JOHN THE BAPTIST?

A cartoon shows a sceptic shouting up to the heavens, ‘God! If you’re up there, tell us what we should do!’
Back comes a voice: ‘Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice.’
The sceptic looks alarmed. ‘Just testing,’ he says,
‘Me too’ replies the voice.

Throughout Advent we consider our ancestors in the faith, people like Abraham and Sarah, Ruth and Naomi, Isaiah and the other prophets and this morning we consider John the Baptist. I have to confess that I’ve never really got further than the bare facts of his life. Cousin to Jesus of Nazareth, a rough clad, locust and honey eating guy who stood up to King Herod and was executed for his pains.

This morning’s Gospel gives us the chance to consider the message he preached. And to his contemporaries it must have been quite staggering. In the first place he warned them that it simply wasn’t enough to claim descent from Abraham to be in right relationship with God. That’s rather like our Government telling those of us who were born and bred in this country that we’re not really British. That we have to take a citizenship test to prove our nationality. Most of us here would be totally non-plused. There’d be cries of “but I was born here, as were my parents and grand-parents and great-grandparents. We’ve all got British passports. What do you mean that’s not enough?”

But that’s exactly how John the Baptist starts out. He tells Jews who can trace their lineage back to the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel that God can raise up children of Abraham from the stones. He doesn’t need genealogies. What’s more John is preaching baptism which was a rite reserved for those who wished to convert to Judaism. It had never been a requirement for those of Jewish birth. John’s message is stark “You’ve gone wrong, you need to repent and you need to go through a ritual action to prove that you’ve repented and then go on to live a truly good life”.

For all of us who are part of a church community this message is as clear today as it was 2000 years ago. Just because we’ve been baptised and we attend church doesn’t mean that our lives are right with God. Righteousness is much more than simply words, it demonstrates itself by action.

Just before each Sunday Mass you will have noticed the choir and the serving team praying at the High Altar. We conclude with a prayer from the Royal School of Church Music which goes like this:

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,
who minister in Thy temple.
Grant that what we sing with our lips,
we may believe in our hearts,
and what we believe in our hearts,
we may show forth in our lives.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That’s just what John the Baptist was requiring of the people who flocked to him, that the words of faith they spoke would be etched deep in their hearts, and that this heart-felt faith would lead to well lived lives, to lives which bear good fruit. Now this isn’t some sort of return to a belief in “good works” as the only way into God’s Kingdom. Far from it, faith is all important. But the extreme language is a reminder that our lives are a whole, our actions speak of our faith as much as our words do and our actions can speak of a very distorted faith, no matter what our words might say.

Jesus himself repeats the same message in his parable of the sheep and the goats. You’ll recall the somewhat astonished question of the “sheep” ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the King’s reply “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” in contrast he tells the “goats” “just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”. Actions speak of faith.

Now John has some very practical though very challenging and somewhat surprising advice for those who want to live good lives. If you’ve got two coats share them with anyone who has none, if you’ve food to spare share that also. So far, so challenging. But the next bit, in the context of 1st century Palestine is truly astonishing, if you’re a tax-collector then only collect the tax due. Now these days there doesn’t seem anything particularly strange about that. It’s nothing more nor less than we expect of the taxman. However in John the Baptist’s culture tax-collectors were outcasts from respectable society. They collaborated with the hated Roman occupying forces. They could never have been considered righteous by the Jewish religious establishment. We all remember how they vilified Jesus for eating with tax-collectors and sinners. The important point to note here is that John doesn’t tell them to stop being tax-collectors, he tells them to become honest tax collectors. Similarly he doesn’t tell soldiers to stop being soldiers, he tells them to become honest soldiers.

So, there’s a two-fold challenge: share what you have with those who are in need and live your life, in whatever situation you find yourself, honestly. These two things make up living a good life. John’s advice is both radical and moderate. He says share; but he doesn’t say give away everything you have. He says to do your job honestly, even if you’re a tax-collector or a soldier, but he doesn’t say leave your job to do something more fitting to a religious person. Here at St John’s we’ve been talking recently about ecological issues, and one idea has been that of enoughness. John’s message seems to tie in very closely with this. He’s talking about being satisfied with what can be earned honestly and about sharing when we have more than enough. To our consumer driven society this sounds profoundly counter-cultural.

Joan Chittister, an American Benedictine relates the following story, which helps illustrate the point:

“The story tells of an exhausted American businessman who travelled to a faraway island for a vacation. Every day he went to the beach to swim, and every day he found a native there slowly cleaning fish in his boat.

‘Do you catch fish every day?’ the visitor asked. ‘Oh, yes’ the native said. ‘Plenty fish here.’ ‘Well,’ the visitor asked, ‘how often do you fish?’ ‘I fish every morning,’ the native said.

‘But what do you do then?’ the businessman asked. ‘Well,’ the native said, ‘first I clean the fish for supper, then I take a little siesta, then I build a bit of my house, then I eat with my family, and then, for the rest of the night, I play my guitar, visit with my friends, and drink my homemade wine.’

‘But don’t you see?’ the visitor asked. ‘If you fished all day, you could sell your fish, buy a bigger boat, hire helpers, can, pack, and sell your fish all over the world and make a lot of money.’

‘But what would I do with it?’ the native replied.

‘Why, you could buy a house, quit working enjoy your family, take big vacations and party with your friends for the rest of your life!’
‘Mister,’ the native said to the businessman, ‘that’s what I’m doing now and I only have to catch one fish a day to do it.’

With the New Year about to break upon us, now is perhaps the time to take a look at our own lives and see how they measure up to John’s challenge. Do our actions reflect the faith we profess? How far are we willing to share what we have? How honestly do we live our lives? How willing are we to say that we have enough?

There’s another story from Joan Chittister which puts all this in context:

“Once upon a time…a disciple travelled for miles to sit at the feet of an old nun who had acquired an unusual reputation for holiness. People came from far and wide simply to watch her work, listen to her chant, to hear her comment on the scriptures. Here without doubt was a person of substance, an impacting personality an imposing figure.

What the seeker found when he finally reached the site of her hermitage, however, was only a tiny little woman sitting on the floor of a bare room plaiting straw baskets alone.

Shocked, the seeker said, ‘Old woman, where are your books? Where are your chair and your footstool? Where are your bed and mattress?’
And the old woman answered him back, ‘And where are yours?’

‘But I’m only passing through,’ the seeker said.

‘And so am I,’ said the old woman knowingly."

From Joan Chitister “TheTten Commandments” pp127-128
Chittister, Ten Commandments, pp121-2

Penny Sayer
St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea