|
|
 |
Sadly, for John Isner, that was to be the peak of his Wimbledon 2010 performance. Forced to play the next day, exhaustion took its toll. Wimbledon is a stickler for its rules and protocol so there was no chance that the match might have been postponed to give Isner chance for a much needed rest. That is a great pity. Rules sometimes can be bent and broken, but, not, it seems at Wimbledon.
Today's gospel, telling of the birth of St John the Baptist, our patron saint, records a rule being broken. When Elizabeth brings her child to circumcision she refused to name him, as was the custom or rule, after his father Zechariah but, to the astonishment of the bystanders, named him John.
None of your relatives has this
name!
They obviously thought it was merely a mother's
whim and
demanded to know what Zechariah thought. Being struck dumb for
doubting God he had to write his response on a tablet and he confirmed
his wife's choice. That this was God's choice was signified by
Zechariah's speech being restored to him.It was God who was really breaking the rules in the birth of John. In opening a barren womb God did something against all odds and the choice of the name, John, reinforced this. John as a name means God is gracious and beginning with John's ministry as the forerunner to Jesus, God intended to break the old rules and institute a new relationship with humanity. A relationship characterised not only by the rule of law but by grace.
John himself was destined to be a bit of a rule-breaker himself. Prepared by a long spell in the desert, He emerged with his cry of repentance which on the surface appears to be a call to obeying the law which had ruled Israel since Moses.
As is so often the case when moralists speak out against the way society is going, repentance seems to be about turning back to the old ways and rules or else God will bring a terrible judgement. So you might find moralists saying that some illness or other calamity is a judgement from God against what they see as a wrong way of life. It was how AIDS was seen when it first appeared on the scene and even cancer has been used by some to signify God's displeasure at the human race.
It isn't that long since the former Bishop of Carlisle, Graham Dow, insisted that the floods which had devastated his Diocese was a sign of God's judgement on a society which has allowed laxity in its marriage laws, adopted pro-gay legislation and given in to greed. Floods, he concluded, are God's judgement on moral decadence. I'm sure that brought a great deal of comfort to the poor and mostly innocent people of Cockermouth and Carlisle as they tried to mop up the devastation on their homes! A God of vengeance is strangely attractive to some.
John swept onto the scene with his call of Repent for the Kingdom of God has come near and the people flock to him. Very soon the river Jordan is full of people accepting his baptism. Moralists, standing on the river bank must have been highly satisfied, though of course, being self-righteous, they didn't themselves so much as dip a toe in the water.
The ministry of John the Baptist begins, it seems, in the style of the Prophets who did, indeed call people to mend their ways. He is called the last of the Old Testament prophets because of this, but not all prophecy was hell-fire and doom.
Isaiah, in our reading today, speaks some words of gentleness when he says
Comfort, O comfort my people
... speak tenderly to Jerusalem
Yes, there is a note that the people have paid
for their sins, but what follows is a picture of hope and renewed
joy. For God was coming to dwell among his people and he would feed his flock like a shepherd; gather his
lambs in his arms; carry them in his bosom and gently lead them.
This is not a picture of a vengeful God but of a
God who is full of tenderness and love, a mothering God who holds us
close to him and leads us joyfully into His Kingdom.This view of God is also present in John the Baptist's call to be baptised into a new way o living, one in which repentance results in forgiveness. Repentance is about turning our lives back to God, not about grovelling in guilt as if God doesn't exist, and, forgiveness is about God gathering us up again into his loving arms.
Isaiah's prophecy of joy, renewal and assurance of God's care and love for us, is fulfilled in John the Baptist but that is only the beginning of a new way of living. It is the one who John makes way for who will smash apart all the rules and replace them with grace. John is the herald of Jesus who brings a new way of relating to God. No longer a way of punishment and reward but of grace - the lavishly free gift of God's love which, showering down upon us, washes away the sin and draws us into love which is so intense, it burns away all that is not love in our lives.
Of course, we have to respond for that to be effective and just as John's baptism is a tangible sign of acceptance of this new way of living and being, so is Baptism still today. It releases grace into our lives which will, hopefully, blossom into commitment and acceptance of god as central to our lives.
Where John is at his most fierce isn't with the people who flock to him for baptism but with the rule-makers; those who seek to control the lives of others through moral righteousness and strict adherence to man-made rules. In Matthew's Gospel he calls the religious leaders a brood of vipers who shouldn't rely on the rules of their religion for their salvation - warning to us all - but on repentance which is a genuine turning of the heart back to God.
