When and Then

Text: Isaiah 58:1-12

Central to Christianity as Lutherans know it is the tenet that God’s love and favor is given to us unconditionally. God is a God of grace, demonstrated in various ways that include, not the least, the presence of God among us in the person of Jesus Christ. We do not hold that we deserve God’s good favor. If we had to perform some special deeds to be in God’s good graces, then we would all be out of luck.

We inherit our stubborn defense of this idea from Luther, who was fighting a church at the time that made getting into heaven contingent on special works that the church required. Luther was a polemicist. He was in a battle. He could give no credence to good works as required by God (though good works were still good to do for the world). So, for example, he argued that the book of James should be taken out of the Bible because it said What good is it … if you say you have faith but do not have works?

This stubbornness is warranted because as soon as we allow that God’s love for us is conditional—contingent on even one thing—if it is up to us (if we do something then God will love us or not)—then we are in a mess.

We need to know without reservation that we are a loved child of God. That as Paul says, nothing can separate us from the love of God. That nothing we can do puts us beyond the pale of God’s regard for us. Grace thus frees us to take radical risks.

But as soon as there is one conditional work, we can never trust whether we are good with God or not. We get trapped again. We wonder: who decides what that thing is? Who metes out forgiveness? And how do we trust that we have performed that one thing adequately? People will use that undone work to condemn us, or we will use it to condemn ourselves. As a colleague puts it, the demons of the world (and in our own heads) tell us lies.

Thus we emphasize our trust in a God of grace, and we are fearful to talk about judgment. But what, then, are we to make of this passage in Isaiah, whose verses drip with judgment peppered with conditional Ifs and Thens?

The people of Israel have returned from exile. They have been fasting and praying. Yet is seems they have some complaints about the results. Why do we fast, they say, but you, God, do not see? We humble ourselves, but you do not notice. They evidently feel that by fasting and worshipping that they ought to have earned God’s favor. This idea would not have been out of line with the widespread theology of their day (and sometimes even in ours) that acts of worship and piety are the way to the heart of God, who will reward them with prosperity and safety.

But God is having none of it. You act as if you were a nation that is doing the right thing, God says, and that you are following my commands. But you are not. You fast, you worship, you bow down to me. But you are self-serving and you exploit your workers.

Is this what I want, God asks rhetorically? What good is that? (God sounds like James.) What I want, God says, is justice. I want you to be just. I want you to share what you have with the hungry so that they are no longer hungry. I want you to take the poor into your own homes so that they are no longer homeless. I want you to free those you are oppressing. You think, God implies, that you are the victims. You think you are getting a raw deal. But in fact you are the victimizers, the raw deals are the ones you are making.

When God accuses the Israelites of hiding from their own kin, God is using an idiom that means that they pretend that the impoverished and destitute people do not exist. They have turned a blind eye, we would say, to the needs of others. It also means figuring that someone else will take care of the afflictions of others. We hide from the annoying and impertinent pleas of our own brothers and sisters. It is hard to deny that God is judging us.

God’s demand for justice is right in the middle of the message of Isaiah and the other prophets. Let justice flow like water, Amos says famously. And justice in this case does not mean criminal justice and does not mean retribution for sins against us. It means taking care of widows and orphans (seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow; so Isaiah says earlier—economic and political justice). And all that the widows and orphans represent: which is oppressed, suffering, and disenfranchised people.

God defines a new kind of fast. Not forgoing food for a while with the intent of influencing God, but a spiritual discipline nonetheless. A kind of overriding attentiveness to the demands of others, demands that call us with authority simply because the others are people. Not deserving or good or friendly or pathetic, just people.

This fast is not designed to persuade God but to transform us. If you give food to the hungry, satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then, says God, your light will shine forth like the dawn. If you stop quarreling and fighting and trying to blame each other, then your light will shine in the darkness. God will be with you, God will have your back, God will guide you, God will fulfill your needs.

This sounds like a deal God is making with Israel. If you want my favor, then do these things. This is conditional. If you go about the old way: such fasting as your do today will not make your voice heard on high. In the heavens, God will not hear you. And if you fast by doing justice, then God will answer.

But these pairs of Ifs and Thens are not so much conditional as consequential. This is the judgment of physics. If you shake the apple from the tree, it will drop. It is inevitable, but not transactional. These paired statements are less If and Then and more When and Then.

