“The Kingdom … come near!”

A sermon based upon Matthew 3: 1-12

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

First Sunday after the Epiphany, (Cycle A), January 12th, 2020

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

(Matt. 3:1-2 NIV)

“In those days” people were called to ‘repent, for the kingdom had come near…’, but this is a very different day, right?  The call to repent can sound like that bad joke about a Scottish painter called Jack.  Jack was very interested in making money whenever he could.  However, he didn’t always make it honestly.  He would thin down his paint to make it go, as the Scotts say, “a wee bit further”.  He got away with this for quite some time.

When the large Presbyterian church in town decided to do a big restoration job, Jack put in a painting bid.  Because his price was so competitive, he got the job.  And so he set to it, setting up his scaffolding, sanding, scraping, and preparing all the surfaces, buying the paint, and...yes also, whenever he could get by with it, he thinned the paint down with turpentine.

With the job nearly done, Jack was up on the scaffolding finishing his work, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder. The sky opened and the rain poured down, causing streaks in the thinned paint all over the church.  The force of it all knocked Jack off the lower level of the scaffold to land on the lawn.  Now, Jack was no fool. He knew this was judgement from the Almighty, so he fell on his knees and cried out, 'Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?' And from the thunder, a mighty Voice spoke, 'Repaint you thinner, Go and thin no more!'  

If repentance points to something ‘flawed’ in us is there any wonder we might avoid such a practice today?  Back in 1987, I invited a retiring Missionary to speak our church.  He had been away from the United States for over 40 years, so I had to ask: “What’s the biggest difference you see in American churches since you’ve returned”?  Without having to think, he answered: “Repentance isn’t being preached or practiced as it once was.”  He was right because during the 1950’s and 1960’s, while he was away, churches found it much more inviting, winsome, and optimistic to emphasize ‘the power of positive thinking’ rather than the touchy talk of repentance.  And there may have been some wisdom in this too, as it’s said, ‘You can attract more flies with honey, than vinegar.’ 

Even Jesus noted the negative aspects of ‘burdensome’ religion and offered ‘rest’ for the ‘weary’ (Matt. 11: 28-30).  This is what Jesus means when he invites us to ’come to him’ to find ‘rest for our souls’ (Mat. 11:30).  By offering himself as a ‘once and for all sacrifice for sins’ (Heb. 10: 11-12), now, when we confess our sins in repentance, we can know that God is faithful… to forgive our sins’ (1 Jn. 1:9), rather than condemning of us (Rom. 8:1ff).  In Jesus Christ, God made the first move toward us, humiliating himself by death on a cross (Phil.  2:6ff), so that when we draw near to God with sincere, repentant hearts, we have the assurance (Heb 10:22) that God has already ‘come near’ to us.  But even this ’new and living way’ (Heb. 10:20) of ‘grace through faith’ (Eph. 2.8) accomplished in Jesus Christ, does not remove our need to confess and repent of our sins.  Jesus came preaching repentance just like John did.  Later on, as Paul preached to the Greek scholars in Athens, ‘in the past God overlooked such ignorance, but  now, God ‘commands people everywhere to repent’  (Acts 17:30).  

REPENT…PREPARE THE WAY

Interestingly, when John came preaching repentance, prophets had been silent for nearly 400 years.  During that time there was no word from the Lord.  People were left to do their own thing and find their own way. Then, suddenly, looking a lot like the prophet Elijah, John appeared in the wilderness by the Jordan River baptizing those who accepted His message saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."  

Since God’s coming rule is a new and different way of life being offered to those who follow Jesus as King and Messiah, repentance is necessary.   To repent basically meant to ‘turn’ from sin, but in John’s preaching, and then in Jesus’ preaching too, the new emphasis is to ‘turn toward’ God’s Messiah and to participate in his saving life (death and resurrection).  A ‘would-be’ follower of God’s Messiah, Jesus, could not continue to live ‘their own way’ or ‘do their own thing’. Following Jesus required a complete reorientation of one’s mind, heart and soul.  Let me explain.

Recently, a test pilot was practicing high-speed maneuvers in a jet fighter.  She turned the controls for what she thought was a steep ascent, up into the air---but suddenly she flew into the ground.  She was traveling so fast that she became disoriented and was completely unaware she was flying upside down (Told by Dallas Willard, Divine Conspiracy, p. 1).

Today, we are all moving through life at such high speeds, people are losing awareness of what it means to ‘live’ upright. Is there any wonder we constantly hear that someone, somehow, and somewhere has ‘crashed?  Are we surprised?

In an untethered society, traveling so fast, changing so quickly, so that laws, values and ethics can’t keep up, is it any wonder that we find harder to figure out which direction is right, which direction is wrong, which way takes us forward, and which way takes us backward? What’s the chance that we too have become so morally and spiritually disoriented that we can be ‘flying upside down’ without realizing it?  If we don’t get our bearings, and soon, we too could be headed for a ‘crash.’

Way back in 1987, then Harvard University President, Derek Bok, told the University that ‘religious institutions no longer seem to be able to impart basic values to the young.’  He also reported that ‘today’s study of ethics in colleges do not convey a set of moral truths’ or ‘right answers’.  He then concluded, that ‘despite the importance of moral development to the individual and society, one cannot say that higher education has demonstrated a deep concern for the problem….’   His point was that there is now ‘no recognized moral knowledge’ upon which Higher Education agrees.  If student writes on a test that 7 times 5 equals 32, or that Columbus discovered America in 1520, we could mark it ‘wrong’, but we have no longer any standard to for addressing moral questions or demanding ‘right’ moral answers.  While we do have laws, which can be changed, we have no longer any agreed upon set of absolute moral truths, by which to judge whether we are a society flying right side up, or flying upside down.

Another interesting example, straight from Harvard, which applies almost everywhere else, is when a Catholic Scholar Robert Coles, who was once a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard, told of how a young ‘midwestern’, working-class woman, who with little money, got into Harvard based on her grades, reported to him over and over how she had been mistreated on campus by other students.  She was not from an elite background, but had to work extra, menial jobs to pay her way.  Knowing this about her, other students not only looked down upon her for her lower economic status, they not only did not treat her with simple curtesy or respect, but they were often rude and crude to her.  Besides that, she was repeatedly propositioned for sex by one Harvard Student.  He had been in two “Moral Reasoning” ethics classes with her and had received the highest grades. 

The pattern of mistreatment she experienced led her to quit her job and to leave the school.  In an exit interview with Coles, after going over the long list of people who had committed all these ‘atrocities’ against her, she concluded saying, “I’ve been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what’s true, what’s important, what’s good.  Well, how do you teach people to be good?  What’s the point of knowing good, if you don’t try to become a good person?  There are just no ‘tests’ nor ‘curriculum’ the American education system where people are taught and graded based on the kind of ‘character’ it takes to be good. 

There is so much more than could be said about the moral and spiritual situation in our current culture, not just American, but all over the western nations---that once agreed, even if they didn’t practice faith, that Christianity is right.  But that is no more.  Now, most of modern life has no absolute value, except that ‘life is an accident’ that happened when ‘particles’ came together accidently, and now there is only a dream that how can an individual or a society make ‘progress’ as an ‘accidently united little lump of something we call life’.  A PBS special recently called this ‘accident’ ‘A Glorious Accident’, but that’s all that can be said, because there is no great ‘good’ we came from and there is no great ‘good’ we are headed toward.  We are all, nothing more than just, Glorious Accidents.  When this is ‘all’ an educated person can say, is there anyone wonder we don’t know which end is up?

This kind of ‘lack of (moral, spiritual, ethical) knowledge’ (Hos. 4:6) is exactly the kind of ‘upside down flying’ that brought about the ‘crash’ God’s people suffered not long after Jesus was crucified.  When Jewish leaders refused the reorienting direction given by both John and Jesus, it was only a few short years later, that Zealots forced the tiny nation ‘to pull up’ with violence, rather than to follow Jesus’ way of peace, so that they infuriated Romans, who burned Jerusalem down to the ground. 

