The
scriptures referred to are Luke 1:57-80.
One
of the running gags on the Jim Henson show Dinosaurs was that
the baby consistently called its father “Not-the-Mama,” often
while hitting him with a saucepan or other object. This phrase is the
one thing that stands out in what was, other than the very convincing
full body puppets, a rather standard sitcom. It is is memorable
precisely because it distills the essence of most family sitcoms: the
dad is not as essential to his family as his wife is. Aside from the
old Father Knows Best, most sitcoms could be called Father
Knows the Least. The laughs come from the dad's pitiful attempts
to do what his wife does better. That is the basis of a lot of the
humor in The Incredibles 2. Mr. Incredible may be a powerful
superhero but his parenting skills are subpar.
In
our minds, our life is a movie and we are the hero or heroine of that
movie. That is, by the way, why suffering a trauma or a disaster is
so devastating. Suddenly things are out of our control. But the hero
is always in control; he or she always knows what to do. When James
Bond's family home is destroyed in Skyfall, it is partly due
to enemy action and partly due to the booby traps Bond sets up. You
would not expect to see 007 hunkered down in his bathroom with
bottles of water and canned goods while a hurricane tore his house
apart. I watched the recent documentary on Elizabeth Smart, the 14
year old girl, abducted by a self-proclaimed prophet who held her
captive and repeatedly raped her for 9 months. Occasionally her
captor and his “wife” would leave their hidden campsite and go
into town with Elizabeth in tow and veiled. Smart has had many people
wonder why she didn't try to escape and draw attention to herself.
Even when the police finally caught up with them, Elizabeth was
afraid to admit to the police who she was at first. Why? She was not
a movie hero, calm and clever even under duress. She was a
frightened, mentally and sexually abused 14 year old who truly
believed her captor's threats to kill her family should she disobey
him. After all, he had gotten away with kidnapping Elizabeth right
out of the bed she shared with her sister, hadn't he? She didn't feel
she was in control of her life anymore.
Not
being in control is at the root of all fears. Losing your sense of
agency, that you can make a real impact on your immediate world, is
demoralizing. Yet the opposite, believing you are or can control
everything, is a delusion. The actions of arrogant people to try to
control everything, or at least manipulate the lives of those around
them, causes a lot the pain in this world. Wisdom is realizing that
you probably can affect the world more than you think but less than
you desire. Humility is realizing you are not the center of the
universe.
The
focus of today's lectionary readings is a man who grew up with that
wisdom and that humble realization. John the Baptist was not the
Messiah. He was the herald to the Christ. He knew that from day one.
And yet he didn't let that distract him from his mission.
And
his mission was to be Jesus' advance man. He was called to set the
stage for and to introduce the world to God's Anointed Prophet,
Priest and King. It doesn't have the glamour of being the more
important person. But John was cool with that. He is not an
egotistical person. He accepts his role without qualms.
Part
of that role is spotlighting why people needed a Messiah. As his
father, Zechariah, says, John is “to give knowledge of salvation to
his people by the forgiveness of their sins.” The people of Judah
knew something was wrong. A lot of them blamed external causes, like
the Roman occupation of their country. John was to direct their
attention to the root cause: their disregard for God's law and their
subsequent mistreatment of each other. The primary problem is
internal. It's what the Bible calls sin.
Mental
illness is not sin but the way we look at sin is kinda like the way
we look at mental illness. We think the sickness is the skewed
perception of reality, the abnormal speech and behavior, the
hyperactivity of mania or the emotional numbness of depression. But
those are just the symptoms of a brain illness, the way fever is a
symptom of infection. Of course we want to give the patient relief
from their symptoms but we also need to find and fix what causes the
symptoms. Only now are we really getting close to understanding what causes cognitive and mood disorders, like structural
abnormalities, chemical imbalances, infection, injury or
inflammation. Mental illnesses are physical illnesses of the brain. Just
like we mistake the outward signs for the illness itself, we tend to
look at sinful actions as the difficulty and not the deeper problem
of sin that causes it.
Learning
what's really wrong is vital. I have had patients whose families,
sometime because of their culture, did not want to give them bad
news. They didn't want us nurses to let their aged parent or relative
know that they had cancer or congestive heart failure. But that only
added to the patient's suffering. They knew something was very wrong
and in the absence of receiving the truth, they got more anxious. God
knows what horrible diseases they thought they had. As one man said
about receiving a diagnosis, even though it was bad, “At least now
I know what I am fighting!”
The
people of Judea and Galilee knew something was very wrong. John gave
them the diagnosis they needed. The problem was having a heart of
stone (Ezekiel 36:26) which manifested itself in their lack of love
for God and for those made in his image. They needed to repent, that
is, have a change of heart. They needed to change the way they thought and acted and turn to God for healing and forgiveness.
Of
course, anyone can say they are right with God. John challenged them
to show it. Just as disease, while internal, manifests itself in
external symptoms so good health can be assessed by vital signs and
functional abilities. People can tell if I am having a good day or
not by my gait, my posture, how tired I look. Doctors and therapists
look for qualities that show the patient is getting better. So John
tells the people to share their food and clothing with the poor; he
is looking for generosity. He tells the tax collectors not to take
more money than they are assigned to collect; he is looking for
kindness and self-control. He tells the soldiers not to use violence;
he is looking for gentleness. He tells them not to extort people or
falsely accuse them; he is looking for justice. He tells them to be
content with their pay; he is looking for peace and for faith in God
to provide for one's needs. (Luke 3:7-14) Notice that most of what he is looking
for are what Paul lists as fruit of the Spirit. John calls them the
fruit of repentance.
