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We All Need a John the Baptist
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| 12/9/2007 |
The scripture lessons referred to in this sermon are found here.
John the Baptist calls the Pharisees and Sadducees hypocrites as they approach to receive his baptism of repentance. He knows that they wont repent, for they are addicted to the false righteousness of religious expediency, not the true righteousness that God calls us to in bringing equity to the human condition in earthly life. Telling these religious bigwigs that their cause is hopeless, John the Baptist tells them, “Even 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.”
I want to explain this image of the ax and the trees, but I want to start with a story about a real “John the Baptist” in my life who called me to true repentance by an absolute, yet kind, judgment.
When I was a boy, I did a bad thing, I think in second grade. There was a store not far from school, known to all of us as “The Little Store.” We walked there after school to buy baseball cards and bubble gum, if we were lucky enough to have a nickel in our pocket.
The store was tended by a blind woman, who had the gift of taking hold of any purchase and telling you what you owed. She could feel the difference between a five cent and ten cent pack of gum.
We always tested her, tried to fool her. We never could. Of course, predisposed to sin, we thought, when we didn’t have a nickel or a dime, that we could steal from her. I refused, which caused other boys to tease me. They got away with it, why not me?
So, one day I tried. I had a nickel, and so I picked up a pack of baseball cards and bubblegum, and walked up to the counter. As I gave the blind woman the package, I silently lifted a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and put it in my pocket, and then I slid just my nickel across to her. She picked it up and held it, and then with her lifeless, unfocused eyes, she looked right through me, and said, “that will be 15 cents, if you’re keeping the pack of gum.” I denied that I had a pack of gum. She said nothing more; she just looked right through me. I was scared and full of shame, and I just ran out of the store, leaving the pack of baseball cards and my nickel, but taking the Juicy Fruit that I hadn’t paid for. My friends were outside, waiting to see if I succeeded. I showed them the Juicy Fruit, gave them each a piece as if I felt proud of my action, and then ran home in shame.
The phone rang at home that evening. It was the blind woman from the Little Store; that she got my phone number proved the theory of her omniscience to me. She told my mother that I had stolen. Tearfully, I admitted the crime, but tried to justify my action by saying that I had left my baseball cards and the nickel, so I really had only stolen a half a pack of gum. This argument did not help my case. I was told to go the next day and apologize, and pay the extra nickel. I said I would. The next day, I told my mother that I had done so, but in truth, I had not. In fact, I never returned to the Little Store again.
How was this woman John the Baptist for me, then, and now? With blind eyes, she saw right through me, revealing to myself my unrighteousness, putting under judgment my dishonesty. Sure, I was only a kid. But I knew that she was not condemning me. She was judging me, and from that judgment came the liberation to choose a different life—to no longer be a thief because that’s what the crowd around me wanted.
The moral life that Jesus calls us to is pure, uncompromised righteousness as reflected in his own life. We will only get partway there, probably, and will do so by subjecting ourselves to the kindest and fiercest judgment ample in the gospels themselves. Let’s do so, and avoid the ax that John the Baptist tells the unrighteous that will chop them down. Let’s bear the fruit of righteousness.
What is this ax?
Imagine a magnificent forest, full of tall majestic trees, trees that have lived for generations. To walk among these trees in this powerful forest is to be inspired by their longevity, hope-filled for their future to extend past a human lifetime, and humbled that we are so small and short-lived.
Now imagine that forest with every tree cut down. The mountainside is bare and exposed, and filled with stumps as far as the eye can see. And each stump is dry, cracked and dead. No more life will ever come out of any tree.
Except one stump, just one on the whole, barren mountainside. Out of it comes a small, green shoot, one small quantum of life amidst all of this decay. This shoot comes out at the base of the stump, and then grows down into the soil. In time, a new tree is growing, a tree from which every new tree in the forest will come.
Our prophecy from Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 1, begins, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Jesse is the father of King David. Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, is a descendant of David. So, Jesse is the ancestral head of the family line that ends with Jesus. Christians read this verse of Isaiah as a prophecy that Jesus will be this shoot from the stump of Jesse.
Just prior to this verse, Isaiah has given a terrifying prophesy, a vision really, of God taking an ax and clear cutting down every tree in the forest. This is how the family of Jesse became just a “stump.” Isaiah chapter ten and 33, “Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. The Lord will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and the majestic tress will fall.”
This prophesy of Isaiah is important as we listen to the prophesy of John the Baptist. He is baptizing in the River Jordan, calling people to repentance, insisting that they abandon the false righteousness in vogue in Jerusalem of late, and take on the true righteousness of God revealed in the simple command, “Love your neighbor.” When he sees Pharisees and Sadducees arriving, he’s certain they are not sincere. So, he evokes the earlier prophesy of Isaiah just mentioned: “Even 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.”
What are the trees that God is hacking down in the prophecy in Isaiah? How are the Pharisees and Sadducees like those trees in the prophecy of John the Baptist?
In Isaiah, I think those trees are false righteousness, as practiced by the King who rules over the people in God’s name. For John the Baptist, I think he is accusing the Pharisees and Sadducees of practicing false righteousness as they rule over the faithful in Israel. They are teaching false righteousness. John is calling for repentance, so that the people of Israel can become righteous, and thereby worthily receive the messiah who is coming.
What is false righteousness? Look at the definition of the righteous ruler that will grow as a tender shoot from the stump of Jesse in Isaiah’s prophecy:
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
I think this tells us that righteousness is far more than fairness. Fairness comes from what the eyes see and the ears hear. God’s righteousness is about justice—a profound justice of restoration, healing, fullness and “equity for the meek of the earth.” Righteousness is about reasonable distribution of God’s bounty, not about insuring that the rules are fair as people try to claim it for themselves at the expense of others.
Isaiah’s prophecy is how an earthly king will be righteous in his administration of the government that God has entrusted to the king in his becoming King of Israel. Christians read this prophesy as pointing toward the messiahship of Jesus Christ. Jesus makes abundantly clear how he judges with righteousness the plight of the poor and the meek of the earth. They are to be filled, healed, released, and forgiven. The blind will be given sight, the last will be first, and the rich sent away empty. Righteousness is equity through radical reassembly of how the world works. “Blessed are the poor, for they shall receive the kingdom of God.” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.” That’s a radical redistribution of property.
But Jesus did not administer an earthly kingdom; he revealed the reality of a heavenly kingdom that disciples are called to model “on earth, as it is in heaven.” Righteousness is found in the heart and spirit. The people who follow Jesus show it in their works of righteousness. The coming of Jesus Christ means that righteousness is no longer the responsibility of the earthly king to administer, but for the Christian community—the Church—to model and practice. John the Baptist is saying, change your life, and turn toward this righteousness, for the shoot is beginning to grow from this stump of Jesse.
It’s easy for we who live in a democratic society and capitalist, free-market economy to be restless with political realities involved in the demands of a society righteous by God’s standards. It sounds communistic; it would be imposed, not democratically chosen. The challenge to North American Christians, while most of us live under the protections of our democracy and in the luxury of our economy, is whether we witness and advocate for the righteousness that we know is at the heart of our discipleship to Jesus Christ. We must show that righteousness not only with our lips, but with our lives. John the Baptist saw through the lip service of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and he told them they would be a tree felled by the ax, as their life would not produce the fruit of true righteousness.
I think we all need a “John the Baptist” to call us to true repentance. I certainly had one.
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