2022 12 11 Sermon

Producing Fruit Worthy of Repentance
The Message of John the Baptist sermon series, week 3
Based on the book Prepare the Way for the Lord by Adam Hamilton
Advent 3 Luke 3:1-17
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Two friends and I checked in at the ranger’s station to tell him the plans for our 40 mile backpacking trip through the central Pennsylvania mountains. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I think another hiker took that route a couple of weeks ago.” Three days later, deep into the wild, we followed the trail down a steep, rocky mountainside into a flat, wooded valley. It was midday but the trees were so tall and plentiful that the sun did not touch the ground. We kept hiking deeper into the valley when the trail disappeared. No more thin track of dirt winding along the ground. No evidence that another person had ever hiked these woods. If we got lost, no one would hear our voices calling. We stopped to look around and think. We were three days into our trek, would we need to turn back? After a while, though, one of us noticed about 50 feet away a red blaze painted on the side of a tree. We walked ahead to that tree, and looked around some more. 50 feet further ahead—another red blaze! We found the trail again by playing connect the dots from tree to tree. In the wilderness, someone had prepared the way for us!

“Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” John the Baptist embraced this as his mission. Here at House of Prayer, we began our sermon series on “The Message of John the Baptist” two Sundays ago, and we heard about his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth, as well as Mary the mother of Jesus, and the angel Gabriel, and how all of them had a hand in preparing the way for John to be born.

Today we jump ahead about 30 years, to look at John the Baptist as a grown man, and how he went about his mission, which was inspired and foretold by the prophet Isaiah, to be “a voice crying out in the wilderness, to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight…[so that] all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

But first, let’s stop and take a look at some of the other people who prepared the way for John to become the great prophet that he was. If you remember from the past two Sundays, we learned that John’s parents were “getting on in years”. Very likely, this means that they would not live long enough to see their son grow into adulthood. Because of this, what many scholars believe they did—and this is supported not by direct evidence, but by lots of circumstantial evidence—is his parents brought John out into the mountainous desert wilderness east of Jerusalem, to a community known as Qumran, near the area where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea. The Qumran community was kind of like a monastery, where there lived a group of Jewish priests and scribes known as the Essenes. The Essenes often took in orphaned boys and young men, as well as others whose parents had dedicated them to God’s service, and they provided a home to raise these boys in faith and the study of the Bible.

When we compare what scholars know about John the Baptist with what scholars know about the Essenes, we find many similarities. Both practiced a baptism ritual for purification and forgiveness. Both remained unmarried as a form of radical devotion to God, and they (John and the Essenes) believed in sharing personal possessions with the community. Both ate a simple diet, dressed in simple clothing, and lived simple, devout lives. Both were knowledgeable in the holy scriptures, and were particularly influenced by the message of Isaiah and understood themselves to be “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” John received many gifts from his years living with the Qumran community.

After John became a grown man, however, we also learn of some key differences he had with the community who trained him. The Essenes organized themselves as kind of an exclusive community, locating themselves in the desert so they could be separate from what they considered to be sinful people in a sinful world. John, on the other hand, traveled throughout the region around the Jordan River, meeting people, calling them to turn from sin, and receive a baptism of repentance. John taught them new ways of living so that people could be changed in heart and mind.

This may be why John is not identified as an Essene in the gospels. Maybe he had been kicked out of the Qumran community, or maybe he left of his own accord. But one way or another, John had come to some different conclusions about how to apply their core message. As a grown man, John believed that “preparing the way for the Lord” no longer meant limiting his message to an exclusive community with strict rules that took years to join, such as Qumran. Instead, John developed an inclusive movement, reaching out to people who felt alienated from God. John didn’t believe that he should wait for people to come to him and make them prove themselves worthy; he believed in going out among the people, in the world they already lived in, and letting them know that God cares for them, God wants to forgive them and set them on a new path.

John was saying, in effect, that faith, religion, church, is not about setting up an exclusive club for saints, but it is about offering to be a kind of mobile hospital of God’s grace for sinners, where all kinds of people can find hope and new life, living by faith, out in the real world.

John’s message was not a one-way street, either. Even as he spoke some very challenging words, he also listened to the questions and concerns of the people he met. As he gained a following, crowds came from all around, full of people who usually wouldn’t associate with one other, and who certainly would never set foot in the Qumran community. They asked him: “What should we do? We want to repent. What should we do?” John talked about sharing food and clothing with those in need. That’s how you repent. Responding to tax collectors, he taught them not to take financial advantage of people. That’s how you repent. Responding to soldiers, he taught them not to extort money or bully people. That’s how you repent.

John was teaching that repentance—turning towards God—is more than believing something in your mind, or feeling a certain way in your heart. True repentance bears fruit in the way we treat people. The word “repent” comes from a Greek word meaning “to think differently” or “to change your mind”. And with the examples John gave, he was saying that the most effective way to change your mind involves substituting something you used to do that harms others, with doing something different that helps others. That’s how you repent; that’s how you love your neighbor as yourself; that’s how you love God. We can’t truly love God without also loving our neighbors, whoever they may be.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had times in life when we realize that we need to unlearn one way of doing things, and substitute it with a different way. We’ve all had times when we’ve messed up, felt lost, realized we were in deep, or had trouble finding our way—when you need people in your life who can assure you that God cares for you, God wants to forgive you, God can set you on a new path. That’s why, even though John was not the Messiah, his message kind of “connects the dots” that lead us to the Messiah. John prepared the way, and Jesus keeps that way alive for us, promising through his birth in Bethlehem, through his holy cross, through his rising from the tomb, that—in this world, and in the world to come—Jesus has a place for you and for all in the mercy and salvation of God. Amen.