John
also diagnoses a sickness in the royal house. Herod Antipas and his
sister-in-law, Herodias, fell in love, divorced their spouses and
married each other. Herodias was also her new husband's niece. So
this is both incest and adultery and John calls Herod out. And gets
thrown in prison. But John is not afraid to speak truth to power, as
did the prophets of old.
In
a sense, John the Baptist is the last of the prophets of the Old
Testament, or Old Covenant. Which explains one additional
incident in his life before his death. In Matthew 11:2 we are told, “When
John heard in prison what Christ was doing he sent his disciples to
ask him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone
else?'” Why did John ask that?
John's
message sounds very Old Testament. It was mostly about judgment. And
while Jesus was not afraid to tell people uncomfortable truths, he
was more about love. John spoke about fleeing the wrath to come;
Jesus told a story about a loving father who welcomes back a son who
spent his inheritance on wild living. (Luke 15:11-31) John spoke of
how God could create more children of Abraham from stones; Jesus
spoke of a shepherd who searches everywhere till he finds one lost
sheep. (Luke 15:3-7) John spoke of the ax being at the root of the
tree and of unproductive trees being thrown into unquenchable fire;
Jesus spoke of how showing mercy on the unfortunate is repaid by
divine mercy at the last judgment (Matthew 25: 31-40) John talked
about the consequences of not turning to God; Jesus talked of the
benefits of returning God's love.
And
Jesus shows God's love by healing those who came to him and trusted
him. In terms of specific individuals reported on, Jesus heals more
people than all those healed by the Old Testament prophets combined.
And then there are blanket statements of the crowds of people that
Jesus healed of various diseases. That is ample evidence that
God is at work in Jesus and his ministry. So Jesus says to John's
disciples, “Go back and tell John what you hear and see: the blind
receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and good news is preached to the
poor. Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of me.”
(Matthew 11:4-6) In other words, “I got this. Don't worry.”
John
continued to preach to the powerful, even in prison. Mark tells us
that Herod liked to listen to John, though he didn't always
understand him. He feared John and protected him, we are told. And so
Herodias had to use her daughter to trick a besotted Antipas into
beheading John. His mission was over.
John
is a good example for us today. He not only fearlessly diagnosed what
was wrong with society, he prescribed treatments in the form of
things people could do to show that they had put his message to use,
turned from their sins to God and were being kind, peaceful, and
faithful and treating other people justly, gently, generously.
But
chiefly John knew that he was not the focus of the message. It was
not about him. It was about Jesus. There are a lot of ministries out
there that are named after the televangelist who started them: Oral
Roberts, John Hagee, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen. They
are like brand names. There are megachurches that are built not so
much on Jesus as on a charismatic preacher. And what happens when he
or she retires, or dies, or gets caught in a scandal? Remember Jimmy
Swaggart? And Jim Bakker? I think they forgot who they were and whom
they were supposed to be serving. Maybe they needed a baby on their
shoulders, hitting them with a saucepan and saying, “Not-the-Messiah!
Not-the-Messiah!”
At
Wheaton College I once heard Corrie Ten Boom, author of the The
Hiding Place, speak. This old Dutch lady told us in heavily
accented English how she, her sister and father hid Jews from the
Nazis during World War 2. When they were found out, the family got thrown
into a concentration camp and only Corrie survived. (The Jews they were hiding too.) The Ten Booms did it
because that is what they felt Jesus would want them to do. At the
end of her talk, she sat down and the whole student body erupted into
applause. Corrie shot up, rushed to the microphone and said, “No!
Not Corrie! Only Jesus! Only Jesus!” And there was a chastened
silence.
It's
not all about us. And thank God for that! We needn't try to shoulder
the weight of the world. Jesus has done that for us. And we don't
need bigger heads. Arrogance is the chief of the 7 deadly sins,
precisely because you don't think you need anyone else...not other
people and certainly not God. An arrogant Christian is a
contradiction in terms. He is either a hypocrite or he worships a god
made in his own image, who always agrees with and approves of him. If
God doesn't push you outside of your comfort zone on certain issues,
you are probably worshiping an idol. You are worshiping you.
The
point of Christianity, however, is to become Christlike. To do that
you need to keep your eyes on him and follow him. You need to make
him your top priority and put him in the center of your life. And
oddly enough, when you do that, you will become truly yourself.
Because we were created in God's image. You can't see it very well
because that divine image has been marred and distorted by our sin.
But Jesus came to restore that image in us. But we can see that image
of our loving God quite clearly in Jesus. And
if we let him into our life, and let him change us, we will become
day by day more like him.
In
1 John we are told, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and
what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he
appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1
John 3:2) You are not Jesus. But Jesus is in you. And if you let him,
he will be there more and more until one day you and he will be one
in Spirit. And you will see this world as he does and you will see
all people as he does and you will even see yourself as Jesus sees
you. With love.