PRODUCE FRUIT….DON’T SAY…

The poor and sometimes evil human choices humans make, is why the preaching of repentance, as strange as it might sound, is meant to be a positive, saving, and rescuing force in our lives.  This is what John meant, when in verse 8, he called upon Jewish leaders to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’.  Repentance was not meant to be a negative, but it was to be outward ‘fruit’ that we were ready and willing for God to reorient us and to begin his regenerated, redemptive work in our hearts.

A positive example of what ‘fruit in keeping with repentance’ can mean, is given by Kathleen Norris.  Mrs. Norris was once, a guest writer visiting a school, where she was teaching biblical poetry from the Psalms to young children.  She discovered that children are much better at using biblical words to express their own hurt, anger and feelings of revenge, than adults.  She also discovered how especially those children who came from troubled, difficult and dysfunctional homes, having a a lot of penned up anger, can use the Bible’s words to help them vent their anger and avoid expressing the kind of rage that might become self-destructive or hurt others.

She told of one little fellow who used the Bible to write a poem entitled, “The Monster Who Was Sorry”.  He began his poem by admitting he hates it when his father yells at him; his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, the tower k his room, and finally to wreck the whole town. Then he wrote, “I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all this.’” His phrase ‘this messy house says it all,’ Norris says.  His way of honesty was even more than most adults could muster, Norris says. By facing his rage, and by admitting his own ‘mess’ he was on the way to expressing repentance, finding a way out, he was learning he was not such a monster after all (Adapted from Kathleen Norris in Amazing Grace, pp 69-70).

This story reminds us that the repentance ‘the fruit’ of repentance, isn’t just saying I’m sorry, or admitting our own ‘messes’, but it’s to learn to live in a less messy way.  This is why Jesus called his followers disciples, or ‘learners’.  Then, and now, Jesus calls us to ‘learn’ how to bear fruit worthy of repentance, by not just by learning what we’ve done wrong, but by learning what we can do right, as we learn and discover who we can be when we follow the kingdom teachings of Jesus Christ.     

HE WILL BAPTIZE YOU WITH FIRE…

To ‘learn’ how to live differently, and to be able to live ‘upright’ lives in a world that is flying ‘upside’ down world is not something we can do on our own, by our own will or in our own strength.   This is why John’s final word about this ‘baptism of repentance’ concludes with his promise of a ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit and with fire’ (v. 11).   What John’s ‘baptism of repentance’ is about is opening our hearts for the spiritual ‘power’ God gives for us to live against the moral and ethical darkness of this world.

What John is pointing us to, is the ‘gift’ God gives, through Jesus Christ, for us to have the power and strength to live the life we know when should live, when we turn to God, away from the darkness of this world, and begin to ‘walk’ in his wonderful, revealing, warming, and guiding light.   This is what Christian discipleship is about, turning our life toward God’s light, and walking in it, and toward it.  This is what it means not only to live a life in Christ, it’s what it means to live a life that matters, both now and in eternity.  

What kind of ‘life’ does it mean to live a life empowered by the fire of the Holy Spirit?  It can mean many different things, but one great example of the ‘desire’ to live a life that challenges the darkness of this world, was expressed by the Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr., when he was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.  The Baptist preacher said:

“Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my funeral ... I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long ... Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize ... Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards ... I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to say, that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody ... Say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness. And all the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.”

Another pastor, a Roman Catholic was once honored with a place at the head table at a dinner with other clergy, prior to an ecumenical service. He was high in the hierarchy of his church, a colorful television personality, and a witty and insightful writer. He had every reason to have an exalted opinion of himself; but instead, he had the spirit of a servant.  This famous man never finished his meal. Instead, he left the head table to greet the lay people who were present and chat with the waitresses and busboys. And afterward, in church, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen preached powerfully and passionately on the text, "I have been crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:2a).

This is what it means to turn toward God and receive the ‘gift’ of ‘power’ that enables you learn how to live from Jesus Christ.   This is what it means to ‘produce fruit worthy of repentance’.  This is what it means for the ‘kingdom to come near’!  This is also what it means be God’s moral light in an ‘upside down’ world. Amen.