Social Justice -- The Fruits Of Repentance?
Sermon
I've had many reports of the Remembrance Sunday service held at Dickleburgh (in Norfolk, England) this year, mostly about the preacher. Since Dickleburgh has a historic connection with the Americans from the time of Second World War, they always invite the American Air Base at Mildenhall in Suffolk to join them for the service, and always invite the current American air force chaplain to preach.
This year for the first time, the American chaplain was female. I'm told she's quite small of stature, but has a very strong voice and held the entire congregation of around 300 people, many of whom were children, riveted throughout her sermon. I think the sermon came like a bolt from the blue for Dickleburgh people, because the chaplain is a Pentecostal minister and has a very different style to the usual quiet and restrained Church of England preaching. So the sermon was exciting and moving and seemed to speak directly to people's hearts.
I imagine John the Baptist spoke something like that. He harangued and exhorted the people and sometimes was extremely rude to them - "You brood of vipers" - and they loved him. They hung on his every word and followed him like lambs. He told them it was no good relying on the fact that they were the Chosen Race descended from Abraham, and also that just saying "I repent" wasn't enough either. They had to prove their repentance by their lifestyle.
That's usually the point where people begin to quietly slip away. People are often comfortable in their chosen lifestyle, and it can be so difficult and so threatening to change, that they decide this new message isn't for them. But John the Baptist, this wild man from the desert, had them eating out of his hand and pressing him to tell them exactly how they should behave. He didn't mince his words even then. "If you've got two coats," he said, "give one of them away. And if you've got more than enough food, give the surplus to some poor soul who has nothing."
Even when it came to money, the people listened. Tax collectors and soldiers, those used to extorting money from anyone and everyone, probably violently, came to be baptised and agreed to never again demand more than their wages. So John had very much a social agenda.
Inevitably the people wondered excitedly whether John was the promised Messiah, come at last. John denied that he was the Messiah, and pointed to one who was coming. But it's interesting that John painted the coming Messiah as someone very much after his own heart.
"I baptize you with water," he said, "but one who is more powerful than I is coming. he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
That's a pretty terrifying view of the Saviour, but it's a view of God which is still very much held today, despite the evidence to the contrary. God is still regarded by many people as a sort of bogey-man who is out to get them. There's often an uneasy feeling that even if they don't get caught out now, the moment of reckoning will come after death when the judge will be standing there with his black book in his hand, ready to zap all those who don't conform to his impossibly high standards.
But the Jesus who actually came wasn't a bit like that. John got it wrong. He expected someone who would rid the world of evil by punishing sinners and so drawing people into his kingdom by a sort of healthy fear. But the Jesus who came loved sinners. He counted them among his best friends, and the only people he went anywhere near punishing were those religious people whom he regarded as hypocrites.
So the reality was a Messiah who turned the conventional, accepted wisdom of the day on its head.
But even after 2,000 years of love for sinners, the old ideas of punishment for sinners are still held very strongly. I recently heard a speaker from the Children's Society. He was telling us about the thousands of children who run away from home every year, and how many of those children end up in real trouble because they have no money and are therefore vulnerable to adults who wish to exploit them.
The attitude of many people is that those youngsters should be sent back home, because they have no right to be on the streets, especially no right to be begging, and tax payers should not be expected to pick up the bill for kids who choose to run away. When those same children get into trouble through theft or prostitution or drugs, society's answer is to lock them up and throw away the key.
That's the gut reaction to the problem of violence and crime on our streets, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Nearly all those youngsters have run away because they have been so consistently abused mentally, physically and sexually, that they cannot stand it any longer. Those children who subsequently offend are often placed in adult prisons on remand, from where they emerge as hardened criminals.
I can't help feeling that Jesus' reaction to such youngsters would be to be out on the streets with them, not condemning them but offering them real, practical love.
In a way, John the Baptist belongs with the Old Testament, because he's pre-Jesus in his thoughts. He has the style of an Old Testament prophet, very concerned with God's wrath, and his value is perhaps not in the words he spoke or in his style of preaching, but that he prepared the way for the very different style of preaching and being, of Jesus.
We are post-Jesus Christians. We have the advantage of knowing a great deal about the life and teaching and preaching of Jesus. Perhaps it's up to us as the body of Christ to speak out against gut reactions in the law and order debates, and to suggest that if there were many more Christ-like people on the streets of our cities and many more good and comfortable and safe shelters provided for our children, in the long run our country would not only save those children but also actually save a great deal of money.
