Notes: First delivered on March 25, 2006.
6:30-6:35 Meet & Greet
6:35-6:50 Introductions w/ Get to Know You Question:
“If you could have one “do-over” in life, what would it be?”
6:50-6:55 Opening Prayer and Song: Lifesong
6:55-8:00 Discussion: Water & Fire
Introduction
o Working through Luke to discover 1) what is the Kingdom of God like? (i.e. what is God’s dream for the way the world could be?); and 2) what is the Way of Christ? (i.e. what is our place and task within God’s revolutionary dream? How can we help make it a reality?)
o We’re on Luke 3 and we need to back up because to this point we’ve actually been ignoring a major character in the story, John the son of Zechariah, aka John the Baptist.
- Not called “Baptist” because he was the first hellfire and brimstone preacher. Did preach repentance and judgment but didn’t quite look like a typical Baptist. John the Baptizer is a better name.
- Jesus’ cousin, birth also foretold by an angel. Father’s commission on him stated in Luke 1:76-79. Possibly orphaned early on, grew up living in the deserts of Judea (cf. Luke 1:80), probably with the Essenes – a radical religious separatist group (Jewish version of separatist fundamentalists – e.g. your socially awkward cousins who live out in the country and homeschool their kids to protect them from “the world”). Would have grown up with a sense of calling and expectation of the coming Messiah (liberator King) and a focus on Israel’s current sinfulness.
Read Luke 3:1-22
v. 1-2 – Political Context of John’s Message
o Once again (as in 2:1) Luke mentions the political situation. This is more than just trivia. He is deliberately reminding us that Luke is speaking to a people who are oppressed by the Romans and ruled by corrupt leaders. They are longing for a Messiah to bring liberation and reestablish the kingdom. So when they hear about this wild guy preaching in the desert they think “Maybe he’s the one. Let’s go find out.”
o The reference to the “wilderness” would put Jewish hearers in mind of two things: 1) prophets call from the wilderness, therefore John is a revival of the prophetic tradition – God is speaking once more! And 2) they would have thought of the wilderness experience of Exodus, when God led his people to liberation from slavery. Thus John’s story is also about this bigger story.
v. 3 – Baptism of Repentance for the Forgiveness of Sins
- Discussion Question: If someone were to preach to you today “repent and be baptized”, what would you think they were telling you to do?
o Repentance literally means to “turn around” or “return”, as when the OT prophets called the people to “return to the Lord” as an unfaithful wife would return to her husband. It means that your life has gotten off track and needed to start heading in a totally new direction. (Bumper sticker: “Remember who you wanted to be”)
- Doesn’t necessarily mean “give up your sins and have a religious conversion experience”. (Tell Josephus’ story of going to the revolutionary leader and demanding that he give up his rebellion by inviting him to “repent and believe in me”.) It means give up your agenda (for your life, your kingdom) and trust in the Lord’s agenda. In other words, start living differently.
- Repentance might start with guilt and confession, but that’s not really the point. Focusing on the guilt either 1) paralyzes us with self-hatred, or else 2) causes us to think that the only point is getting forgiveness… and then stopping there. The point is to turn around and start living a new way of life.
- Repentance is way bigger than cutting out a few sinful behaviors. It means radically altering the rhythm of your life – your habits and disciplines, your thoughts and desires, your interactions with others, your plans for the future. Everything changes.
- Repentance is both individual and communal, because we’re all connected. We can’t just say “It’s my problem. I’m not hurting anyone else.” because anything that keeps you from being fully who God created you to be, diminishes all of us. It keeps you from being able to fully give and share yourself with others. We need you to be fully you, or else we can’t fully be “we”. We’re all connected. So repentance is something that we do both to get our own lives back on track, and so we can give ourselves more wholly to other people.
- Personal Reflection & Group Sharing: Try to remember a time when you realized your life was headed in the wrong direction, that you weren’t who you wanted to be. What did it take to make you realize that and what did you have to do to turn around and start living differently?
o Forgiveness is the starting point of repentance. Repentance doesn’t earn our forgiveness; it’s freely given. We are forgiven, therefore we can live differently (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10). We are offered the chance to come clean, to start over fresh.
