“Voices in the Wilderness”

January 15, 2023 - MLK Weekend

Matthew 3:1-17

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

This week as I was listening to my favorite Bible podcast (yes, preachers have those) my heart was warmed by a story that Dr. Amy Robertson shared about a recent experience she had. Dr. Robertson is a Jewish biblical scholar and the director of lifelong learning at Congregation Or Hadash in Georgia. Amy shared that the rabbi at their synagogue is preparing to give birth any day now and she wanted to help provide some closure for the kids in their congregation since the rabbi will be on parental leave. She didn’t want any of the younger ones, especially, to feel confused or abandoned when their rabbi disappeared for a time.

So she decided they could provide a blessing for their rabbi. She thought it would be sweet and get the job done. She led the kids as they gathered around their rabbi, extended hands in blessing, and prayed for her upcoming birth. Amy found herself surprised that this experience, which she initially thought would just be cute and fun, turned into a powerful and deeply moving experience. Watching these young kids bless their adult religious leader was a reminder for her in all the ways religious power and authority defies the norms of our world. It doesn’t just flow one way or from top to bottom, as we often think of power. Instead Robertson says religious power and authority is much more circular and surprising. Watching the kids that morning reminded her of this reality in a visceral way. [1] 

Jesus’s baptism by his cousin John is a lot like those young kids blessing their rabbi as she prepares to give birth, isn’t it? For centuries people have wondered what to do with the fact that 1) he asked his cousin John to provide the blessing and 2) Jesus was baptized for the remission of sins.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

You may remember John from the season of Advent. We met him when he was still Elizabeth’s womb. She and Mary shared a special bond, pregnant at the same time. Elizabeth was the first person Mary told about the angel’s strange annunciation. The baby in her womb, John, leapt for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and immediately recognized Mary as the mother-to-be of Jesus. She pondered how it could be possible that “the mother of my Lord” would come to her asking for a blessing. There’s that power flowing in circular spirals again. 

Filled with the Holy Spirit, John’s mother, Elizabeth, bore witness to Mary’s powerful song of a topsy-turvey upside down world, the Magnificat: 

“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior….

You have shown strength with your arm;

you have scattered the proud in their conceit; 

you have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. 

You have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty.” [2] 

The not-yet-born John may have jumped at the sound of Mary’s voice, but he clearly wasn’t able to understand her words yet because when Jesus comes to him asking to be baptized, John is shocked - just as his mother was shocked that Mary came seeking her blessing. When Jesus asks for John’s blessing he says, “I need to be baptized by YOU and you come to ME?”

Jesus says, “Yes, YOU need to baptize ME. This is the way we live how God wants us to live.”

That call to the way of righteousness has echoes of the very beginning of today’s story when John is crying out in the wilderness, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

That “repent” word can give some of us the squirmies. If you grew up in a religious tradition where you were regularly told to repent or risk the fires of hell, it’s probably not your favorite word. If you grew up with an understanding of sin as “failures that separate us from God’s love,” you’ve probably got some baggage here. And if you grew up with what I like to call “gumball machine theology” - you say some magic words of repentance like, “Jesus, I accept you as my Lord and Savior” and then everything is perfect - the idea of repentance might be a little confusing. 

In case repent gives you the squirmies, let me suggest another word instead. A couple, actually. Replace it with metanoeo (the Greek) or shuv (the Hebrew). They both mean “turn around.” Make an intentional decision to go in a different direction. They carry with them the sense that there’s a pathway we should be on and if we discover we’re off it, we simply adjust our course and get back on the right path. 

Dr. Amy Robertson, the Jewish scholar who helped the kids in her congregation bless their rabbi, says that it’s important to remember that the Hebrew word shuv, which means turn around, doesn’t carry with it a lot of the baggage we Christians have heaped on over the centuries. Turning around doesn’t mean we’ve fallen off the wagon in any kind of shameful way. It’s not “wandering astray” with connotations of moral failing. Turning around like this is just a recalibration that needs to happen from time to time. On a long journey - like, you know, LIFE - it’s only natural to sometimes discover we need to course correct. The important thing is noticing and then acting.