Perhaps that, as John the Baptist suggested, would be to bear fruits worthy of repentance. And perhaps that really would be Good News.
This year for the first time, the American chaplain was female. I'm told she's quite small of stature, but has a very strong voice and held the entire congregation of around 300 people, many of whom were children, riveted throughout her sermon. I think the sermon came like a bolt from the blue for Dickleburgh people, because the chaplain is a Pentecostal minister and has a very different style to the usual quiet and restrained Church of England preaching. So the sermon was exciting and moving and seemed to speak directly to people's hearts.
I imagine John the Baptist spoke something like that. He harangued and exhorted the people and sometimes was extremely rude to them - "You brood of vipers" - and they loved him. They hung on his every word and followed him like lambs. He told them it was no good relying on the fact that they were the Chosen Race descended from Abraham, and also that just saying "I repent" wasn't enough either. They had to prove their repentance by their lifestyle.
That's usually the point where people begin to quietly slip away. People are often comfortable in their chosen lifestyle, and it can be so difficult and so threatening to change, that they decide this new message isn't for them. But John the Baptist, this wild man from the desert, had them eating out of his hand and pressing him to tell them exactly how they should behave. He didn't mince his words even then. "If you've got two coats," he said, "give one of them away. And if you've got more than enough food, give the surplus to some poor soul who has nothing."
Even when it came to money, the people listened. Tax collectors and soldiers, those used to extorting money from anyone and everyone, probably violently, came to be baptised and agreed to never again demand more than their wages. So John had very much a social agenda.
Inevitably the people wondered excitedly whether John was the promised Messiah, come at last. John denied that he was the Messiah, and pointed to one who was coming. But it's interesting that John painted the coming Messiah as someone very much after his own heart.
"I baptize you with water," he said, "but one who is more powerful than I is coming. he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
That's a pretty terrifying view of the Saviour, but it's a view of God which is still very much held today, despite the evidence to the contrary. God is still regarded by many people as a sort of bogey-man who is out to get them. There's often an uneasy feeling that even if they don't get caught out now, the moment of reckoning will come after death when the judge will be standing there with his black book in his hand, ready to zap all those who don't conform to his impossibly high standards.
But the Jesus who actually came wasn't a bit like that. John got it wrong. He expected someone who would rid the world of evil by punishing sinners and so drawing people into his kingdom by a sort of healthy fear. But the Jesus who came loved sinners. He counted them among his best friends, and the only people he went anywhere near punishing were those religious people whom he regarded as hypocrites.
So the reality was a Messiah who turned the conventional, accepted wisdom of the day on its head.
But even after 2,000 years of love for sinners, the old ideas of punishment for sinners are still held very strongly. I recently heard a speaker from the Children's Society. He was telling us about the thousands of children who run away from home every year, and how many of those children end up in real trouble because they have no money and are therefore vulnerable to adults who wish to exploit them.
The attitude of many people is that those youngsters should be sent back home, because they have no right to be on the streets, especially no right to be begging, and tax payers should not be expected to pick up the bill for kids who choose to run away. When those same children get into trouble through theft or prostitution or drugs, society's answer is to lock them up and throw away the key.
That's the gut reaction to the problem of violence and crime on our streets, but it doesn't actually solve anything. Nearly all those youngsters have run away because they have been so consistently abused mentally, physically and sexually, that they cannot stand it any longer. Those children who subsequently offend are often placed in adult prisons on remand, from where they emerge as hardened criminals.
I can't help feeling that Jesus' reaction to such youngsters would be to be out on the streets with them, not condemning them but offering them real, practical love.
In a way, John the Baptist belongs with the Old Testament, because he's pre-Jesus in his thoughts. He has the style of an Old Testament prophet, very concerned with God's wrath, and his value is perhaps not in the words he spoke or in his style of preaching, but that he prepared the way for the very different style of preaching and being, of Jesus.
We are post-Jesus Christians. We have the advantage of knowing a great deal about the life and teaching and preaching of Jesus. Perhaps it's up to us as the body of Christ to speak out against gut reactions in the law and order debates, and to suggest that if there were many more Christ-like people on the streets of our cities and many more good and comfortable and safe shelters provided for our children, in the long run our country would not only save those children but also actually save a great deal of money.
Perhaps that, as John the Baptist suggested, would be to bear fruits worthy of repentance. And perhaps that really would be Good News.
