Morning After Preaching, Advent 2C
There are two types of people in this world, so they say: there are dog-lovers and there are cat-lovers. There are two types of people in this world: there are people who like baseball and those who like football. There are those who like dark chocolate and those who like milk chocolate. There are radicals and there are conservatives. Let’s stick with this last one shall we? There are radicals and there are conservatives; and in our two readings today we see both.
In the gospel of Luke we see John the Baptist, a loner; someone who denounces the authorities of this world as radicals denounce the politicians of our own day. He shouts at King Herod for his marriage to his brother’s wife, just as the moral vices of our own politicians are paraded in the media. But unlike the media, for John to confront worldly power means risking death.
In the Letter to the Philippians we see Paul, the founder of church communities across the Roman world; someone who thinks Christians should respect the authority of the Roman Emperor, even though the Emperor was clearly corrupt. Paul believes there are no distinctions of man and woman, Jew and Greek, slave and free in the new Christian community. But although these are the ideals Paul wants Christians, he is enough of a realist to know that the world outside the church will continue to use such distinctions. He is an idealist who has been mugged by reality.
So Paul was a neo-con, if you like, and John was a sort of long-haired hippy. A loner lives on the margins of society and, in John’s case, it was in the desert where all he could eat was locusts and wild honey. I imagine him thinking, “Life in the city brings so many temptations, so many opportunities to be led astray, so much money to distract you from the really important things of life.” He “wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waste” (Mt 3:4). A minimal wardrobe, then, to go with his minimal diet. You don’t get the impression that John cared very much what other people thought of him. And so he speaks his mind telling people they commit too many sins and need to repent.
You don’t get the impression John is very happy with society either. He wants to shake it up and remind people what’s really important in life: not money, not your house, not even your family, but the state of your soul. “Are you doing what God wants you to do?” That is John’s question.
We know John had a small group of followers, but I don’t think he’d miss them much if they weren’t there. In another of the gospels, some followers of John come to him and say “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” But for all John cares, everyone can go to Jesus, for, he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:26, 30).
Paul, on the other hand, is all about building-up society. A lot of people find Paul a tricky customer: he seems uncompromising on how he wants the new churches to live. But in the Letter to the Philippians, we learn that his motive for setting up these churches is love. “For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:8). Paul yearns for his friends in Philippi, he loves them.
Paul certainly loved being with people, which is part of why his time in prison was so difficult. He writes to his Philippian friends, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.” Think of the friends you’ve been parted from, friends from back home or perhaps friends who graduated last year, whom you love but whom you don’t see everyday like you used to, and you get a sense of how much Paul misses the Philippians.
“Thank you for looking out for me.” That is what Paul is saying in his letter. You Philippians sent me food here in prison and for that I thank you. He says, “I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace” (Phil 1:7). Partakers, participants, sharers of God and of one another; sharers of the gifts of God among one other.
Are you a John? A radical. A loner. Perhaps a bit of an introvert, but with big ideas about how the world has to change. Are you a Paul? A conservative. A strengthener of community. An extrovert, but perhaps with a desire for people to conform to your expectations of them. Perhaps you have bits of each of them in you, or perhaps you are neither. What is important in God’s eyes is that whatever your personality type you have a role to play in Christ’s Body.
And this gets us to what Paul and John have in common: both of them want the people baptized. Both of them want people baptized because both of them realise that God wants all types of people to be part of Christ’s Body. Baptism is about turning around the direction of your life – repentance – and about becoming part of the Body of Christ – remembering, or putting the members of Christ back together. Paul and John were both baptizers, because they knew that God yearns for God’s people to live a new life in Christ.
Baptism is about new life, then, but also about membership of the Body of Christ. Membership of a Body in which there are other members to whom we give and from whom we receive. Baptism, then, is about our membership of one another – whether like Paul we love other people, or like John we aren’t so sure about them. Baptism is a decision that we live best when we live as members of a body – the Body of Christ.
Baptism is a strange ritual, all that water and all those promises to renounce Satan. But perhaps even stranger to the outside world is the membership of the Body of Christ that comes with it. To be the member of this Body requires our commitment. It requires our commitment to look out for one another, whether the other members are friendly or cold, introverts or extraverts, conservatives or radicals. It requires us to look out for those in tough times, especially the poor, the sick, the prisoner. To be part of a Body isn’t always easy, because the Body is made up of many members and chances are you won’t get on with all of them… or many of them… or any of them. But to have all sorts of differences within it is the very nature of a body.
So however we divide people up, we need to invite them all into baptism in the Body. For only if the church has different members can we be built, through the Spirit, into a healthy Body. Only then can we literally re-member, put back together, the Body of Christ. Amen.
In the gospel of Luke we see John the Baptist, a loner; someone who denounces the authorities of this world as radicals denounce the politicians of our own day. He shouts at King Herod for his marriage to his brother’s wife, just as the moral vices of our own politicians are paraded in the media. But unlike the media, for John to confront worldly power means risking death.
In the Letter to the Philippians we see Paul, the founder of church communities across the Roman world; someone who thinks Christians should respect the authority of the Roman Emperor, even though the Emperor was clearly corrupt. Paul believes there are no distinctions of man and woman, Jew and Greek, slave and free in the new Christian community. But although these are the ideals Paul wants Christians, he is enough of a realist to know that the world outside the church will continue to use such distinctions. He is an idealist who has been mugged by reality.
So Paul was a neo-con, if you like, and John was a sort of long-haired hippy. A loner lives on the margins of society and, in John’s case, it was in the desert where all he could eat was locusts and wild honey. I imagine him thinking, “Life in the city brings so many temptations, so many opportunities to be led astray, so much money to distract you from the really important things of life.” He “wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt around his waste” (Mt 3:4). A minimal wardrobe, then, to go with his minimal diet. You don’t get the impression that John cared very much what other people thought of him. And so he speaks his mind telling people they commit too many sins and need to repent.
You don’t get the impression John is very happy with society either. He wants to shake it up and remind people what’s really important in life: not money, not your house, not even your family, but the state of your soul. “Are you doing what God wants you to do?” That is John’s question.
We know John had a small group of followers, but I don’t think he’d miss them much if they weren’t there. In another of the gospels, some followers of John come to him and say “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” But for all John cares, everyone can go to Jesus, for, he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:26, 30).
Paul, on the other hand, is all about building-up society. A lot of people find Paul a tricky customer: he seems uncompromising on how he wants the new churches to live. But in the Letter to the Philippians, we learn that his motive for setting up these churches is love. “For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:8). Paul yearns for his friends in Philippi, he loves them.
Paul certainly loved being with people, which is part of why his time in prison was so difficult. He writes to his Philippian friends, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.” Think of the friends you’ve been parted from, friends from back home or perhaps friends who graduated last year, whom you love but whom you don’t see everyday like you used to, and you get a sense of how much Paul misses the Philippians.
“Thank you for looking out for me.” That is what Paul is saying in his letter. You Philippians sent me food here in prison and for that I thank you. He says, “I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace” (Phil 1:7). Partakers, participants, sharers of God and of one another; sharers of the gifts of God among one other.
Are you a John? A radical. A loner. Perhaps a bit of an introvert, but with big ideas about how the world has to change. Are you a Paul? A conservative. A strengthener of community. An extrovert, but perhaps with a desire for people to conform to your expectations of them. Perhaps you have bits of each of them in you, or perhaps you are neither. What is important in God’s eyes is that whatever your personality type you have a role to play in Christ’s Body.
And this gets us to what Paul and John have in common: both of them want the people baptized. Both of them want people baptized because both of them realise that God wants all types of people to be part of Christ’s Body. Baptism is about turning around the direction of your life – repentance – and about becoming part of the Body of Christ – remembering, or putting the members of Christ back together. Paul and John were both baptizers, because they knew that God yearns for God’s people to live a new life in Christ.
Baptism is about new life, then, but also about membership of the Body of Christ. Membership of a Body in which there are other members to whom we give and from whom we receive. Baptism, then, is about our membership of one another – whether like Paul we love other people, or like John we aren’t so sure about them. Baptism is a decision that we live best when we live as members of a body – the Body of Christ.
Baptism is a strange ritual, all that water and all those promises to renounce Satan. But perhaps even stranger to the outside world is the membership of the Body of Christ that comes with it. To be the member of this Body requires our commitment. It requires our commitment to look out for one another, whether the other members are friendly or cold, introverts or extraverts, conservatives or radicals. It requires us to look out for those in tough times, especially the poor, the sick, the prisoner. To be part of a Body isn’t always easy, because the Body is made up of many members and chances are you won’t get on with all of them… or many of them… or any of them. But to have all sorts of differences within it is the very nature of a body.
So however we divide people up, we need to invite them all into baptism in the Body. For only if the church has different members can we be built, through the Spirit, into a healthy Body. Only then can we literally re-member, put back together, the Body of Christ. Amen.
posted by Ben+ at 12:26 PM
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