John the Baptist makes Lutherans nervous

Matthew 3:1-17

Whenever John the Baptist and Jesus share the stage in the Gospels it demands our attention because nobody is as brash and straightforward as John, and nobody matters as much as John when it comes to setting the record straight about who Jesus is. But John is also—how shall I put this?—not very nice, and, being the Minnesota-nice people that we are, we aren’t very sure what to do with a person like that.

For one thing, John didn’t understand hospitality. If you’re likely to lash out and call people a “brood of vipers” then perhaps you shouldn’t be a church greeter; instead you might fit in better volunteering at Confirmation. And it’s worth noting that this is what John says to the ones who actually showed up. You can imagine what he thought of those who didn’t even bother. Then he hits the Pharisees and the Sadducees where it really hurts, questioning the importance of their lineage. This is the kind of thing that really doesn’t play well in small towns, which is why I’m not so naïve as to tell you that your history doesn’t give you any special standing; I’m just going to reread verse 9, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham,” and I’m just going to leave that there to do with what you might.

            John also didn’t make many friends with his focus on repentance, which is about as foreign a word for Lutherans as “warmth” or “seasoning.” We don’t do repentance because we tend to believe that nothing we do matters, which is nice when it comes to God saving us but kind of a bore when it comes to, you know, living. So not only do we have a partially-deserved reputation as bland people, we also don’t really care to self-examine and repent for our mistakes because, as we remember from Confirmation, we are justified by grace through faith apart from works of the law.

It’s fine to have this nice-tidy theology—Lord knows I do most of the time—but we should probably also acknowledge that no less than Jesus feels obliged to receive this baptism for the forgiveness of sins (in spite of the fact that he had none)… and maybe if it’s OK for Jesus it’s a good idea for us. Maybe, actually, forgiveness is the very thing that pushes us to show love for friends and neighbors, and maybe we can’t know forgiveness until we know repentance. So, sure, we are saved by grace through faith, but we’re kind of sorry shells of human beings if we don’t actually repent and do something about it.

I have this image in my head of a long line of Lutherans meeting Jesus in the new heaven and the new earth when this world has ended, and when Jesus opens up the book of the works of our lives (as Revelation 20 tells us) all of our pages are going to be blank, and like good little Lutherans we’re going to tell Jesus, “We are saved by grace through faith apart from the works of the law.” Of course, Jesus is going to smile, because that’s what Jesus does when people quote scripture at him, and he’s going to say, “Good, but mmm… this is really embarrassing… the whole point of this life that I gave you was to do something with it!” And I can imagine all the good Lutherans looking at Jesus, confused and saying, “But we thought we didn’t need to do anything!” To which Jesus gives the only appropriate reaction--the good old face-palm--and then he looks back at all the good little Lutherans and says, “Yeah, just like your wife told you that you didn’t need to get her anything for her birthday. How did that work out for you?”

“You don’t do it because you have to—you numbskulls!—you do it because you love her!”

We don’t repent because it flips the salvation switch and suddenly we’re set pointed back in a heavenly direction. We repent because it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s the only thing that people who love God would ever consider. Also, it just happens to be the one thing that will end up making us happy. And, no—good Lutherans—happiness is not a sin!

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So, you all, being part of the agricultural culture that you are, probably understand this business about wheat and chaff; that when Jesus is talking about separating the wheat and the chaff he is not talking about separating good wheat from bad wheat (and, by extension, good people from bad people). Rather, the chaff is the useless by-product of all wheat. So all people have chaff; it’s what we might call sin. And so, what Jesus does is separate us from our sin—not good people from bad people, but the parts of us created good from the parts of us rotted from sin. Repentance, therefore, is not something that changes our nature. God is the one doing the work of breaking us free from our sin, but, since that chaff is being burned away, repentance is how we live a better life in response to that freedom we are given—even though we really don’t deserve it.

John is harshest on the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they’re so darn sure of themselves. They haven’t done a single thing to better the world, and they aren’t coming to John because they feel compelled to repent. They are there because they want to be seen and being baptized by John will look good on their resumes. They are there because it is expected of them and it will serve their standing in society. They are there for reasons that nobody could question, because they are the ones who set the guidelines for what is acceptable. They are politicians of the worst sort. So John does what John does when confronted with plotting politicians. He calls them out for putting their trust in the wrong things—their family lineage, their political standing, and so on. John knows that those powers that the politicians so value are ripped away in baptism, and baptism will only show that power to be the temporary, pathetic thing that it is.

This isn’t the baptism we do with infants today. John’s baptism was before the cross, so it was not the once-and-for-all baptism we do as a sign of God’s claiming. But that doesn’t mean that John’s baptism doesn’t have relevance for us today. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that Jesus’ death means we are not subject to the same recriminations as the Pharisees and Sadducees and that we aren’t in need of the same repentance. Instead, after Jesus, repentance is one of the only surefire ways to call into question the pursuit of power and prestige, to say that we are not defined by the great things we have done but by our humility and our awareness of our imperfections.

God can lift up children of Abraham from stones. You aren’t that special. And repentance will remind you of that sobering fact. It will also redirect you toward a life that will do somebody some good. It’s a messy thing—like John the Baptist. He eats locusts and wild honey. He doesn’t live in the right place, or suck up to the right people. He doesn’t put in his time. He doesn’t have the right family. Yet, he is the one who points to Jesus, who baptizes Jesus.

For all of our “What would Jesus do?” questions, the reality is that we can hardly even begin to know what it is that makes the Son of God tick, but John was human, John was like us. So maybe we should be asking ourselves, “What would John the Baptist do?” That’s a much scarier question, a much more real question, and the kind of thing that could call into question all of our deep-seated motives and bring to light all of our insecurities. It’s the kind of thing, in short, that could revolutionize the church.

Hmm…