When you live out your life according to the justice that God commands, then you will find God guiding you. When you care for the afflictions of other, then you will find your cities will prosper like a watered garden. You will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets to live in. And when we deny justice to the poor, as we seem to be doing, things fall apart and it appears that God is far away.

This is about God’s love, but that love is not at risk. We are at risk, and God’s words in Isaiah are warnings. They are not threats of abandonment or punishment. They are cautions about the consequence of our actions. And they are hopeful prophecies about the way things will be when we do as God teaches us. We will hear God say “here I am.”

Bead Work Blessings

Text: Micah 6:1-8, Matthew 5:1-12

[Often the readings of the lectionary—the list of readings for each Sunday—seem like a bunch of beads in a bag. Maybe related, but mostly not. But today is seems to me that each reading is like a bead on a string, held together loosely, but in order, with a beginning and an end. We start with God’s disappointment in the people of Israel. We end with God’s blessing. We’re going to follow that string like a rosary.]

What have I done, God asks, that you should be weary of me? This is a disappointed and sorrowful God. Israel, God’s people, whom God brought out of Egypt, whom God redeemed from slavery, led across the wilderness, given a safe and sacred home, has abandoned God’s law and betrayed God’s blessings.

Earlier in Micah, the prophet lists Israel’s sins. God speaks through the words of Micah, saying: The powerful covet fields of others, and seize them, and take away their houses [2.2]. They cry “peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who have nothing to put into their mouths [3:5]. The rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets [prophesy] for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.” [3.11]. These sins against the people (unfortunately familiar) make God more sad than angry.

In this passage we just heard, the people in response ask what they might do to repair the breach they have made with God. What acts of piety do they have to perform before God is pleased with them? How about sacrificing a whole calf? How about a thousand sheep (which is more than the richest king would own)? How about ten thousand rivers of olive oil? The proposals are absurd. The prophet is sarcastic. The question is wrong. Pious posturing is not what God desires.

God’s desire is not a secret. To the Israelites or to us. The good is known. God has told us what it is. God has told us what is required. To do justice. To love kindness. To walk humbly with God.

This sweet list is not one of high-minded intentions, but practical acts. Acts of grace. To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.

Justice comes first. The order is not an accident. Justice is the basis for living as God’s people. Nothing comes before it. Justice is harmony, the right relations between one person and another, reconciliation of trespass. The opposite of covetousness, of indifference to the plight of others, of self-glorification, of engineered advantage over those who are weaker. Just actions are ones that repair lopsided economic and political inequity. A just world is the one God intended at creation. Just actions are those that heal this world that has been broken.

Love of mercy comes second. Mercy is sometimes called kindness, or loving kindness, or devotion. It is compassion more than pity. Being merciful is not a request to temper deserving punishment (as in: have mercy on me) so much as treating all people with kindness because they are God’s people just as you are.

Love here means less all weak in the knees and more faithful or loyal or steadfast. The kind of fidelity that is the basis to friendship or marriage or close relationships. We love mercy not because we choose to feel nice about someone but because we are faithful parts of a community of God’s people.

Walking humbly with God comes third. To walk with God is to follow God’s direction. God’s direction is given in the commands of God. The commands of God are gifts to God’s people that guide us, that show us a way to live, that instruct us how to be just and merciful to one another. To walk humbly with God is to accept God’s guidance rather than our own. To accept God’s sovereignty, to trust in God’s word. It defines us as God’s people, as the ones who follow God.

Yet, like the Israelites, we find God’s guidance to be difficult. Today’s psalm lists some requirements of a godly person. One who is blameless, it says, speaks the truth, never dissembles, does no evil, holds no contempt, does no wrong, never reneges, never loans money for interest, and does not take bribes. I think this psalm is a little Biblical joke. There is no such perfect person. No one is blameless. Everyone does some wrong. Everyone is a sinner.

Paul writes to the church in Corinth. There is an issue in the church. Some people there think a lot of themselves. They seem to think they are not sinners, but good and law-abiding folks. Perhaps they think that they embody Psalm 15 and have it posted on their refrigerators.

They think they are different from the riff-raff with whom they share the church. They are standoffish, and eat by themselves, and put on airs. Paul in this letter reminds them that Jesus comes for the weak and the foolish, for the sinners. This is a shock to the powerful and wise, for in Paul’s culture, as in ours, they are usually not only respected sycophantically but admired and catered to.

This makes the list of blessings in Matthew—which we call the beatitudes—seem so strange. It was strange to those who first heard it and strange to us. To be blessed is to be favored, to be fortunate—endorsed by the fates—and empowered. In what universe are the meek, the heartbroken, the hungry, and the discouraged fortunate?

