Note: due to events at church and my preaching schedule, this will be the last sermon posted here for 2009. The next sermon will appear here on Jan. 3, 2010.
In 1995, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) had its General Assembly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While at the Assembly, Ginger and I and a couple of friends decided to walk several blocks to get lunch at a deli that one of our friends had heard about.
The deli was near an industrial area, not far from the river. From the outside, it sure didn’t look like much, so I was surprised when we walked in and saw a large crowd of people, packed around tables in the small eating area.
I was even more surprised when the man behind the counter looked up and growled, “Yeah, what do you want?” The friend who had led us there thought this was great; he tossed some rudeness right back at the worker: “Gimme a sandwich!”
The worker, with a look of total disgust on his face, yelled back: “Well, what the hell do ya want on it?”
Obviously, this was this guy’s “shtick.” It was part of the “show,” and people came to the deli just to be a part of it. They came for the rudeness and the insults—and the food, of course, which I had to admit was pretty good.
I thought of the man behind the deli counter this week when I read this scripture about John the Baptist.
Crowds of people came out to hear John proclaim a “baptism of repentance;” and John begins by insulting them. “You brood of vipers! You family of poisonous snakes! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
I don’t know why John preached like that. It’s not a style of preaching that I think would go over very well today… Then again, there is that crowd in the deli….
Maybe it was part of John’s shtick. John, the preacher who dressed in camel-hair, who ate locusts, and who insulted those who came to listen.
Or, maybe it was more than a shtick. Maybe John sensed that many in the crowd were skeptical of him and his message. Maybe there were present some high-ranking government and religious authorities. At the highest levels, there really wasn’t much difference between religious leaders and government leaders; they all worked together to preserve their own wealth and power by oppressing the vast majority of the population. And besides, the position of high-priest was a government-appointed position. They’re all just peas in a pod.
Maybe some of them came out, because they heard that John was preaching revolution. Maybe they heard that he was stirring up anti-government sentiment, turning the people against the powerful elite. Maybe they came out to find out if what they’d heard was true.
If that’s the case, then perhaps John’s insults were more than just shtick; because he was, in fact, preaching about rebellion and revolution. He was preaching repentance, calling people to switch their allegiance from the kingdom of Rome, the kingdom of the empire, and switch to the kingdom of God. John even invited people to be baptized, as a sign of casting off their old allegiance.
That is what it means to repent. It means to stop living the way you’ve been living, and to start living a whole new way. It means to stop following the way you’ve been following, and to start following a new way, a new path, in your life. This was indeed revolutionary talk.
The ruling elite: all they wanted was to keep the peace; and to their way of thinking, keeping the peace meant nothing more than maintaining the status quo. Keeping the peace meant keeping everyone in their place. Keeping the peace meant allowing no one to rock the boat.
But of course, John was doing just that. He was rocking the boat in a big, big way. Shtick or not, it was clear that he was a possible threat to the peace of the kingdom.
However, Rome had ways of ensuring that the peace of the kingdom was maintained. Peace on earth came through the emperor—and the emperor had ways to make sure that nothing, and no one, would disturb that peace.
By the way, because peace on earth was said to have come through the emperor, the emperor himself—Caesar Augustus—was proclaimed as the “savior” of the world. The calendar was changed so that Caesar’s birthday became the first day of the year, because his birthday was the ultimate “good news.”
Now, John the Baptist was not only a preacher; he was also a prophet. Some might even call him a mystic, because his heart and his mind were one with the heart and mind of God. John felt the presence of God all around him, and could not help but see the world through God’s eyes. And in God’s eyes, John knew, the peace of Rome was no peace at all.
Peace is more than just an absence of conflict. Shalom is more than just the absence of rebellion and resistance. And peace on earth will never become a reality through armed enforcement. Because his heart was one with God, John knew this to be true.
John also knew that the “good news” that came from the emperor was only “good” for the ruling elite, the wealthy and the powerful, and for no one else. All around him, he saw people who were suffering under the kingdom of the emperor. All around him were people who had lost their homes, lost their land, and even lost their freedom, mainly due to the heavy burden placed on them by the empire.