- Baptism is a symbol of this cleansing. The physical act doesn’t cause our forgiveness. It is a symbol, a sacramental act that expresses what is happening inside us. It’s performance art. We need symbols and rituals to express deeper realities because we are physical and spiritual beings. We express the spiritual through the physical.
- Object Lesson: Take a wash cloth and dip it in the water. Wash your hands and your face as a reminder that you have been offered forgiveness and cleansing from all your past mistakes. If you’ve been baptized, use this to relive & remember the significance of your baptism.
5 Minute Break
v. 4-6 – Preparing the Way for the Lord
o John was preparing the hearts of the people for the coming Messiah (King). The symbols of raising and lowering and smoothing/straightening also give a hint that the coming Kingdom will overturn the usual power systems and hierarchies. It won’t be what people are expecting. The powerful and the religious won’t get it, while the “sinners” and outcasts will. It’s an “Up-side Down Kingdom”. A kingdom for the lowly, the weak, the marginalized, the losers.
- Sadly this doesn’t often reflect the present reality of the church. Too often the church seems to be full of the rich, the powerful, the well-connected, the pious. Let’s make sure that our church is a place for “losers”.
v. 7-9 – Words of Judgment
o Matthew’s gospel tells us that John is speaking specifically to the Pharisees (the ultra-pious/religious people) and Sadducees (the well-connected, influential people) when he speaks these harsh words of judgment. He takes them to task for their motivations.
- “You brood of vipers!” – you can tell right away that this is a feel good sermon.
- “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (“coming wrath” = the day of reckoning when they expected that God would overthrow the Romans and any unfaithful Jews) – Why are you really here? Are you just doing it ‘cuz it’s popular? Are you serious or are you just following the crowd? (Ask if anyone has had this experience with religion, just going along because it was the socially expected thing to do.)
- “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” – Are you really “repentant”, i.e. turning around and living differently, or are you just coming to get your “spiritual high”, to get forgiveness but then turning around and doing the exact same things when you get home. (Youth retreats are a perfect example of this.) It’s crazy to think we can just say we’re sorry, have a religious experience and expect our lives to be different after that. Albert Einstein: “Insanity is the belief that one can get different results by doing the same thing.” God doesn’t just want our confession, he wants our lives to be different. (Mom always used to say, “Sorry isn’t really sorry if you don’t stop doing it.”)
- “children of Abraham” – i.e. it’s not about belonging to the right group, being the right religion, having the right heritage or social identity. God’s not looking at your label, he’s looking at your fruit.
- “The axe is at the root of the trees” – frightening words of judgment.
- Discussion Question: Imagine you’re one of the people there hearing these harsh words of judgment for the first time. How do they make you feel? What is your initial, gut-reaction to what John is saying to you?
o These words are as much for the whole people of Israel as they are for individuals. God is warning Israel that they are not living up to his calling to be a light to nations, an example of compassion and love for the poor and oppressed. The chopping and burning shouldn’t be interpreted as God sending people to Hell. John is telling Israel they’re in danger of losing their special status as God’s people of light and blessing for others. They are failing in their calling so God is about to chose someone else to “git-r-done”.
v. 10-14 – What should we do?
o The people want to know, practically, what should we do? What are the fruits of repentance? What is this new way that God wants us to live? And John says “Here’s what it looks like: for those who have more to share what they have with those who have less.” He gives them specific, practical advice. And it’s not to be more religious, to pray more, to go to the Temple more. It’s to share what you have with others. What does God really want? What is this new way of life that He’s calling everyone to? To give to those who are in need. To live generously and with compassion.
- Two specific groups ask John what they should do: tax collectors and soldiers. Both were collaborators, people who worked for the enemy. According to the Pharisees they were problem in the first place. They were the reason the kingdom wasn’t coming. And yet they are the ones most interested in what true repentance looks like. They are the ones who really want to know how to live differently. (the Upside-Down Kingdom!) And John tells them, you don’t have to wait. The kingdom can start now. You don’t have to belong to the right political group, or quit your job b/c the kingdom isn’t about overthrowing the Romans, it’s about a new way of life that is accessible to all people. A way of justice and love and generosity.
- Discussion Question: What would John say to you in your situation/occupation? What would he say to our society as a whole?
v. 15-18 – The Refining Fire
o The people were hoping that John was the Messiah they longed for but John was clear that he was merely preparing the way for Jesus. John realized that he could only call people to an outward change of behavior. Jesus would come with the Fire of the Holy Spirit which would cleanse us from within.
- Wheat and Chaff image: The “wheat” and “chaff” are not “good people” vs. “bad people”. All of us are parts wheat and parts chaff. The Fire is a refining fire, not a destructive fire. Jesus is coming to help us truly repent, to change not just our behaviors but our hearts.
- This is the “good news”. John’s message of repentance and life change is not opposed to the gospel of grace and forgiveness. They go hand in hand. The good news is that Jesus is coming to enable us to live a new and fuller life. A life of generosity, compassion, and love.
v. 19-20 – Challenging the Powers
o John shows the people that the current king of Israel is really a false king because he doesn’t live according to the ways of the kingdom. In what happens to John we see that when you start to live according to a new way of up-side down values you are going to inevitably come into conflict with the powers of our society. If we truly start to share with each other, we’re going to conflict with the powers of consumerism and materialism that rule our society. If we stop trying to exploit others and exploit the system for every dime we can get out of it, we’re going to run up against the forces of cutthroat capitalism and brutal efficiency that govern our economy. If we start to prioritize relationships: friends and family, we’re going to conflict with the forces in our society that tell us we should spend ourselves on career success and wealth and influence. If we start to value and love the outcasts of our society: the welfare moms, the illegal immigrants, the bums on city street corners, the troubled teens – we are going to anger those who don’t think we should waste our time or resources on those kinds of people.
- Discussion: What other ways might living the ways of the kingdom bring us into conflict with the powers of our society?
o Of course, when I say that we will come into conflict with the powers of society, I’m not saying that we should seize power ourselves and try to force others into our way of life. I don’t think the Religious Right’s idea of a Christian theocracy where we legislate our morality on everyone else is at all what John or Jesus had in mind. Their message has social and political implications, but their kingdom was not just another kingdom of violence and power and domination. Rather we demonstrate through our lives a different way to be human – a way of peace, love, compassion, generosity, and justice. We start living as part of this new kingdom, this new society right now, in the midst of the old power structures.
v. 21-22 – Jesus: the Perfect Penitent
o Jesus came to be baptized by John even though he was the one person who didn’t need to repent and didn’t need forgiveness. So why did he do it? Christ was identifying himself with Israel and with us, doing for us what we can’t really do for ourselves.
- We are all in need of repentance. Each of us let our lives get off track from the life of fullness and love that God designed us for. And yet none of us are able to repent perfectly. It’s too hard, too painful; we are too rebellious. As C.S. Lewis said, “Only a good man can truly repent, but only a bad man needs to.” So Jesus comes to do for us, as our representative so to speak, what we are incapable of doing for ourselves, to show us how.
- The encouragement here is that even when we fail to perfectly live this new life of repentance, there is still grace. We are going to fail. We are going to get off track from time to time. The point is not to get it perfect. The point is to realize that there is grace for our mistakes and just keep trying to get back headed in the right direction whenever we realize that we’ve started to get off course. God knew that we wouldn’t be able to repent perfectly, so he came and did it for us.
Close with a prayer of repentance by Malcolm Boyd:
God:
Take Fire and burn our guilt and our lying hypocrisies
Take Water and wash away our brothers’ blood which we have caused to be shed.
Take hot sunlight and dry the tears of those we have hurt, and heal the wounded souls, minds and bodies.
Take love and root it in our hearts, so that brotherhood may grow,transforming the dry desert of our prejudices and hatreds.
Take our imperfect prayers and purify them, so that we mean what we pray and are prepared to give ourselves to you along with our words, through Jesus Christ, who did not disdain to take our humaness upon himself and live among us, sharing our life, our joys, and our pains.
Amen
8:00-8:25 Worship
- Labyrinth Experience – each person is given a sheet of paper with a Chartres labyrinth on it. They are invited to trace this with a pencil, inward and then back out. On the inward journey they reflect on their sins and need for repentance and forgiveness. On the outward journey they reflect on how they can begin to live in a new way.
- Eucharist
- Lord’s Prayer
8:25-8:30 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement
Benediction
