being fulfilled, and John the Baptist’s call to repentance is a part of this fulfillment.

In Matthew 3 the author quotes Isaiah citing John as the “voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight.” Now in order to understand how Matthew was using Isaiah, we have to do some exegesis within the text of Isaiah, very meta, to understand the purpose of these words. Scholars understand this portion of the book, called Second Isaiah, to have been speaking to people who resided within Babylon, offering a message of consolation and hope for the exiled.

In this same way, John the Baptist appears as a strange wilderness prophet, with many of the characteristics of the early prophets, especially Elijah, a prophet who spent time in the wilderness to experience renewal and discern God’s call. John invites individuals to follow him from exile into a place of renewal, ever mindful of judgment and redemption.

As a part of repentance, John invites his followers to enter the Jordan river dipping their heads in the water for baptism, calling them to receive sanctification and inviting them to wait for the one who will baptize with fire, and the Holy Spirit. The Greek word used for baptism is “baptizo” which means to submerge, or cleanse by immersion in water.

But John does not preach a detached, soft, message, John makes sure that you know his message clearly. He puts his neck on the line and calls out the Saducees and Pharisees, calling them a brood of vipers, threatening those comforted by the salvation inherent in their Abrahamic lineage. For John, all are called to repent, but refusal to repent will bring about God’s wrath and judgment, the unquenchable fire.

As Rev. Costello wrote, “John Brown would not receive the services of any minister of religion, for he believed that they as apologists of slavery, had violated the laws of nature and of God, and that they ought first to sanctify themselves by becoming abolitionists, and then they might be worthy to minister unto him.”

For John the Baptist, it was necessary for all individuals to acknowledge their sin. All persons, regardless of lineage, status, wealth, title, must acknowledge their responsibility in failing to straighten God’s paths in this world falling short of divine ideals. For in this process of demonstrating one’s intention for cleansing, for sanctification, for receiving grace, individuals are taken out of their comfort zones to realize that if only we realign the paths of our lives in accordance with the One who is coming, can we fully participate in inaugurating the Kingdom of Heaven.

Just as John called for repentance long ago, We are also called to repent, we are called to listen, we are called to respond to the voices urging us that the Kingdom of Heaven is invading this world. And Who are the voices in the wilderness, clamoring for us to prepare the way of the Lord? To whom do we listen?

This past Thursday night in between classes at Wesley, I heard the news from Johannesburg, and immediately called Myra, and asked, “Did you hear the news?” In my systematic theology class, we paused for a moment of silence marking the death of a monumental voice. Late that evening, Myra and I stood outside the South African Embassy on Mass Avenue; we lit a candle and stood in silence in the shadow of a massive statue of Nelson Mandela, one of the more public voices out of thousands of voices in a decades long movement of voices crying out of the wilderness. And in that silence, I thought to myself: “Mandela risked his safety, he risked and lost many family relationships, he put himself in the path of physical and psychological torture… I hear the voices, but am I up to it?”

Maybe we can start tomorrow, by praying and in some cases fasting alongside the  group of demonstrators for Fast for Families on the Mall. A group of individuals and families demonstrating for immigration reform. Maybe we can start with advocating for rights of Palestinians living in exile in their homeland. Maybe we can start with building shoeboxes with toiletries and other essential items through SOME, So Others Might Eat, like several of you gathered to participate in yesterday.

Do you hear them? These are the voices challenging us to risk our livelihoods, confronting us to risk our very selves.  Sometimes they are the voices of the very least of these themselves. These voices are the ones bridging the gap between the past and the future, Between slavery and freedom, between apartheid and unity, between oppression and peace, between exile and the Kingdom breaking into this world.  They are the ones challenging us to look ahead to a otherworldly justice, a hope that is not found in ourselves, a Kingdom that does not look like the Kingdoms of this earth;

And we are called to be baptized in the very spirit, the very breath of creation to bring about this Kingdom of Heaven. For in the words of John Brown, each of us is sanctified, through this work of building God’s kingdom. By participating in this work, each one of us can be sanctified and each one of us can be better equipped to be ministers of the Gospel and bring about change in this broken world. And as we are neck deep in our labor, we hope that one day, one day our lives might continue on to serve as testimonies for others, as monumental voices heralding the way of the Lord.

By 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, many viewed John Brown as a hero, a martyr for the cause of abolishing slavery. Legend goes that a group of Union soldiers crafted the song “John Brown’s body” as a battle song to encourage troop morale. It makes you wonder whether on a hill in Gettysburg, you could hear the words of this song:

“John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,

Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,

And soon throughout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free, His soul is marching on.”[ii]

May we listen to the voices, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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