The Gospel writers often use the Pharisees and the Sadducees as a collective for all who use power and prestige as their weapons against others and who, thereby, spiritually place a heavy yoke around the necks of the people. They are more concerned with courting favour with the occupying power, the Romans, than they are with integrity, justice and fairness. They are not among the first, or the last, to let thirst for power override principles!
What John the Baptist is contrasting is the heartfelt desire of people to truly seek God's love with those who use rules and regulations to contain God in manageable boundaries. John is heralding something radically different.
There is one coming after me
who is more powerful
of whom John, with a humility that is truly a
sign of God's grace working within him, says:I am not worthy to stoop down and untie
the thong of his sandals
It is his cousin Jesus who will really break all
the rulesWhat makes John so genuine and so different from the religious authorities of his time is that he has no ambition beyond that of announcing the reign of god in Jesus. he seeks no power for himself; he demands no allegiance; he builds up no following. He is shot through with humility.
When later Jesus begins his ministry John sends his own disciples to follow him. When later still he is told that Jesus is now baptising (John 3:26) John is quick to say that what Jesus is doing comes straight from heaven. He reminded them that he had never claimed to be the Messiah. He is merely the one sent ahead to make it happen, the kingmaker but never the King or as John puts it, he is the friend of the bridegroom.
Hearing of Jesus' ministry he rejoices - my joy has been fulfilled he says in in John 3:29. Then he says something which not only sums up his character but which also shows that he has completed the task God gave him. Referring to Jesus, he says,
He must increase, but I must
decrease
John had broken the mould. The rules had
truly been broken, the new age had dawned. Jesus was about to
smash apart all preconceptions about God and change the rules of
engagement with God forever.So much, then, for our patron saint and his ministry but what lessons can we really learn from him? I offer three things:
The first is obviously humility. We are called to proclaim God. Not the Church, not ourselves, but God and God alone. If, as a Church, or as individual Christians, we are not telling others about God, about his love and salvation and of the way, in Jesus. He frees us from sin and unlove - and if instead we promote the Church and are only concerned about our own well-being and the petty things that seem to preoccupy some Church people, then we are not so humble. If we seek power either for ourselves or for the Church - and that power is about control of others - then we are not humble. Rightly did the poet T S Eliot say in his poem East Coker
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless
Secondly we are to live Repentantly
That is such a huge characteristic of John the Baptist's life - not only in his preaching but in his life which was constantly turned towards God. Accepting Jesus as Lord is at the heart of all repentance. When we do we will find it a great antidote against sin and we will become truly the person God has made us to be. But repentance is something which will prevent something else - that of judging others.
There is a story about Abba Isaac, one of the earliest Desert Fathers. one day he saw a brother committing a sin and he condemned him. When he returned to his cell an angel prevented him from entering. When Isaac asked the reason the angel said:
God has sent me to ask you where you want to throw the guilty brother whom you have condemned.
Immediately Isaac repented because he knew that his own life was far from perfect. The angel told him that God had forgiven him, and then he said words we should all take to heart:
From now on, be careful not to judge someone before God has done so
Finally - and this applies to the Church as much as to individuals - John removed the barriers of religious rules and regulations and opened a vision of the widest boundary possible - which the Gospel in its entirety proclaims - that of the Kingdom. We do not enter that Kingdom by living according to the rules but only by the grace of God. The Church has to be a grace filled community if it is to reflect the Kingdom and that sometimes means that we have to abandon cherished ways of doing things and allowing God to lead us in new ways, along untried paths, and into a gloriously uncertain but grace-filled future. We cannot put boundaries around the Gospel and say that our way of finding God and living with God. It's all too easy to make the Church in our own image but that can only lead to the greatest of all sins - making God in our own image. when we try to do that, we are trying to be God.
The Church is being called to explore new ways of being Church - of being God's holy people. We are called to share each other's insights and experiences of God and to rejoice in the diversity and therefore the catholicity of our faith. God's revelation is not limited to a chosen, select few. It is universal and everyone of us must offer the fruits of the unique relationship we have with God to each other. Only through an open collective exploration of what it means to be Christian will we discover the immensity and splendour of God's relationship with humanity. We have nothing to fear by difference. We have a lot to fear by trying to make Christianity monochrome, and bound by our own rules; our own particular, blinkered view of things.
John the Baptist burst upon the world and broke the rules. Jesus replaced them with the new rule of God's gracious Love. Only by that rule can we, must we, live.