It would be a mistake to sentimentalize the condition of the subjects of this list. It stinks to be poor, to mourn, to starve. This is a not a recipe for spiritual success. Not some key to the happy life. And not a reward for pure living.

The people who are listening to Jesus at the foot of the mountain are a motley bunch. People who are ill and suffering, people on the margin. When Jesus tells these unlikely folks that they are blessed, he is not celebrating their suffering. But he is celebrating them. The beatitudes in Matthew are addressed to the people Jesus came to heal. They are the broken people, and Jesus comes to minister to them and to change the world in which they are allowed to suffer. When Jesus calls them blessed, he is declaring their worth to him. They are his purpose and his people.

In the Gospel of Mark, the first public thing Jesus does is perform an exorcism. In Luke, the first thing he does is to describe his mission. In John, the first thing he does is to perform a miraculous sign of his divinity. But here in Matthew, the first thing Jesus does is to bless the poor and the outcast.

The beatitudes are a preface to the Sermon on the Mount which follows them. (And which we’ll hear more about during the remaining weeks in Epiphany.) In this way, they serve as an introduction to this sermon. They are not themselves an ethical imperative—not a command to moral action—but they put into context a speech that is. The world is unjust. Those who suffer embody that. But the world does not have to be that way.

The sins of the Israelites against the people was made possible by their forgetting (or feeling free to forget) that God exists. Or of acting as if the commands of God were amusing rather than serious. Historical, mythic, and irrelevant to modern conditions. That deciding that whether or not we are obedient to them makes no difference in our lives or the good of the world.

Yet God’s desires are not secret. God has told us what they are. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds—as we often need reminding just as much as the Israelites did—reminds us that we have committed to be God’s people. That we who follow Jesus are commanded to do justice and to love mercy. And Jesus teaches us how to walk humbly with God.

Seeing, Staying

Text: John 1:29-42

John’s is a strong-flavored Gospel.

And it is therefore not always to everyone’s liking. It mixes powerful themes that seem sometimes to oppose one another: theological sugar and salt—light and darkness, life and death, people who are favored and those who are cursed. It is not like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which share with each other a common heritage and though very nourishing are perhaps less savory than John. And for some, easier to swallow.

Some people see the Gospel of John as a kind of religious and missional travelogue. In it, Jesus moves back and forth from place to place, talking with whomever he finds there. He visits exotic locales—like Samaria, not normally popular with the Judeans—and gathers new followers along the way. Some are content to listen to him, learning about a new way to live. And some end up pulling up roots and becoming disciples, living in that new way. We hear the beginning of all that in today’s reading.

In it, Andrew and another nameless follower of John the Baptist are immediately drawn to Jesus, and they abandon John on the spot. (This sort of thing seems to happen quite a lot with Jesus—even in our time). When Jesus notices them walking toward him, he speaks his first words in this Gospel: What are you looking for? What do you seek? The disciples oddly reply: Where are you staying? Come, Jesus says—is this an answer? it is hard to say—Jesus says: Come, you will see. Come and see.

Seeing and staying are two of those strong themes in John. The words for both of them appear more often in John’s writing than in any other book of the Bible. The fact that they are a part of Jesus’ first conversation—almost all of it, really—is not an accident.

The two ideas represent two flavors of discipleship, which in some eras (ours, for example) seem to be in conflict. It is a persistent dichotomy, two different answers to the same question: What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? How does one live a Christian life?

On the one hand (the “seeing” side) is a kind of observational life. Come and see. The word that John uses is sometimes translated as “knowing.” On this side are all the worshipful and prayerful disciplines that Christians rightly cultivate and value. This is a faith of the senses. Looking, watching, enjoying. Finding God in beauty, in relationships. In our own hearts, calm or excited. In listening to music, pondering and savoring poetry. Seeing God in our studies and research.

In this way of living, there is a sense of anticipation and expectation on our part. Waiting for something to happen. By seeing things we make discoveries that change our lives. In our religious life, we hope for such discoveries and changes. It is one of the many reasons we worship and study together, expecting the Spirit to reveal God and God’s will to us, and to guide us. It is an essential part of some religious orders and, in a less intensive way, of spiritual retreats.

On the other hand (the “staying” side) is a kind of participatory life. The word that John uses is also translated as remaining, living, dwelling, abiding. Where are you staying, the disciples ask. Where are you at? How do you stand? What is your position? On this side are all the Christian good works, things we do in the world because they represent obedience to the commands and teachings of Jesus. And conform to his example. Be compassionate first and foremost. Feed the hungry, visit the prisoners. Turn the other cheek. Do not judge others. Love your enemies.

This way of living is not necessarily a religious life as normally conceived. It is religious because it comes out of our promise to follow Jesus. And though we are not looking to find God in these works, we in fact usually do.

People help others directly—social services, as we might say—to relieve suffering. They work politically to change systems of violence and injustice and to prevent suffering. And they work at ordinary jobs always keeping in mind that they are first of all disciples of Jesus.

None are completely obedient to Jesus whom they follow. They try to live—ideally—as if they lived with Jesus. As a roommate, say, or a member of one’s family, or good friend. Could they go home at night and relate their day to Jesus with a good conscience and a straight face? How was your day? Not bad.

What do you seek? There is a longing in everybody, I think, to live a deeply spiritual life. And certainly so for people who gather into churches. We are called here by the same God who turned the disciples toward Jesus. There is something in us that wants, in some way that is hard to talk about, to be very close to God, to be intimately connected to God. And the other thing we really want to do is to change the world for the better.

As the disciples did, we see in Jesus a way to do that. Jesus is revealed to us—that is what Epiphany means. We follow Jesus because we think he is the best guide, and that he is a trustworthy one. And because we suspect through experience that we cannot make it on our own. When Jesus asks the disciples what they seek, that is what they answer. We want to know where you are staying, they say. We want to be there, too. We want to go where you are going and to live in a way that we can best learn by being with you, abiding with you, living in the same place as you.

In the course of their lives together, Jesus teaches them. He instructs them, for example, in the sermon on the mount, which is the focus of the Gospel readings for almost all of the rest of Epiphany and a kind of instruction manual. And he heals people and he feeds them, and he gets into trouble with the authorities, and he does miraculous deeds. He sees the world differently than we usually do.

When the disciples ask to stay with Jesus, he shows them how to see with the eyes of Jesus. Seeing and staying turn out not to be such different things. Jesus knows that he will not always be with his followers on this earth, but they can learn to see as he sees. That is why “Come and see” is a good answer to “Where are you staying?” It is not a tricky answer.

For if we see things as Jesus sees, won’t we find ourselves called to abide with him? And if we stay with Jesus for very long, won't we inevitably see as he sees?

Being in Christ

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

The consensus among scholars is that the letter to the Ephesians was not written by the apostle Paul, even though it claims to be. It was likely written by a disciple of Paul, or some of his entourage, and signed with his name, a common practice of the day. It does adopt the ideas of Paul, and you might think of the letter as something like “A Treasury of Pauline Themes.” Not quite a summary, and not quite Paul’s Greatest Hits, but a way to convey the core and flavor to others of Paul’s preaching.

It opens with an initial greeting followed by the passage we just heard. There is an urgency in this letter to get right to the essence of things. These twelve verses are, in the original greek, one long unbroken sentence. It is as if the writer wants to get all the ideas out in one big rush and is carried away on a wave of their importance.

And they are important, for the question they want to answer is: who is God; and what is Jesus? It seems to have something to do with being “in Christ,” whatever that means.

It is an easy and familiar phrase. “We are all one in Christ Jesus” as we proclaim every Sunday before we share the peace with one another. Being in Christ and Christ being in us is a central mystery of Christianity, especially for that part of Christianity that reached us through Paul. But this long sentence in Ephesians—which is composed of multiple descriptive phrases and conjunctions hanging off the subject, God the Father—this knot of words that floods us with concepts and images of Christ and his nature—seems to be necessary to the writer to get it right and richly so.

If we untangle it just a little, we see three clusters of ideas. In the first cluster, we see that we are blessed. Blessed be God who has blessed us with blessing is how it starts out. Good words—that is what the Greek word here for blessing comes from: good plus word. What God has done through Christ is good for us. It makes brings us favor. It reminds us that God is good. When we think about Jesus, we are grateful to God the Father.

We are grateful not only for this gift—this glorious grace, it says, bestowed on us in [Christ] the beloved. But also that we are enveloped into this little family, adopted as children of God, getting the same benefits (or inheritance) that God’s own are entitled to.

In the second cluster, we see that as a result of this free favor, we are forgiven our sins (trespasses it says in our translation). In spite of our tendency to mess up a lot—by omission or commission—God does not hold it against us. This is the kind of thing you see in your children—usually—or your best friends. You love them because you do, in spite of—and in some cases because of—their weird and difficult habits. They are endearing, you keep them close to you—embrace them—because they exist and because you, like God in this way, are gracious. You do this according, as it says in the letter, according to your good pleasure.

And finally, in the third cluster we discover that our lives have changed. We are somehow in Christ and therefore different. It is a result of being in Christ, it says, that we are redeemed (that is, set free from all the powers that bind us). In Christ we are of God’s family. And in Christ, God reveals God’s intent and plan.

Yet, how does this work? It is safe and revealing to add some modifiers, to probe into this big and sometimes opaque idea.

Perhaps we are in the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ. That being in Christ means that Christ is aware of us, thinks about us, watches over us, wonders about us.

Perhaps we are in the acts of Christ. In the theological sense. That God came here in the person of Jesus and lived, died, and rose again. Those acts accomplished something for us (among other things: set us free from worldly and satanic fears, goods, authorities, and structures). Being in Christ means that we are the beneficiaries of those acts.

Or perhaps we are in obedience to the commands of Christ. Jesus taught us how to live the good life, and commanded us to love one another, to forgive sins against us, to give freely, to consider that compassion trumps authority. Being in Christ means that we organize our lives to respond to Christ’s teachings and work for justice.

Or perhaps we are in the company of Christ. Especially at Christmas, we celebrate that God is with us—Immanuel—in our present anxieties and contentments. We take comfort and strength that we are not alone. Being in Christ means that we are aware—and grateful—that God is always nearby us. In crowds, in relationships, in loneliness.

Or, finally, perhaps we are in the body of Christ. As we share the meal in the Lord’s Supper, we ingest the being of Christ, who becomes part of us. At the same time, we share that being with all who eat this same food, given for us, and thus we become like them. We are joined not only in our longing to know God but in the atoms of our own bodies.

Being in Christ is like being in touch, being in love, being in conversation, even like being in a boat on a stormy sea. And especially like being in community with God and others. It is why this letter is in the plural.

There is no metaphor for our relationship with Christ that is both obvious and clear, and none that is comprehensive. With the saints in Ephesus and the rest of us, spiritual descendants of the first followers of Christ, we gather into churches, hoping to find comfort, identity, and understanding.

There, we are blessed. To ponder, and experience, and share all the ways of our being in Christ. Where we are blessed not only with discovering those things, but joining with others in seeking them.

In Our Place

Text: Hebrews 2:10-18

The Bible puts us humans in our place. But you might ask: which place is that?

In Genesis, the order of creation is from large and vague to small and specific. From light and dark, sky and earth, to plants and seeds, creatures that swim, and creatures that creep along the ground. And it was all good. And finally, on the sixth day, God created humans. Is it last but not least—or least and therefore last—in the scheme of things?

In Psalm 104, a creation story that parallels Genesis, the order is similar, but humans are not even included. In the book of Job, God berates Job, asking him where was he at the creation of the world. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” God asks. And in the praise psalm we sang today, the action moves from heavens, through the cosmos, waters and hills, beasts and creatures, and finally to humans, young and old, young men and maids.

How shall we interpret this? Are humans the culmination of all creation, the end of eons of progress and the point of it all? Or are we instead nearly an afterthought, left to the end, relatively insignificant?

It is not a new question. The author of Hebrews, in the verses just before today’s reading, quotes Psalm 8, which asks: What are humans that God should be mindful of us? Made from dirt, God has made us just a little lower than the angels.

The author of Hebrews is amazed that God is so mindful of humans that God even became one. He interprets the psalm to be less about humankind and more about Jesus, whom, he says, God has made not only a little lower than angels (as the psalm says), but lower than angels for only a little while.

For Hebrews, Jesus is timeless, the creator of all: “the heir of all things,” the book starts out, “through whom also he created the world. He is the ... exact imprint of [God’s] nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Yet even so, in Jesus God was human—for a little while. Hebrews wants to make it clear: Jesus is the creator God. And also, Jesus was a human just like us. In every respect, it says. Jesus crossed some imaginary line in theological space, calibrated by the status of angels. Going from higher than they are—much superior to angels, it says—to lower. To us.

Hebrews is adamant. We are the brothers and sisters of Jesus. We all have the same father. We share flesh and blood—we have bodies, we are creatures made of stuff—and so does Jesus. Even though we are corruptible and weak—morally and physically—Jesus is not ashamed to call us sister and brother.

The season of Christmas is a 12-day celebration of the incarnation. Yet the concept is not easy, the notion of all God and all person all at once. In the first few centuries after Jesus, the heresies were mostly a result of people trying to think this through.

On one hand, it would be easier in some way if we worshipped a powerful and distant God. Someone who set the stars in their courses, perhaps, and then vanished. Or maybe one who capriciously tinkers with events and physics for God’s own amusement. One who does not care about us one way or the other. Divine but inhuman.

On the other hand, it would be easier in some other way if we followed and admired a good man, a wise prophet who inspired and moved us, who preached about a new and spiritual way to live. Who was perhaps guided by God without being God. Or one who was a charismatic political leader who roused the rabble to see justice done. Who was human but not divine.

Or maybe it would be easier if Jesus were a person who was human sometimes—doing corrupt human things—and God other times—doing perfect divine things.

But that is not how it worked out. We claim that Jesus combines God and human simultaneously. That there is nothing that people do that Jesus does not. That there is nothing Jesus does that people cannot. Because if there were even one thing, in that one thing Jesus would be only human or only divine.

Jesus suffers as a person would suffer. This does not mean that suffering is good, just that it is the way of the world. When Hebrews says that suffering perfects Jesus, it does not mean that suffering is necessary to somehow make Jesus whole and complete. It means that people suffer, and that since Jesus is a person, Jesus will suffer. An incarnate God who does not suffer is not human and therefore not incarnated, not of flesh and blood.

It is compassion for his human brothers and sisters that drives God to intervene as a person. He did not come to help angels, Hebrews says. He did not come to make things balance out. He did not come to demonstrate power. He came to help the descendants of Abraham, to help us, to help people. God was tested by suffering, as we all are. In his suffering, it seems, God through Jesus learned what it is to suffer and die. Something creatures know first hand.

We are brothers and sisters of Jesus. We are first of all brothers and sisters of each other. We have the same father, Hebrews says. The logic goes both ways: being connected with Jesus strengthens our connections with each other.

The complicated and intimate relationship between God and humans makes it seem reasonable, and not crazy, to model our relationship with other people on our relationship with God.

The psalm today is a hymn of praise to God who created us and all things in the universe. It recognizes God’s power and God’s love for the world, and it also gives us a chance to rejoice that we are beneficiaries of that. As we praise God together, we are bound together ourselves. Just as we are bound together by being claimed as brother or sister of Jesus.

The Bible puts us in our place. And our place is side by side. With Jesus also. Loving one another as we love ourselves, and also called to praise one another as we praise God.

Uncertain News

Text: Matthew 1:18–25
Other texts: Isaiah 7:10–16

It was an extraordinary event in ordinary but difficult times. Joseph was engaged to Mary, something which then meant nearly-married. Finding her to be pregnant—the details of the discovery remain untold; how did that conversation go?—finding her to be with child was, from Joseph’s point of view, unfortunate but not without precedent.

That was not the extraordinary thing. It would not have been the first time something like this—what would have been seen as adulterous behavior—happened with a young couple. There was even provision for it in tradition and in the statutes. A divorce was in order. Joseph, it says, was a righteous man. Meaning not that he was good—though it turns out that he was—but that he was law-abiding. The whole awkward transaction would be accommodated by the scheme of things.

What was extraordinary was what the scripture oddly treats as simply matter of fact. Sort of mentioned in passing. Not that Mary was with child, but that she was with child from the Holy Spirit. Not an every-day event. To help him deal with the news, Joseph gets heavenly advice, which he heeds.

We typically like things to be ordinary. Ordinary things give us a foundation. There is no way we can from scratch think our way through every little moment of our lives, make considered decisions about the thousands of little choices we have, or plan every action. Most of what we do is ordinary and we like it that way. The ordinary both reflects and shapes the values we already hold.

But the ordinary is not flawless. It is rough and crackle-y. There is always a small (or not so small) gap between what is and what ought to be. Like a bumpy ride, a pixelated image, a song out of tune. Aggravating at best, terrifying at worst. We know how things should be, and this is not it.

That gap is the fuel of prophecy. It is the spark of the prophetic spirit. A prophet, like Isaiah, highlights the discrepancy and instructs us about how we can, or how God will, repair the breech.

The life of a prophet is a frustrating one. You can hear it in the reading from Isaiah, who complains about us weary mortals who rarely do what is right and needed. But at the same time that frustration energizes the prophet, who works hard to make the world be as it should, as God intends it to be.

We ordinary mortals find the daily grind of trying to change things to be tedious. We long for a savior. A king in the line of David for some, or just a charismatic and effective leader, for others. Someone who will draw up the plan and recruit us for its implementation. (Or maybe just do it all for us). You do not have to be religious to want a savior. Our longing for someone to save the world is so strong that we are on the constant lookout for a sign. When is the savior coming? Is this the one? We want a sign.

But then again, we don’t. If the ordinary is our foundation, then signs of a savior and sounds of prophecy threaten it. For a start, prophets tell us what we have up to then ignored (or even fostered) that we know we should not have. But more, they ask us to change our ways, or they predict that ways will be changed around us. Something will be different. A leader will take us into new territory.

For some, this worry is clearly sensible. The status quo benefits those with status. But even for those who suffer, sometimes the oppression of the certain present is easier to take than the anxiety of an uncertain future.

In Isaiah a sign is promised to Judah. Matthew interprets the birth of Jesus as the sign that is the fulfillment of that promise. But on the face of it, the birth of Jesus is not very striking as a sign. The birth of a child is hardly unusual. And there are few decorations that alert the people to the child’s future power. Mary gives birth to a son, and Joseph calls him Jesus. End of birth story. The Magi come later in Matthew and the shepherds are there, but that is in Luke. This was not a theological accident, as we sing praises at Christmas to a God who was born not only as a child but also born humbly.

An infant is an embodiment of uncertainty. All potential in a little package of actual. Parents-to-be fret about the growing child in the womb. Ultrasound does not help much. There is plenty unknown. Joseph is beneficiary of a kind of divine ultrasound; did that comfort him about the baby? The angel’s announcement is maybe not welcome, for it means that things are going to be new and strange.

Unlike Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, who was unable to speak after an angelic visitation regarding his son to be, Joseph could talk. I’ve sometimes wondered about what he and Mary, speaking late at night as expectant parents do, what they said to one another about the coming child, who has already been an occasion for dismay, confusion and cosmic hope.

Parents live equally thrilled and terrified about what might happen to their children. They extrapolate from what they know of the world and the way it works. But in difficult times the past is a poor predictor, and even worse if something extraordinary happens. Even a message from heaven is not helpful. How could Mary and Joseph have known, after hearing the angel say that their son would save the people from their sins, what was really going to happen in the next 30 years, to say nothing of the next 2000?

The birth of God in the person of Jesus seems to tell us that God works in the uncertainty of this world. That the savior does not bring along a set of construction blueprints for the new world, but rather is a problem solver with a big idea and a willingness to work with whomever he can recruit—including us—which is pretty much what happened. Jesus it says, fulfills the promise that God is with us. Immanuel. God as Jesus is with us in this world as it is.

And yet, Jesus is a power for a new world. His birth from Mary and the Spirit is not an assertion about his DNA but about his mission and his method. The Spirit is the person of God that is the bringer of new life. As we say in the creed, the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life.

Matthew tells us that Jesus is born to change the world. He comes enacting and teaching a way of living that is out of the ordinary. He threatens the certainty of things, even the former certain power of death.

We worship a God whose birth portends not eternal sameness but eternal newness.

His coming disrupts the old way of being, not by transferring power to the righteous people, but by offering patient uncertainty that makes possible a new world.

Seed of Change

Text: Matthew 3:10-12
Other texts: Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13

The Bible is our story.

It is the story of the people who wrote it, preserved it, transmitted it from one generation to another. Those people still exist. We are some of them. For that reason, the Bible perseveres. It is a version of history that we cherish.

But there could be, or could have been, other versions of the same events, told by other peoples. Our story is the story of Jesus, whom we follow, declared Messiah, fulfillment of scripture. But imagine a story owned not by the followers of Jesus but the followers of John the Baptist. A story, say, once told among them but since lost.

You can hear in the stories of John and Jesus a rivalry or competition. In our version of the story, John is the precursor to Jesus. An eager pointer to a greater man with a better message. John is a willing voice in the wilderness that prepares the world for a man next to whom John feels unworthy. Yet the message of John fits uneasily with the teachings of Jesus. Maybe in John’s version of the story, Jesus absconds with John’s movement. Jesus’ message is adopted over John’s and John’s followers become Jesus’ followers instead. You wonder whether John was as welcoming to Jesus as Matthew makes out.

John preached repentance. This poor word has by now lost all its vigor, reduced to something about remorseful apologies and half-hearted resolutions to do better. But it means instead a change in life. We might say transformation. A change of heart and mind. A turning things around, or in a different direction.

But not a random or accidental turning; rather one based on consideration of the past and intention for the future. And therefore not easily done. John’s baptizing in the river was not to magically cause repentance, as our translation “baptize … for repentance” implies, but rather “baptize … into repentance.” Baptism marked entry into a new kind of living, a new way of existing.

Lots of people came to hear John. People of the city and all the surrounding country. John’s message of a change in the order of things was welcome because things were so messed up. There was not much that was good for most people in Palestine in those days. People would have been encouraged by what John said, especially the part about the winnowing fork and the burning chaff. A welcome message especially if you think it applies to other people and requires a change in their behavior (or power or status) and not in yours. Repentance is good for the other guy for sure.

The Pharisees and Sadducees show up unexpectedly. It is not clear whether they were in favor of baptism or opposed; Matthew says they were coming to, or onto, baptism, which is pretty neutral. It seems likely that they, being part of the power elite, were not super eager to see things, or themselves, change. A big change of mind and heart would not have suited them.

Change is hard. Hard to accommodate, hard to bring about, hard to have happen in your life. Easier, perhaps, to anticipate. We think, as probably the folks in the crowd did, about good new things ahead.

But change always brings grief. A change in direction means you are leaving something behind. There is a sadness, even when the future looks better. There is some comfort in the familiar, whether pleasant or bitter. Uncertainty is scary. When the disciples are called by Jesus, he asks them to give up their jobs, their families, their traditions, to leave their homes. They go eagerly, but it must have been difficult, even though the call was clear and compelling.

Change requires that we give up control. Systems, relationships, and privileges that sustain and protect us are rightly at risk. We cannot make changes in our lives without making changes in the patterns that we follow. That is, after all, what we are trying to do. That is the point. But those patterns of connections and behaviors—whom we rely on, routines we follow, rules of thumb (or rules of law, even)—are foundations for day to day living. We secretly hope for new direction without disruption.

What will things be like in the new days ahead? We cannot know. Whether we choose to change or change descends upon us, we have to trust God when God says that we will be OK, that God will take care of us. We are not very good at that. Trusting God.

Change emerges from judgment. Being judged and found wanting is the seed of change. If we are satisfied with the way things are—well, then hooray! Let’s keep up the good work. That is why we distrust the commitment of the Pharisees and Sadducees to John to the Baptist. They enjoy too much power and privilege.

Judgment is not a reflection of one’s character. It is an astute and deep observation of the nature of our actions. What are we doing? Whom is it affecting? What harm or good is it accomplishing? Judgment is essential and unavoidable prerequisite to change, for it makes clear the distinctions between the way things are and the way we think they are, and especially between the way things are and the way we want them to be. Judgment is clear seeing.

But judgment without forgiveness is just nastiness. Repentance is a continuation of a path, not a dead end. We are not followers of John the Baptist but of Jesus. Judgment can stop us in our tracks, but the forgiveness that Jesus teaches allows us to go forward even in the face of our own sins and the sins of others. The horrible mistaken, stupid, mindless, or malevolent things people do. Repentance—change in direction—requires both admonition and acceptance. A recognition that we are both responsible and cherished. It is not an accident that we start each Sunday worship with confession and absolution. Judgment of our actions and our negligence followed by reassurance that God is not therefore going to make our lives miserable, in the future or now.

We just heard Kelsi and Brad talk about peace. Paul in his letter to the Romans that Jacob just read prays that we live in harmony with one another. Isaiah describes a world in which natural enemies live cordially together. People have longed for peace forever. Yet we have no peace.

We have to judge that we have no peace because we do not want it. Or rather, that we want some other things more than we want peace. A peaceful world would be a drastic change in the way people are with one another. It would require that we give our trust to God to keep us safe and prosperous. It would require that we give up foundational patterns of discourse, economics, and politics. It would require that we be willing to lose things that are most valuable to us. The path from the way things are to the way things could be and that we pray for them to be is risky and scary. So we don’t take that path. We never have. So far.

We look ahead in Advent, but only after looking backward. Advent is a season, therefore, of judgment. Of seeing where we are and where we might better go. John the Baptist quotes (misquotes, actually) another passage from Isaiah, who said: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.

Advent is not so much waiting for the coming of Jesus, but rather constructing a smooth path in our wilderness on which Jesus can walk here with us. Asking him for clear thinking about what we are doing—righteous judgment as Isaiah says. And courage to follow him in a new direction for us. And forgiveness along the way.