Matthew 3:1-12
In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one about whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight.’ Now, John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all the people of Judea were going out to him, and all the along the region of the Jordan, to be baptized by John in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when John saw the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath that is to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 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. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
John the Baptist was a strange bird … an oddball … out there in the wilderness, dressing weirdly, eating differently, baptizing some people, barking at and berating others. A lot can be said about his words, his warnings, and what he wore, of course – all of that camel hair and leather. And the reason we get all of those details, I believe, is that they point to how all of it made him stand out as unique… as special… as chosen, perhaps… as someone different and worth listening to… as someone worth heeding, and following, and someone – however surprising – that we should pay attention to.
John the Baptist is one of those people most of us might have looked at sideways – maybe even kept our distance from, in the moment – but who, in hindsight, new what he was talking about.
Because, above all else, John the Baptist – Jesus’ crazy cousin – was a Truth-Teller. And the Truth can be hard to hear sometimes. He was the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, as the prophet Isaiah predicted. He knew a thing or two about the reign of God and his ministry was about preparing for the coming of that kingdom, by way of Jesus. John knew that, in the coming of Jesus, God’s reign of love and justice and mercy and grace was about to break into the world in a way that it never had before. And John was on a mission to preach and teach and warn and welcome whoever he could to what that could mean for them.
John the Baptist is impassioned and he’s frustrated and he’s angry, even, about what he sees in the world around him, and all of that talk about axes and trees, threshing floors, chaff, and unquenchable fire is evidence of that. And it can be scary to some. It doesn’t sound very gracious or forgiving or hopeful on the surface. And maybe that’s not what John was going for.
But, the truth is, each of us has something like the “chaff” of sin in our lives that’s worth repenting, worth changing, worth letting God burn away, if you will, by the refining fires of grace, love, mercy and forgiveness. And I like to think that’s the kind of stuff John – and Jesus, for that matter – wants to be cut down and done away with in our lives.
So, while it may be tempting to write him off as some kind of crazy, carnival barker out there in the wilderness, John the Baptist is a model… a poster child… an example… for anyone with a Truth to tell; for anyone who prepares a path; for anyone who makes a way; for anyone crying out in the wilderness of injustice and sin and ugliness and despair – with better news of love and mercy, grace, forgiveness and hope. And someone, maybe, not everyone wants to hear from.
So I thought about John the Baptist when I read a story by Elizabeth Felicetti, this week, in The Christian Century. It’s a story about a guy named Luke. Luke wants to be a pastor – to be ordained as a priest, actually, in the Episcopal church. And this guy, Luke, and John the Baptist have a lot in common.
Luke doesn’t wear camel hair and leather, but he’s covered in cheap tattoos and he wears the state-issued blue garb of a maximum security prison, somewhere in Virginia. The food in the prison cafeteria might be worse and weirder than locusts and wild honey, so Luke has created a food ministry where inmates can get soup and ramen noodles to fill them up when they can’t enough to eat, otherwise. Luke’s wilderness isn’t the wilds of the Judean countryside. His wilderness is the prison hospital and its mental health units where he spends time caring for other inmates. And his wilderness is the library and the prison chapel, too – wherever he leads Bible studies and worship inside the facility, for and with prisoners like himself.
Now, we don’t know much about John the Baptist’s past, but Luke is locked up – going on 20 years or so, now, with another 8 to go if he keeps up his good behavior. And Luke is in prison, not for setting fire to some metaphorical “chaff,” like John preaches about, but for actually trying to burn his family home down so he could use the insurance money to pay his college tuition. And for killing his brother, Andrew, too, before setting that fire. Luke did all of this when he was just 18 years old.
And Luke is also like John the Baptist, apparently, in that he knows a thing or two about repentance - that is, if you believe his story and see his call to ministry as legitimate and faithful, as many people do, including his parents, whose son he killed and whose home he tried to destroy.
There is some evidence of Luke’s repentance … of his turning … of his changed ways. He has established a food ministry in prison where hungry inmates can get food when they need it. He also organizes large meals for holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. (It might surprise you to know that three square meals a day aren’t guaranteed to every inmate in every corrections facility, just because they should be.)
Luke has helped with a ministry that trains dogs to become therapy dogs, too. And he’s a confidant and a counselor to other inmates – filling in unofficially when the prison chaplain hasn’t been able to be around due to COVID protocols. He listens well, pays attention to what others are going through. He prays for and with them when they need it. And, apparently, Luke gives a good hug, too. Something, I imagine, that’s hard to come by in prison.
His desire to fulfill the role of “priest” as defined by the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer means he longs to “represent Christ and his Church, particularly as pastor to the people; to share with the bishop in the overseeing of the Church; to proclaim the Gospel; to administer the sacraments; and to bless and declare pardon in the name of God.”
It may not surprise you that the Church has declined Luke’s candidacy for ordination. Of course, they did what churches do best - they sent a committee to meet with him before making their decision. Now, I’ve only read one article about all of this so my presumptions may be unfair and unfaithful, but I couldn’t help but think of this “committee” as something like the Pharisees and Sadducees that John railed against down by the river – this “diocesan commission on ministry” – that visited Luke in the wilderness of his prison, only to decide to stop his discernment process, at least until he’s out of prison. Maybe it’s not fair to call them a brood of vipers, like John the Baptist might have. Maybe it is. I don’t know.
But Luke is still willing to jump through all of their hoops, do all of the work, endure all of the rejection, suspicion and skepticism that comes his way, knowing it won’t change his situation in prison one bit, but because, he says, of the Spiritual power and authority God’s call to ordained ministry would afford him in his dealings with others – even, and especially, in the wilderness behind bars where he lives.
Luke even acknowledges that “weighed in the balance,” as he puts it, “the totality of [his] life will always be negative” because of his crimes. He’s not trying to earn God’s favor or forgiveness or work his way out of the moral mess of his life by seeking to serve the Church. He says, he knows, that he only gets into heaven “by God’s grace and the skin of his fingernails” and so he longs to live the best way he can, to give back all that he can, and to follow God in every way that he can. His quest for ordination is about growing into who he thinks he was always created to be when he was marked – in a baptism like John the Baptist’s very own, down by the river – just like most of the rest of us, with the cross of Christ, forever.
Luke says that things like the food ministry he started “grow wonderfully,” even in the wilderness of a prison like his. “They just need a seed to get started.” And that’s his calling as he sees it. “Not to carry the burden for everyone, just to be the seed that evokes our best selves.”
Like the voice of one, crying out in the wilderness, you might say. Preparing a way. Making a straight path. Calling others – in the darkest, most despairing time of their lives – to repentance and forgiveness and peace of mind. I think Luke sounds a lot like John – whether the powers that be are able to see it, or recognize it, or encourage him or not.
And I like to believe that, if someone like Luke can do what someone like John the Baptist can do – repent, receive forgiveness, and make room for others in the wilderness of their lives to experience some measure of grace, mercy, love, and hope – than someone like you and I can do the same, more often, by way of the love made known to us and through us in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen
