30^th December 2010

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley (Sunday 5 December 2010)

Lessons -- Isaiah 11:1-11; Matthew 3:1-12

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ... Repent for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 3:3,2 RSV)

John the Baptist is an eccentric but charismatic figure with an unpopular message. He is no fundamentalist tele-evangelist or self- promoting liberal preacher promising to relieve our fears or stroke our
egos. He shatters all our illusions.

Everything about John the Baptist is strange. He's a social misfit with a poor public relations profile. He chooses an unlikely venue for selling an unmarketable product. The environment is isolated, harsh and unforgiving -- a symbol of human despair, temptation, suffering and complaint. It is a crazy place to launch a new movement and announce a new leader.

John the Baptist doesn't give a damn about being relevant! In fact, he risks alienating his fellow Jews by baptising them with water -- an innovation probably only done for non-Jews who converted to Judaism. He doesn't care about upsetting people. Ancestry and religious rituals count for nothing. Unlike public relations gurus (such as the panel on the advertising TV program The Gruen Transfer) or high profile celebrities (like Oprah Winfrey who will be in Australia next week) who are skilled at getting media exposure, crafting their image and packaging their message to appeal to the masses, John the Baptist doesn't sell himself.

Still, incredibly, people come in droves!

Instead of following the public relations manual and promoting health, happiness and success, he preaches 'repentance', baptising those who 'confess their sins' (v6). Unlike many popular preachers, liberal and fundamentalist alike, he doesn't appeal to their egos (you're precious to God) or pander to their desires (God will give you what you want) or urge them to 'pull up their socks' (try hard and God will reward you).
He insists that they confess their self-importance before God. Self- denial, not self-affirmation, is what is required of a person to prepare for the momentous events about to unfold.

Nobody is spared, particularly those who think that, because of their heritage, they are exempt! John the Baptist calls 'all' to repentance.
But he reserves his harshest criticism for the Pharisees and Sadducees.
They were old sparring partners -- the conservatives and progressives of their day.

John the Baptist is very inclusive. Nobody is excluded! In the wilderness, all are stripped of spiritual rank and moral superiority.
Irrespective of status, wealth, race, religion or gender, everybody is on the same level.

He sees through the masks that we human beings put on to try to disguise the truth about ourselves. Illusions about our goodness and piety are shattered. It is useless appealing to our progressive or conservative values as evidence of our worth, goodness or civic mindedness.

It's no good claiming to be 'children of Abraham' (v9) or having a 'Christian upbringing' as proof of our faith. As John the Baptist says, in his chilling metaphor of a 'brood of vipers' (v7), self- righteousness 'poisons' our lives and lets us try to 'slither' out of confessing our sins before God.

No matter how we try to disguise it, complacency before God is serious.
It is so serious that John the Baptist uses images of 'axe' (v10) and 'fire' (v12) to describe God's coming judgement in Christ. Our egos must be 'chopped down' or 'burned off' if we are to 'bear fruit that befits repentance' (v8).

This is a most unwelcome word! It is often thought to be a primitive message that threatens a healthy self-image and insults good Christians
who contribute to the Church and community.

Both conservatives and progressives often complain about this emphasis on sin and grace, preferring to focus on their positive faith that enables them both to do good things. As with the Pharisees and Sadducees, all of us are prone to appeal to our own goodness, carefully disguising our self-importance behind labels that distinguish us from others, especially our opponents, but that actually unite us in the need to repent.

Such reactions to what John the Baptist says are understandable but unfortunate. His call to repentance really is a word of freedom and joy! We don't have to pretend before God! God judges our sins in love!
God forgives our self- importance! As we saw last week in relation to the Last Judgement (Matthew 24: 36ff), the One who is coming to judge us is on our side. John the Baptist, too, preaches Good News that enables us to welcome God's arrival in Jesus by allowing our illusions, securities and arrogance to be shattered and re-made by grace.

When we welcome this word, and let the 'Holy Spirit' (v11) debunk our pretensions, we can delight to do the 'works of grace' with unselfconscious freedom. Unlike all self-promoting preachers, we can say and do what is needed without worrying about the good opinion of others. There is no need, as in 'Kath and Kim' to say, 'Look at me, look at me.'

John the Baptist certainly didn't worry about such things. As such, he embodies the 'genuineness of faith' that is found among the 'children of Abraham' down the ages. As our 15th Century Russian icons of John the Baptist show, he is a 'man of faith' because he points away from himself and his own importance to the earth-shaking arrival of God's grace 'in Christ'.

John the Baptist thus represents true faith in God because, instead of talking about his faith, he points to God's faithfulness in Christ's coming into our strife-torn world to reconcile sinful humanity to God.

He also makes it clear that Christ will not be the 'gentle Jesus' of so much Christmas mythology. His coming causes uproar in history.

Therefore, as John the Baptist correctly sees, Jesus' coming will fully expose our sin and God's love. In the light of his life, death and resurrection who of us could claim to be truly good, just and merciful?
Yet at the same time he embodies the unsurpassable grace of God for all people. As events that immediately follow this incident show, Jesus is baptised by John the Baptist as a sign that God identifies himself with our flawed humanity. He takes it upon himself at great cost because of his love for each and every person.

In this snapshot from the earliest stage of Jesus' ministry, the whole Gospel is portrayed. We are confronted with the coming of One (Jesus
Christ) who, as the embodiment of God's grace, is without peer among prophets. And we are encouraged by one (John the Baptist) who strips us of illusions and shows genuine faith by pointing away from himself to the Christ.

What a liberating word! Because we don't need to pretend before God and others, we are free to point the world, not to ourselves, but to the One in whom there is mercy and hope.

In pointing to Christ in this way, we will become involved in conflict with a society that prizes public relations and the cult of celebrity above the truth. John the Baptist knows this full well. He looks to the arrival of One who will 'baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire'
(v11). Far from being a comfortable religious rite, baptism commits Jesus' disciples to social upheaval. In preaching the liberating Word of repentance, and pointing away from our own conservative or progressive values to Jesus, we must resist policies and programs that inflate human pride and cause so much misery.

Today, this involves challenging our self-absorbed society (including the Church) which is pre-occupied with creating an image, massaging our egos, pandering to our every need, demeaning our dignity and mocking our faith in God's goodness-and-grace! We mustn't shy away from speaking the liberating Word which has come in Christ, particularly when we are suffering what Jacques Ellul calls the 'subversion of Christianity'.

In calling for renewal, however, we shouldn't forget that true repentance springs, not from our own faith perspectives, but from faith in God who has entered into our strife-torn world and taken our flawed humanity upon himself in Christ.

In all that we must say and do as the Church of the One who has come among us, it is vital to point the world (and our fellow Christians) to the one place in history where God's grace has erupted in a completely unexpected manner and form. What we can and must do -- in our worship and service -- is to imitate John the Baptist in pointing away from ourselves to the God who has uniquely embodied his love for all people in Jesus Christ.

To him be all praise and honour and glory now and always. Amen!

-----------------

Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.