Who? Me?

Pineda Presbyterian Church

December 4, 2016  The Fourth Sunday in Advent

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon:       “Who? Me?”

When I was interviewing for this position,  someone asked me some questions about my preaching style.  One of the questions – perhaps more of a statement than a question – was “You’re not a pulpit thumper, are you?”  As I read the Gospel for this morning, I was sorely tempted to thump the pulpit and shout: “REPENT!”

There are at least two things wrong with that.  I’m really not a pulpit thumper – usually.  Beyond that I’m not at all sure that yelling the word in an aggressive and hostile tone is what John’s message is all about. 

Admittedly John was a pretty raw looking character, and perhaps he was a screamer, but I don’t think that he was trying to scare people.  Committing your life to the way of God’s Kingdom is not about fear:  it’s about humility and love.  

In many ways John was what we might refer to as an Old Testament character.  Indeed, some have called him the very last Old Testament prophet.  He lived and preached very much in the spirit of Elijah. 

The word which John used, repent, was a very familiar Hebrew concept.  Life with the Lord was walking with the Lord, journeying with the Lord, a life-long pilgrimage with the Lord.  In a similar vein, you could be walking down the wrong path or going in the wrong direction.  Psalm 1 says:

1 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; 

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

I’m not sure we understand the word “way” correctly.  It not some abstract notion.  It means a road, a path, the route you would take for a journey.  You can journey in the path of sinners or you can travel over the way of the righteous. 

If you’re travelling, you need to know the direction to go in so that you reach your destination.  If you are travelling in the wrong direction then you must repent, that is change direction and head back in the right direction to get you where you want to go.  Throughout the history of the covenant relationship between God and Israel is this concept of journeying together with God.  The journey requires constant attention so that you don’t lose your way or lose sight of your goal. 

In a society in which we have Interstate Highways and state roads and county roads and all sorts of directional signs, going the wrong way can always be rectified.  If I want to go from here to Savannah, I might start out by heading south on I-95.  It wouldn’t be the most efficient way to get to Savannah, but theoretically I could go all the way down to Alligator Alley and north on I-75 and east on I-4 and north on the Florida Turnpike and then east on I-10 to Jacksonville and finally north on I-95 to Savannah.  We have an organized system of roads and directional signs.  It makes going in the wrong direction easy to remedy.  The roads and signs make repentance pretty easy.

But think about the life of Israel.  A lot of its history is spent at times and in places where going the wrong way could kill you.  Repentance wouldn’t always be an option.  If you went the wrong way you might be lost forever.  In fact the word re-turn  shows up 553 times in the NRSV.  Amos frequently speaks of the need or failure to “return to the Lord.”  Hosea calls Israel to “return to the Lord.”  And in Jeremiah the Lord tells Israel:

“12 Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and say: Return, faithless Israel, says the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord; I will not be angry for ever.  13 Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the Lord your God, and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree, and have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. 14 Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. [Jeremiah 3:12-14]”

Jeremiah is demanding a change of heart as well as a change of direction.  He uses such expressions as “straying” and “going astray.”

For all of the prophets, confession – genuine confession acknowledging that they had strayed from God’s way, that they had sincerely recognized their sin – comes before repentance, but the two are inseparable.  Sincere confession must be followed by a return to God’s path, a repentance so that you will find your way back onto God’s roadway.

No matter how often the Israelites strayed, God was always willing to accept their confession and repentance.  They always had one more chance.  When John calls the people to repentance they are reminded that such a call is a call of hope because God will welcome them back.   Psalm 130 says:

“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. [Psalm 130:3-4]”

And Psalm 51 makes it very clear:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [Psalm 51:10,17]

This is the context from which John comes forward from the wilderness telling the people once again to confess and repent.  For John the two ideas merge:  repentance carries an acknowledgement of our sin that in John’s ritual is washed away in the waters of baptism. 

Suddenly though John is displeased. He looks up and sees Saducees and Pharisees among the crowd.  These two groups rarely came together to agree on things.  Each represented significantly differing views on the role and purpose of a faithful Jew.  Sort of like the Democrats and Republicans today, both of these groups had a vested interest in the status quo.  Each of the two was convinced that their view of the world was the only correct view.  Since they each felt that they had all the right answers, there wasn’t room for any more questions.  These are people whose extreme pride would never allow them to think that they had anything to ask God for God’s forgiveness.  They probably stared at John and said,  “Who?  Me?”

Confession and repentance were totally out of the question.  That’s why John perhaps does yell: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? [Matt 3:7]”

Then John adds one more comment that I think ties together the two parts of this lesson: 

⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance. ⁹Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. [Matt 3:8-9]

Sisters and brothers, God has a path for us, a road that HE will walk with us, right alongside of us, that leads to new life in God’s kingdom.  He has prepared a place for us and we know the way.  But we need to protect ourselves constantly from the greatest stumbling block that keeps getting into our way.  We are that stumbling block. 

Like the Pharisees and the Saducees we are all too often convinced that we have all the answers and isn’t God lucky to have us.  We don’t have anything to confess and turn away from.  We say our prayers to thank God for making us as great as we are.  We attend church every Sunday and pay good money to keep it going – our way. 

And John turns to us and says, “Repent.”  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  It’s not just an intellectual exercise.  It’s not just saying the right words.  When our repentance is sincere, when we have sufficiently humbled ourselves to come before the Lord, then the fruits of that repentance will be visible for all to see. 

We are preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We are preparing to celebrate that the kingdom of heaven has come down to earth.  We are preparing to celebrate that we have been given a way to enter that kingdom, here and now, and follow that way walking alongside of Jesus into a timeless eternity. 

We don’t deserve it.  We haven’t earned it.  When we really recognize how far below that gift we really are then we will be prompted to repent, to turn from sin and to turn from our own devices and humbly thank God. 

Thanks be to God.  Amen.