December 14, 2008
(Third Sunday of Advent)
Among Us Stands One Whom We Do Not Know
by The
Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 • Canticle 15 • 1
Thessalonians 5:16-24 • John 1:6-8, 19-28
(From
The Lectionary Page)
A couple of Sundays ago, the Kansas City Star ran a feature on the Great Depression. That is to say, they interviewed some area residents, now in their 80’s, who reminisced about what it was like to be child during the 1930’s. The article compared and contrasted our present economic volatility with life in the United States in, say, 1937. It pointed out how many social programs and safety nets are in place now, inadequate though they may be, than existed 70 years ago. It was an interesting article, and the reminiscences certainly squared with the stories my mother told of growing up on the family’s 120 acre dairy farm in Minnesota which, in 1937, supported three families.
One of the things that make human culture resilient is our capacity to reflect, compare, and assess. When faced with something new, we automatically ask ourselves, “Do I recognize this? How is this new thing similar to something I already know about? Can this new thing fit into my existing conceptual framework?” That’s what the priests and the Levites were doing in today’s gospel when they accost John the Baptist in the wilderness. Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet, which is to say, Moses? The questions are, in themselves, neither outlandish nor snarky. By the first century of the Common Era, the long-awaited Messiah was believed to possess both prophetic and apocalyptic qualities. Likewise, the return of Elijah, 9 centuries after having been swept into heaven, was believed to herald the coming Day of the Lord. Could the end be in sight? But when John denies being either the Messiah or Elijah, they pull out their trump card. Unlike the Messiah who was to come or Elijah who was expected to return, there were few such expectations of Moses appearing. That question was probably more parochial. Moses, after all, had been a Levite. The Levites – the priestly clan – had held their positions of prestige and power over the centuries in no small part due to their illustrious ancestor. Their question of John the Baptist hinted more at, “Are you one of us?”
John’s denial of kinship made their confusion complete. So who was this guy? Some Jordan River wackjob, or someone to whom they should give serious consideration? What kind of conceptual framework should they employ?
Well they might be confused. We might be too. After all, the John the Baptist we meet in the 4th gospel is very different from the John the Baptist we encountered last week in Mark’s gospel. He’s less of an apocalyptic wildman and more of a reflective revealer. In John’s gospel, it is John the Baptist who points out Jesus to his own disciples with the words, “Here is the lamb of God.” In John’s gospel, John the Baptist rejoices that people who had been following him begin to follow Jesus instead. “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me.”
There is a conceptual framework for Jesus, but the religious establishment ain’t gonna like it. We catch a glimpse of that framework in that magnificent passage from Isaiah which we heard earlier this morning. Seems that the ones to whom the Good News is brought are the oppressed, the broken hearted, the captive, and the prisoner. Seems that God is the God of the Jubilee, the God who seeks to comfort those who mourn, the God who loves justice, who seeks redress for all wrongdoing, and who fills brimful with blessings all whom God has created. In the fourth gospel, this vision for the completion of God’s purpose will be accomplished ultimately through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Not – and this is absolutely crucial – not because God is angry and vengeful and needs blood to be spilled in order for sins to be forgiven and right relationship to be restored. Rather, the suffering and death of Jesus ultimately will demonstrate that no more sacrificial blood NEED be shed because through his death and resurrection Christ will have made the whole world one with God. In other words, in the eyes of John the Baptist, the power structure of the sacrificial system of the Temple was already being dismantled by the presence of Jesus Christ. Among you stands one whom you do not know.
Which brings me back to our human capacity to reflect, compare, and assess. When faced with something new, we humans tend to look for a pattern that we recognize. This means, among other things, that we engage filters which help us to differentiate what is familiar from what is strange, what seems to support the things that already benefit us from what might pose a threat. We do it all the time, both as individuals and as societies. But sometimes we invest so much energy in those filters that they become in a sense sacred, untouchable, inviolable. Sometimes we become so accustomed to using those filters that we paradoxically deny their reality. And when it comes to matters of faith, sometimes we become so accustomed to seeing the world in a certain way that we become incapable of seeing that God may in fact being doing something radically new.
The message that John the Baptist proclaimed in the wilderness in John’s gospel was that God is doing something new in the person of Jesus Christ. The prophetic vision of Moses and Elijah, and the messianic hope of a people too long oppressed, was finding fulfillment in real time in the person of Jesus Christ, but not in a way that the existing power structures recognized. John’s gospel is rooted in history, but the message and its import for us is eternal. Through Christ, the God News has been and continues to be unleashed upon an oppressed and broken-hearted world. And when those in power in society act out of their worst fears and the Church fails to speak prophetically to their blindness, the Church itself does violence to the Good News.
Among us stands one whom we do not know.
It’s a great time to get acquainted.
