Advent 2C, 2003
Luke 3:1-6
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO CHRISTMAS WITHOUT FIRST MEETING UP WITH JOHN
"What is
appropriately called sin belongs to a more specific sphere of human freedom
where we have the possibility of enhancing life or stifling it.
"It is the realm where
competitive hate abounds, and also passive acquiescence to needless
victimization...
the misuse of freedom to exploit other humans and the earth
and thus to violate the basic relations that sustain life.
"Sin lies in the distortion
of relationship, the absolutizing of the rights of life and power on one side
of a relation
against the other parts with which it is, in fact,
interdependent."
(Rosemary Radford
Reuther)
In the seventh year of the reign of Emperor John,
when Jeffery was Governor all over the Land,
and Robert was Ruler of Pre-emption
and Philip Controller of Security,
and George was Lord of the Stars and Stripes,
and Tony Ruler of Britannia,
during the high priesthoods of Peter and George,
the word of God came. (Adapted.WWhite)
The word of God comes whenever and wherever
repentance and forgiveness are needed.
The word of God is present now, as then.
oo0oo
This year’s major biblical storyteller, the one we call Luke, is very definite.
It is impossible to get to Christmas
without first meeting up with John,
nicknamed the ‘dipper’ or ‘baptiser’.
John the son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, so-called cousin of Jesus.
So it’s a little odd, don’t you think,
that the story of John’s birth has been so overshadowed
by his (in)famous cousin, Mary’s boy child?
Just try to find a nativity set that includes Elizabeth and Zechariah
and their infant boy, John. It can’t be done.
Even a search on the world wide web comes up empty,
according to Ed Searcy, minister at University Hill United Church in Canada!
Getting to Christmas without meeting up with John is impossible.
On the other hand, let me rephrase that.
We can get to the Christmas of sweet sentimentality,
red-nosed reindeers, and candy canes
hanging on halls bedecked with boughs of holly.
But you cannot get to Jesus, reputed to have been born in Bethlehem,
and whose birth narrative provided the fundamental rationale
for the Festival of Christmas within the institutional church,
without first encountering his cousin John... Son of Zechariah,
in the wilderness,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sin.
As Jack Shea reminds us:
“Jesus came out of John as surely as he came out of Mary” (Shea 1993:176).
So it may shock some to hear it is impossible to get to Christmas
without first meeting up with John,
And it may also shock some of you to hear, I am preaching on sin.
Not the ‘seven deadly sins’ of traditional theology.
Nor the ‘sword swing’ or ‘moral dictator’ type of the fundamentalist preachers.
Nor even the so-called ‘original sin’, or the modern attempt to revamp sin
by claiming it is about breaking relationships
rather than disobeying or breaking God’s so-called ‘rules’.
None of those so-called ‘sins’. But never-the-less, sin.
And not only because this morning’s story on John gives sin a headline rap.
But also because the language of sin
often dominates the Christian imagination.
So let me offer some general comments or observations
on this controversial subject.
1. Sin comes in many shapes and sizes.
We sin when we refuse the basic relationality of creation -
that we are co-dependent with others
and that our well beings are intertwined.
We sin when we refuse the possibility God offers to us,
and through us to the world.
We sin when we create idols
and then spend immense amounts of energy securing them.
And we sin when we refuse the vulnerable face of our brother or sister,
and when we fail to share our own.
2. While in traditional thinking
sin involved harm to one’s relationship with God,
sin is never just individual.
It takes up residence in systems of oppression.
It is propagated by lies.
It thrives on structures of injustice that would ‘deface’ all in its wake.
It invites us to refuse to see the human face
of those who are different from us.
It offers rationalisations for our self-serving ways.
It builds walls between people that rupture the relational web of life.
3. Sin is also something we suffer.
One unexpected way we suffer from sin in our contemporary society
is believing that ‘more is better’.
If one is good, two must be better.
Another unexpected way we suffer from sin is believing in the ‘quick fix’.
Jim Taylor, author of the book Sin: A new understanding of virtue and vice, says:
“Our beliefs in the ‘quick fix’ (and) ‘more is better’, makes it almost impossible for us to stop at ‘just right’. To cure the sin, we need to deal (first) with the beliefs” (Taylor 1997:4).
So, how might we ‘cure sin’ or ‘deal with the beliefs’?
Or in the biblical language of John the baptiser:
how might we prepare for the coming of God’s realm?
Certainly not, I would suggest, by following the advice
of one of my more tradition Sunday School teachers
who used to tell us God with an all-seeing eye,
was sitting up in heaven, and watching all our actions.
The bad actions he wrote in a big book opposite our names,
and for them we would be punished on the judgement day.
• No, but we might do so by refusing to believe lies:
lies that deny us of our full humanity,
lies that have taught us self-blame for our suffering,
lies that distort the graciousness of religion,
lies that have denied the image of God is in homosexuals,
lies that say AIDS is God’s judgement.
• And, we might take heart from Isaiah’s saying
that mountains will be made low and valleys filled up.
For that saying means the structures of evil and oppression
are not the way things are.
They are the way things have come to be.
And in the place of change - the desert - things can change.
oo0oo
It is impossible to get to Christmas without first meeting up with John,
nicknamed the ‘dipper’ or ‘baptiser’.
But what was John doing and saying,
if what we hear in Luke’s story captures historical tradition?
And why did it cause such a fuss with the religious authorities?
Simply put: John had first named, and then side-stepped, a religious monopoly.
The problem wasn’t that John called on people to repent of, or resolve, their sin.
The problem was he had denied the power of the temple cult
and their claim to have a monopoly
on forgiveness and access to God,
by introducing a novel solution.
Instead of having people wash themselves, symbolic of divine cleansing,
John, himself, dipped people under the water
and did it in the Jordan rather than at the Temple!
The sin residing in a religious system of oppression got him.
As it often does those who seek to introduce novel solutions.
And just as Mary's conception
warranted stoning by the religion of her day,
so our conception of the novel
often prompts attacks from the ‘religion’ of our time.
oo0oo
It is impossible to get to Christmas without first meeting up with John,
nicknamed the ‘dipper’ or ‘baptiser’.
John reminds us:
Pay attention.
Something new is needed.
Think outside the square.
Go beyond the mind that you have been given and have acquired.
Preparing for the coming of God’s realm
means washing and evaluating the lenses through which we
read the Bible or understand God or church,
as well as the transformation of life,
individually and as a society,
here and now.
In the seventh year of the reign of Emperor John...
The word of God happened on another bloke called John
while he was in the outback.
The word of God comes whenever and wherever
repentance and forgiveness are needed.
The word of God is present now, as then.
Afterword:
In 2010 Fred Plumer, the president of The Centre for Progressive Christianity wrote an Editorial on 'Sin'. You can read that article here.
Notes:
Shea, J. 1993. Starlight: Beholding the Christmas miracle all year long. NY: New York. Crossroads.
Taylor, J. 1997. Sin: A new understanding of virtue and vice. Canada. Northstone Publishing.
• I also wish to acknowledge the thoughts of Ed Searcy, Susan Nelson and Wesley White whose thoughts and imagination have helped shape these brief comments.