These were people who had been subjugated into submission. The emperor’s good news was not good for them. The emperor was no savior to them. And the “peace on earth” that was enforced by the might of the Roman army was anything but the genuine peace and shalom longed for by God’s people.
As Brian McLaren writes in the book Everything Must Change, “the empire’s ‘good news’ is a framing story of peace through domination, peace through redemptive violence, peace through centralized power and control, peace through elimination of enemies.” The good news proclaimed by John is not the good news of the empire. It’s a whole different type of good news.
You know, I’m starting to think that John’s passionate outbursts are indeed more than just his shtick.
Well, it’s all well and good to criticize the empire, the kingdom of Caesar, but what can a person do? What should a person do? Is it all talk? Should one start one’s own rebellion? Perhaps raise an army?
That is, in fact, what some people tried to do in Sepphoris, a large city not far from the small town of Nazareth. An major uprising there took place around the time of Jesus’ birth, and it lasted for many days. Soldiers from surrounding regions had to be brought in to subdue the rebels. In the end, the rebellion was stopped. The city was nearly destroyed in the process. To ensure that there would be no future uprisings threatening the peace of the empire, some 2,000 of the rebels were crucified along the roads leading in and out of Jerusalem—a very public warning to those who might entertain similar thoughts of rebellion.
So: without outright rebellion not an option, what was a person to do? In answering that question, John was not stupid. He did not ask or instruct anyone to take up arms. Doing so would have been useless and ineffective in more ways than one. It would have been ineffective, because one cannot hope to match the awesome power and might of the empire, not when it came to armed conflict. And, it would have been ineffective because even the greatest army in the world cannot achieve peace through violence. It was true then, and it’s true today. You don’t get peace by making war. You get peace by making peace.
So here’s what John said to do: “Whoever has two coats,” he said, “must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” That’s how you get peace. Peace comes not through hoarding power and wealth, but by sharing. Peace comes not through taking, but by giving.
Some tax collectors were there in the crowd. Apparently they were tired of being the “middlemen” collecting the burdensome taxes (and pocketing their own sizeable share), the taxes that kept the rich, rich, and the poor, poor. “What about us,” they asked. “What should we do?”
John said, “Don’t collect more than you’re required to.”
Some soldiers were also there, men who had not only pledged their allegiance to the empire, but who had dedicated their lives to defending the empire and everything it stood for. “What about us?” they asked. “What should we do?”
John told them to be satisfied with their wages, and to not use their power to extort money from anyone.
John’s message was a message of repentance. Only through repentance—only through a new way of living—could peace be achieved. Repentance isn’t about feeling sorry. Repentance is about changing one’s behavior. And for John—and later, for Jesus—one of the areas most in need of a change in behavior is the area of economic justice.
As long as economic injustice is allowed to exist in the world—as long as a great number of the world’s people find it impossible to escape poverty, no matter how hard they work—there will be no peace.
Think of the areas of the world where conflict exists today. In nearly every case, the conflicts arise due to injustice, oppression, poverty, or a lack of access to resources. And no matter what measures are taken to suppress the conflict, true peace and security will not be realized until everyone has a fair share of the earth’s resources, and until the disparity between the rich and the poor is eliminated. True peace and security will not be realized until those who have two coats are willing to share with those who have none. True peace and security will not be realized until those who have an abundance of food are willing to share with those who are hungry.
The kingdoms of this world have failed in this. They have sought peace and security by hoarding wealth and power. But get ready, John says. A new kingdom, a new order, is coming. And in this new kingdom, the wealthy and the powerful will find that their wealth and power will not protect them. Indeed, the harbinger of that new kingdom is coming. His coming will be good news to the poor, because in his kingdom, economic injustice will be no more.
The Roman kingdom, the kingdom of peace through victorious domination, is about to be replaced by God’s kingdom of peace through sharing, the kingdom of peace through nonviolent justice. It is the kingdom where the meek are blessed, where peacemakers and justice-seekers are blessed.
It is a revolutionary message that John preaches. But the revolution it calls for is not your typical revolution. It is a nonviolent revolution of hope and peace. It is a revolution that you are called to be part of, as you follow the way of Jesus, the real bearer of peace on earth.
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