3 Advent C December 13, 2015
Zeph 3:14-20 Canticle 9
Phil.4:4-9 Luke 3:7-18
John the Baptist and Jesus were Jews. They were teachers who gained followers. They were reformers within Judaism in their own time. When John and Jesus are presented in conversation and dialogue with the Scribes, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians, it is clear that the other Jewish parties regarded them to be significant players as being the heads of rival religious parties within Judaism.
John the Baptist and Jesus were Jews preaching for reform within Judaism. But what happened? After the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, the message of Christ appealed more to Gentile audiences within the cities of the Roman Empire. The message of the Gospel and the method of spiritual practice was able to build communities and to provide homes away from home for those who were are part of the rapid urbanization occurring in the movement of peoples in the Roman Empire.
After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the priests of Judaism lost their place of occupation. The residents of Jerusalem had to flee and the rabbis had to re-gather the Jews in places outside of Jerusalem. They had to maintain Judaism without the Temple. They had to save Jews and Judaism by preserving Jewish identity from all of the Roman and Gentile influences.
So while Paul and Peter and other Jews were fascinated by the appeal of the Gospels among the non-Jewish Roman citizenry, they retained their connection with Judaism while proclaiming that the Risen Christ meant that Gentiles were not obligated to follow strict Jewish religious ritual practice. While Peter and Paul wanted to reform Judaism to accept Jesus as the Messiah, this did not happen for the majority of Jews who belonged to the other significant Jewish parties, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
So once the Christian community had become increasingly a Gentile community, and the Christian communities had separated from the synagogue, how did the Christian Church present John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? How did a church that had become a Gentile church present Jesus and John the Baptist who were very much Jews?
Jesus and John the Baptist were presented as prophets who wanted to reform the practices of Judaism. They were presented as being in open disagreement with all of the religious parties which remained in the synagogues after the post-resurrection appearance of Christ.
John the Baptist was shown to be a Jewish prophet who had an ax to grind with the Jews who were Pharisees and Sadducees. John called them a "brood of vipers." This was like the language which Jesus used. He called his religious opponents "white washed tombs." Brood of vipers is a subtle way of saying that you are offspring of the serpent, that original liar. Jesus was quoted as saying that those who opposed him were children of the devil, the father of lies.
Why do you think that so much of the language of Jesus and John the Baptist is the language of polemics. A polemic is rather harsh and cutting critique of one's opponents. If Jesus said that we were supposed to love our enemies, how was it that he and John the Baptist spoke so harshly against the religious parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees?
To understand the harsh polemic of Jesus and John the Baptist, one has to understand that the Gospel words of Jesus and John the Baptist are interpretations and presentations of them by later Christian churches. The Christian churches had leaders who wrote and preached the Gospel words; they were leaders of communities which were growing in success. They were in communities which had increasingly split from the synagogues. They were in communities which came to consist of more Gentile members than Jewish members.
The Gospel writings are presentations of the Christian communities trying to show the seeds and origins of the separation of Christians from the synagogue.
The Gospel writers were showing that the origins of separation began with John the Baptist. He had a great following, a movement within Judaism. His movement was formed because he had a disagreement with other sects within Judaism. And these disagreements later grew into the disagreements which Jesus also had with the members of the other religious parties within Judaism.
And what was one of the major disagreements between John the Baptist and the other Jewish religious parties. John the Baptist proclaimed that there was "no legacy salvation." All of us know about what is called legacy entrance to Yale or Harvard. It's when you don't have the good grades but because you come from a prominent family, you are given a legacy entrance into Yale or Harvard.
John the Baptist said to the Jews, "You don't have legacy salvation with God just because you are a Jew who is practicing ritual purity. You don't get automatic salvation by the luck of being born into the right family."
And if one does not have legacy salvation by being born into the right family, how does one have religious standing with God? How can one feel like one has good standing with God?
John the Baptist said, "Repentance is the proof of one's salvation." Salvation is proven when we perform acts of salvation, like sharing our excess food and clothing rather than hoarding for ourselves, or being honest in our vocations." Jesus and John the Baptist are presented in the Gospels as those who opposed legacy salvation. They are those who proposed that one could know salvation when one performed the proof of salvation in deeds of faith, charity and merit.
The early Christian churches were communities where Jews and Gentiles were no longer enemies. They practiced the love for one another which had formerly been disapproved by people who were separated by religion and ethnicity.
The Gospel presentation of John the Baptist is a message from the early church about the end of any notion of legacy salvation. If anyone was presenting God as someone who belonged exclusively to their own ethnic community, then this was a false presentation of God.
The Christ-centered Judaism presented by the leaders of the early church was received by the Gentile communities of the Roman Empire and this movement which rejected the notion of legacy salvation eventually took over the entire empire, while at the same time Judaism remained in rather small and isolated synagogue communities. The Gospels are writings about how the early Christian leaders believed their movement to be the end of the notion of legacy salvation.
Yet legacy salvation has happened over and over again. It is the automatic salvation which anyone assumes one has by being a cradle born Episcopalian, or Baptist, or Catholic or Lutheran. Martin Luther essentially challenged the practice of legacy salvation practiced in the Catholic church of his time; he said one had to be saved by faith, or by having an individual faith experience. But even the individual faith experience can turn into legacy salvation as well. Baptists believe in individual experience of faith, but still by the age of six or seven we all seemed to have the automatic experiences of faith that were expected of us by our families.
Should we be cynical about our legacy salvation experience? No, we should be grateful for any circumstance which has taught us to love God and our neighbors, but at the same time we cannot use our group identity to feel smugly better than anyone else. In the end we should be less concern about selfish salvation and more concerned about performing the salvatory acts of love and kindness and justice to others in our world.
People asked John, how can I feel saved? John said, "Perform the acts of salvation because that is when one knows that the power of salvation has actually possessed one's life." And this is good advice for us in our season of Advent. Let us perform the acts of salvation through the love and kindness of our lives. Amen.
John the Baptist and Jesus were Jews preaching for reform within Judaism. But what happened? After the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, the message of Christ appealed more to Gentile audiences within the cities of the Roman Empire. The message of the Gospel and the method of spiritual practice was able to build communities and to provide homes away from home for those who were are part of the rapid urbanization occurring in the movement of peoples in the Roman Empire.
After the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the priests of Judaism lost their place of occupation. The residents of Jerusalem had to flee and the rabbis had to re-gather the Jews in places outside of Jerusalem. They had to maintain Judaism without the Temple. They had to save Jews and Judaism by preserving Jewish identity from all of the Roman and Gentile influences.
So while Paul and Peter and other Jews were fascinated by the appeal of the Gospels among the non-Jewish Roman citizenry, they retained their connection with Judaism while proclaiming that the Risen Christ meant that Gentiles were not obligated to follow strict Jewish religious ritual practice. While Peter and Paul wanted to reform Judaism to accept Jesus as the Messiah, this did not happen for the majority of Jews who belonged to the other significant Jewish parties, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
So once the Christian community had become increasingly a Gentile community, and the Christian communities had separated from the synagogue, how did the Christian Church present John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? How did a church that had become a Gentile church present Jesus and John the Baptist who were very much Jews?
Jesus and John the Baptist were presented as prophets who wanted to reform the practices of Judaism. They were presented as being in open disagreement with all of the religious parties which remained in the synagogues after the post-resurrection appearance of Christ.
John the Baptist was shown to be a Jewish prophet who had an ax to grind with the Jews who were Pharisees and Sadducees. John called them a "brood of vipers." This was like the language which Jesus used. He called his religious opponents "white washed tombs." Brood of vipers is a subtle way of saying that you are offspring of the serpent, that original liar. Jesus was quoted as saying that those who opposed him were children of the devil, the father of lies.
Why do you think that so much of the language of Jesus and John the Baptist is the language of polemics. A polemic is rather harsh and cutting critique of one's opponents. If Jesus said that we were supposed to love our enemies, how was it that he and John the Baptist spoke so harshly against the religious parties of the Pharisees and Sadducees?
To understand the harsh polemic of Jesus and John the Baptist, one has to understand that the Gospel words of Jesus and John the Baptist are interpretations and presentations of them by later Christian churches. The Christian churches had leaders who wrote and preached the Gospel words; they were leaders of communities which were growing in success. They were in communities which had increasingly split from the synagogues. They were in communities which came to consist of more Gentile members than Jewish members.
The Gospel writings are presentations of the Christian communities trying to show the seeds and origins of the separation of Christians from the synagogue.
The Gospel writers were showing that the origins of separation began with John the Baptist. He had a great following, a movement within Judaism. His movement was formed because he had a disagreement with other sects within Judaism. And these disagreements later grew into the disagreements which Jesus also had with the members of the other religious parties within Judaism.
And what was one of the major disagreements between John the Baptist and the other Jewish religious parties. John the Baptist proclaimed that there was "no legacy salvation." All of us know about what is called legacy entrance to Yale or Harvard. It's when you don't have the good grades but because you come from a prominent family, you are given a legacy entrance into Yale or Harvard.
John the Baptist said to the Jews, "You don't have legacy salvation with God just because you are a Jew who is practicing ritual purity. You don't get automatic salvation by the luck of being born into the right family."
And if one does not have legacy salvation by being born into the right family, how does one have religious standing with God? How can one feel like one has good standing with God?
John the Baptist said, "Repentance is the proof of one's salvation." Salvation is proven when we perform acts of salvation, like sharing our excess food and clothing rather than hoarding for ourselves, or being honest in our vocations." Jesus and John the Baptist are presented in the Gospels as those who opposed legacy salvation. They are those who proposed that one could know salvation when one performed the proof of salvation in deeds of faith, charity and merit.
The early Christian churches were communities where Jews and Gentiles were no longer enemies. They practiced the love for one another which had formerly been disapproved by people who were separated by religion and ethnicity.
The Gospel presentation of John the Baptist is a message from the early church about the end of any notion of legacy salvation. If anyone was presenting God as someone who belonged exclusively to their own ethnic community, then this was a false presentation of God.
The Christ-centered Judaism presented by the leaders of the early church was received by the Gentile communities of the Roman Empire and this movement which rejected the notion of legacy salvation eventually took over the entire empire, while at the same time Judaism remained in rather small and isolated synagogue communities. The Gospels are writings about how the early Christian leaders believed their movement to be the end of the notion of legacy salvation.
Yet legacy salvation has happened over and over again. It is the automatic salvation which anyone assumes one has by being a cradle born Episcopalian, or Baptist, or Catholic or Lutheran. Martin Luther essentially challenged the practice of legacy salvation practiced in the Catholic church of his time; he said one had to be saved by faith, or by having an individual faith experience. But even the individual faith experience can turn into legacy salvation as well. Baptists believe in individual experience of faith, but still by the age of six or seven we all seemed to have the automatic experiences of faith that were expected of us by our families.
Should we be cynical about our legacy salvation experience? No, we should be grateful for any circumstance which has taught us to love God and our neighbors, but at the same time we cannot use our group identity to feel smugly better than anyone else. In the end we should be less concern about selfish salvation and more concerned about performing the salvatory acts of love and kindness and justice to others in our world.
People asked John, how can I feel saved? John said, "Perform the acts of salvation because that is when one knows that the power of salvation has actually possessed one's life." And this is good advice for us in our season of Advent. Let us perform the acts of salvation through the love and kindness of our lives. Amen.
