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Back in Whitehorse we did a play in Advent that involved John the Baptist. The man who
played the role got right into it. In the gospel of Mark, John the Baptist is described as
wearing camel's skin, so this man went and got a caribou hide.
Jaws hit the church floor when he got up front dressed in nothing but the caribou
hide, and underwear, presumably. He strode about the front, waving his arms, speaking
loudly in a Texan accent of all things. The poor teenager who was playing the reporter
trying to interview him didn't know what to think, especially when he tried to wrestle her
for the microphone.
Afterwards he said to me, do you think I was too over the top? I had to laugh, but
after some reflection said, no, it was perfect. Somehow I am pretty sure that John the
Baptist came across as over the top to his society, that he shocked them and unnerved
them. He was totally different from the priests with their clean and fancy robes, reading
selected scriptures from carefully preserved scrolls, working hand in glove with the
Roman oppressors, so that regular people felt quite abandoned by their leaders.
One person at Bible Study said, he sounds a bit like Trump, appealing to people
because not he's like the other leaders, he's more blunt, plain speaking. There's
certainly something to that comparison, as odd as it may sound.
The people of John's time were tired of the corruption and elitism of the priests
and leaders. As we have talked about before, they were actively waiting for a Messiah, a
leader sent from God who would free them from Roman oppression and set up a just
form of government.
So they were quite ready for someone like Jon the Baptist, who defied
expectations and norms, who said it like it was, who displayed an authority very different
from that of the priests and elders. But where John the Baptist was very different from
Trump was in his message.
He didn't point the finger elsewhere to lay blame. He said to the crowd, what are
you doing here? You need to change way you live! He called them vipers! Them, not
the priests. He told them to bear fruit worthy of God or risk being cut down and thrown
in fire. John gave people responsibility for their own lives, and they responded in a
powerful way, what then should we do?
This is where start seeing connections to Jesus, isn't it. Jesus also inspired
crowds to change their lives, although wasn't quite as blunt in his approach. So what
exactly is/was the relationship between Jesus and John?
Luke tells us they were distantly related, as their mothers were cousins of some
degree, although his is the only gospel to say that. All the gospels imply that John came
to prepare the way for Jesus. We see that in today's reading where John says, “one who
is more powerful than I is coming, I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals.”
The thing is, we have to remember that the gospels were written 40-70 years
after Jesus' life, so they aren't exactly historical documents. Sometimes fairly major
editing took place in order to make sure the story fit the message early Christians
wanted to put across.
This is not to say that gospel writers lied, but it's important to understand that the
authors didn't see themselves as writing historical documents, they were writing faith
documents. So they saw nothing wrong with changing the story slightly in order to get
their message across.
Although at time of Jesus' baptism John the Baptist seems to acknowledge
that Jesus is the Messaih and that he, John the Baptist, has prepared the way for him,
elsewhere in Luke and in other gospels, John later sends a message to Jesus asking,
are you the one for whom are waiting,or should we be looking elsewhere? That would
seem to indicate that John wasn't so sure about Jesus' role.
Many Biblical scholars believe there was initially more tension between followers
of Jon the Baptist and Jesus than is shown in the Bible, that it took time for John and his
followers to accept Jesus, and that the story from today's reading with it's reference to
John saying Jesus is the Messiah might have been added in to establish that Jesus was
always more important than John and that John knew it from the start.
Now you may be thinking, why does any of this matter? Who cares who followed
whom 2000 years ago? Or you may be bothered at idea that the gospels weren't
always completely accurate. If so, please bear with me, as I am going somewhere with
this and it does apply to our faith today.
As I did my research for today, I discovered that a number of Biblical scholars
believe that John's teachings complimented Jesus' teachings, rather than simply
preparing the way for them. They believe that if we only see John as preparing the way
for Jesus, we miss out on the significance of his teachings, how sometimes they connect
with Jesus' teachings and sometimes show a different perspective, yet both are firmly
rooted in the Old Testament.
