Sermon - 3d Sunday of Advent (12/13/2020)
Is. 61:1-4, 8-11; Ps. 126; 1 Thess. 5:16-24; Jn. 1:6-8, 19-28
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”
We have just begun our year-long selection of gospel readings from the Gospel according to Mark. However, Mark’s gospel begins with Jesus as an adult coming to be baptized by John, and so there’s not much in Mark about Christmas. So our lectionary – our ecumenical calendar of Scripture readings – supplements Mark with passages from other gospels, like today’s reading from John.
And, in the way John’s gospel looks at things, the importance of John the Baptist is not so much that he baptized, but that he was a witness – a witness to Jesus, a witness to the light, a witness to God’s action in the world to bring light and peace and love.
Much of today’s gospel reading is basically a hostile cross-examination of John the Witness by some priests from Jerusalem who had been sent by the Temple authorities. These authorities had many reasons not to like John the Baptist. By calling people to repent of their sins, to turn around, he was basically saying that the religious powers that be were going in the wrong direction. By baptizing people in the Jordan River, he invited people to reenact the entry of Israel into the Promised Land, when after forty years in the wilderness they crossed the Jordan River and entered the land – and by sending the message that this time we’re going to do it right, he strongly implied that the people in charge had not been doing it right.
And most importantly, John didn’t tell people who were repenting of their sins that they should, as common religious practice in those days required, go to the priests and pay them to offer a sacrifice of reconciliation. John’s baptism thus came across much like Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses against indulgences – it challenged not just a theology about whether anyone could claim to control access to God’s mercy and forgiveness, but also the financial interests of those who did claim that control. And so, in today’s gospel reading, the police arrive to question John.
And these police have the good cop, bad cop routine down pretty well. When John says, Look, I am not the Messiah and never said that I was, one of the policemen shines his flashlight in John’s eyes and says, “OK, then, are you Elijah? You think you’re the Prophet, wise guy?” Then the good cop takes over. “Look, we just have to go back to our boss and tell him what’s going on, can you help us out? What can we say?” And John says what he always says, “It’s like Isaiah said, I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness.” So they say, “But if you’re not anybody special, why are you baptizing? Why don’t you follow the rules like everybody else?” And John doesn’t answer. He just laughs. “You think I’m a threat? You have no idea who’s coming. I couldn’t even untie his shoes. Just wait.”
The gospel tells us that John came as a witness to Jesus, as a witness to the light. And the gospel writer wants us to notice that John never says anything about himself, except to quote Isaiah in the most self-deprecating way. Because John is only a witness. And the one to whom he witnesses is the one John wants us to pay attention to. John doesn’t care what the police, or anybody else really, thinks about John. He only cares that they see who Jesus is.
In some ways, this is a useful lesson to any Christian, and especially to any pastor. It is an occupational hazard of being a pastor and preparing a sermon every week that we can delude ourselves into thinking that people care about every thought and opinion that comes through our minds, on the political issues of the day or on our latest moods, when actually our job is to talk about the good news of Jesus. To witness to what God does, and mostly to get out of the way. I’ve known pastors who always let you know how important and wonderful they are, and that has always bothered me. It’s one reason I tend not to talk too much about myself in sermons, I’m trying to keep the focus of our worship where it needs to be, on God and the good news of Jesus.
But – if I can get personal for a moment – I’ve really struggled with this message over the past week, because I know that as much as I would like to dress up my own habits of not wanting to draw attention to myself as idealism or devotion to Jesus, the reality is much less noble: it’s about self-protection. There are many reasons for this, but let me tell you one story that always comes immediately to my mind on this subject.
One day when I was maybe 10 or 12 years old. My father was telling stories about his days in the Navy, and specifically how much fun he and his buddies had one weekend on shore leave in Providence, Rhode Island, going around “beating up queers.” I’m not sure I even knew what “queers” were at that age, but I had already figured out enough about how my feelings about girls, and about boys, were different from what they were supposed to be, that to this day I can recall how suddenly and deeply terrified I felt.
That particular moment, along with many others over the years, taught me that if people really knew me, what I thought, what I felt, what I wanted, who I was, that I would not be safe. I would not be safe in my family, I would not be safe in my church, I would not be safe in the world. And so I learned very early – do not draw attention to myself. If anyone was curious about who I was or what I thought, I perceived it as a threat – the sooner they got curiouser about somebody else the better. It was a defense mechanism, maybe it made sense at the time, but it took me a very long time to learn not to be afraid of attention. To learn that it is OK to be myself, even if I’m different from society’s norms. To learn to accept the risk of being vulnerable, without which it is impossible to have any real relationship or community or love. But it’s still not easy for me. I’d still much rather be invisible. It feels so much safer.
I found preparing this week’s sermon particularly difficult, and I think the reason is that my not wanting anybody to focus on me and John the Baptist’s not wanting anybody to focus on him are actually 180 degrees opposite from each other. And the difference is that John didn’t want to talk about himself in order to witness to the light, and I don’t like to talk about myself in order to hide from the light. And what those of us who want to hide from the light need to hear is this: What this light will reveal is that I am a beloved child of God. And whatever else the light might reveal cannot change or diminish that fact in any way. And what the light will reveal is that you are a beloved child of God. No matter what anybody else may have told you to the contrary.
And so when John says, “I’m not worthy to untie his shoes,” this isn’t meekness or humility. John is not longing for obscurity or invisibility. John is focused on the light, and the good news of what the light is going to show – the good news that John is worthy of being a beloved child of God – whatever his rough edges (and John had them), whatever he got wrong (and John did), John stepped into the limelight because in this light he knew he is a beloved child of God and so am I and so are you and so we can celebrate everything that the light will reveal, no matter how scary that may seem.
Christmas is about the coming of the light – the coming of the light two thousand years ago in Jesus, and the coming of the light right here and now in your life and in mine. A light that does not demand that we hide anything from God or ourselves or one another in order to deserve it. A light that is so beautiful and life-giving that we welcome its shining everywhere, even when that might feel scary. A light that is more important than our fears, because it is stronger than our fears. This is the light that John bore witness to. This is the light around which we gather this morning, the light to which we hope to bear witness. The light in which we can see all people as they are, as beloved by God and so welcomed and celebrated.