When we think of repentance this way, it starts to seem less weird that Jesus answers the call. We know that Jewish folks like Jesus and John would have already been familiar with this ritual. It’s not something John invented. There were two primary ways people in Jesus’s time would have already understood baptism: first, as a way of cleansing oneself after some kind of ritual impurity, and second, as a way of marking conversion to the Jewish faith. 

And what is conversion if not changing course, metanoeo-ing, turning, shuv-ing? This physical reminder of changing course doesn’t even have to be converting to a different religion. It might simply signify a decision to dive more deeply into one’s current faith, or a recommitment to a particular way of living. 

It seems to me this is one faithful way of understanding why Jesus answered John’s call to shuv. He was grown. Ready to begin his public ministry. Beginning the next stage of his journey as a beloved child of God. 

John was calling on others to shuv because the “kingdom of heaven” had come near. We typically use the phrases “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God,” interchangeably. I usually like to say “realm of God” as a more gender-expansive option. What all of these phrases have in common is the Greek basileia,, which means empire.. The land Jesus and John lived in with the basileia ton rhōmaios, the empire of Rome. This was a phrase everyone knew. And so to call it the empire of God or empire of heaven instead of the empire of Rome was to make a pointed political statement. 

The empire of heaven was at hand, John said. And Jesus stepped right up and said, “Here I am. I’m ready to recommit myself to living in God’s realm. I want to participate in a ritual act that reminds me and everyone else that this is a hinge moment. I’m making a conscious decision to turn myself relentlessly towards this path of justice. My goal is to bring God’s way of living to earth. To remind people that we live in the empire of God, not the empire of Caesar.” 

No wonder Jesus said to his cousin, “YOU need to baptize ME in order to fulfill all righteousness.” In the basileia of God, power and authority isn’t top-down. Instead, power and authority in God's realm is free flowing, surprising. The kingdom of God looks like a bunch of little kids gathered around their pregnant rabbi offering her a blessing. The kingdom of God looks like a young girl named Mary receiving an invitation from an angel to bear God to the world. The kingdom of God looks like a woman named Elizabeth opening her arms and blessing her cousin when she comes with an impossible story. The kingdom of God looks like a wild-eyed Jewish preacher named John baptizing the Messiah in the wilderness. 

And the kingdom of God looks like Claudette Colvin, age 15; Mary Louise Smith, age 18; Aurelia Browder, age 36; Rosa Parks, age 42; Susie McDonald, in her 70s, and others whose names have been lost - refusing to give up their seats on segregated buses in Montgomery. The kingdom of God looks like professor Jo Ann Robinson, age 43, staying up all night to photocopy 35,000 flyers to initiate the bus boycott. And the kingdom of God looks like a 26-year-old preacher fresh out of grad school and new to town, showing up at a meeting of local Black leaders a few days later. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. was elected president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association around 3:30 on the afternoon of December 5, 1955. A few hours later he was standing in front of a crowd of 5,000 at Holt Street Baptist Church, outlining the key rationale and tactics of what would become a 382-day-long boycott. He proclaimed:

We only assemble here because of our desire to see right exist. My friends, I want it to be known that we’re going to work with grim and bold determination to gain justice on the buses in this city.

And we are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing.If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie. Love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. [3]

And so we give thanks for those who cry out in the wilderness still, making pathways straight for our God. 

For Martin, Jo Ann, Susie, Rosa, Aurelia, Mary Louise and Claudette. Thanks be to God. 

For Jesus and John. Thanks be to God. 

For Mary and Elizabeth. Thanks be to God. 

For Amy and the children of Congregation Or Hadash. Thanks be to God. 

May we always remember that religious power and authority flows freely in surprising ways. 

May we believe that it’s never too late to shuv and adjust course.

May we continue to seek our place in the Realm of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Beloved Community. Now and always. Amen. 

SOURCES:

[1] Bible Worm podcast Episode 422

[2] Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible (p. 2220). Sheed & Ward. Kindle Edition.

[3] https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1955-martin-luther-king-jr-montgomery-bus-boycott/