John's style was definitely harsher, but we are fooling ourselves if we think Jesus
was alays soft and gentle – he was equally challenging even if slightly more diplomatic
in his phrasing. He didn't generally call people a brood of vipers, although he did
sometimes call them hypocrites.
If you listened carefully to the reading this morning, you heard that like Jesus,
John didn't just preach to pious Jews, even though like Jesus, he was one. He preached
to Jews on the margins of society, like tax collectors, and even preached to non-Jews.
Those soldiers who ask,“what should we do?” had to be Roman soldiers as there
weren't any Jewish ones.
Like Jesus, John accepted the presence of these “outsiders” and respected their
questions and their desire to change their lives. He gave the same sorts of answers
Jesus would later give: whoever has food or clothing must share with those who have
none, be honest and just in your work, don't extort or oppress people.
Then John talks about how Jesus has his winnowing fork in his hand and is ready
to separate wheat and chaff, with chaff being burned with unquenchable fire. Ouch!
How many prairie people here today? How many of you are familiar with
separating wheat and chaff? I had to get prairie people at Bible study to explain the
image as I couldn't quite grasp it at first.
At the top of a stalk of wheat is both the kernel of wheat which we eat and the
chaff, which protects it. You have to separate the two in order to use the wheat. Chaff
is lighter, so in ancient times, a thresher would wait for a day with a good breeze, take
the fork, throw grains into air, and the wind would carry away the chaff, leaving the grain
on the floor.
For many of us, we hear that imagery and think, ouch, that seems pretty harsh,
am I ready to get rid of chaff? What is my chaff, my waste, my garbage? Even if I can
identify it, I'm not sure I want it burned away!
Theologian Linda Bridges says that Jesus does indeed do this work, but she
points out that in Hebrew and Aramaic, the language of the Jews of Jesus and John's
time, the word for wind and Spirit is same. So in John's image, it's the Spirit who
separates the wheat from the chaff, when Jesus holds the fork, or as Bridges says,
Jesus holds the shovel and the Spirit does the work.
Separating wheat and chaff doesn't have to be a huge burden that falls on us all
alone, it's a matter of letting the Spirit work within us to help us discern where and how
we need to make changes.
While Jphn's harsher perspective tends to dominate in the Old Testament, there
are certainly places where we see a gentler side of faith as well, a side that is reflected
in Jesus' teachings. Think of David,whose story we followed in fall. How many times
did he have to separate his wheat and chaff? How many times did he make mistakes,
repent and ask for forgiveness, and go on to try his best once again?
This image of Jesus separating wheat and chaff is a place where we see those
two perspectives from the Old Testament come together. God is firm, changes need to
be made, but God is also a part of helping us make them.
We see that in the image of fruit as well. Near the beginning of the passage John
says to the crowd that they must bear fruits worthy of repentance. The day after I read
that for first time, I happened to help my daughter Hope make a fruit smoothie. I noticed
that on the bag of frozen fruit it said, all taste, no waste! Perfectly imperfect fruit. The
idea is that fruits of all sizes and shapes can be used to produce yummy treats,
imperfections don't affect taste.
That phrase kept coming back to me as I mulled over the readings all week and
planned for today. John tends to have a more black and white approach to fruit. Either
you're good fruit or bad fruit. If you're bad, God cuts down your tree and throws it in fire.
(John seems to have thing for fire.)
But you may recall that later on in the gospels when Jesus tells the parable of the
fig tree that wasn't producing fruit, he talks about how the farmer refuses to cut it down
and instead takes extra care of it and fertilizes it until it produces good fruit.
Both John and Jesus agree that we need to produce fruit, but like with separating
wheat and chaff, Jesus sees God as being part of that process in a loving way, not a
punitive way. And that's where I see the motto of that frozen fruit applying so well to us.
Perfectly imperfect! None of us can ever produce 100% perfect fruit, but through the
grace of God, we can at least do some pretty amazing things with our imperfect fruit
when we really try.
John introduces some very important concepts and images that both prepare the
way and compliment the teachings of Jesus. May we pay attention to both of them,
learning and growing in faith as ind and tog as family of G, all of us perfectly imperfect.