Close to Home: A Home For All
Luke 3:1-18
Zephaniah 3: 14-20
Emmanuel Baptist Church
December 12, 2021
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_OBXepJyMk
Isaiah was describing a highway in the wilderness. He was talking about a literal road on which people would come home from exile. This road was going to require a lot of levelling. Without dynamite, somehow hilltops were going to be flattened and valleys filled in. Without bulldozers, the path was going to be straightened and smoothed. It was all for the cause of giving access to everyone who needed a way to get from there to here.
Building a road today involves different technology, but it is still a huge undertaking. There are planners and surveyors, excavators, pavers, and don’t forget the stripers. Building a road is a multi-layered complicated process. I don’t have to tell you this. You have traveled on highways that have been under construction for what seems like years. You are aware.
John came along some 700 years after Isaiah. When Luke quoted Isaiah the prophet to speak about John, he didn’t have a literal road in mind. John was out in the wilderness, preparing the way for Jesus, but Jesus didn’t need a road made smooth and level. What John did for Jesus was to prepare hearts and minds to receive him. That’s another kind of multi-layered process.
John lived in a time when the religious authorities and the political authorities colluded with each other in their grasping for power, a time when the rich exploited the poor, a time when greed and corruption and violence were accepted as normal and to be expected. As far as I can tell, John lived in a time that was similar to most of the other Biblical prophets, even though he was separated from them by hundreds of years, and he lived in a time like ours. In short, John lived in a sinful time, which is the only kind of time the world has known.
John is trying to make a difference in that world. John is trying to lead a movement, a reformation. He is preaching metanoia, which is usually translated repentance. That translation often brings to mind regret or guilt or shame. But metanoia really is about a significant turn, a change of direction and behavior. Repentance is not about feeling sorry for what went wrong in the past as much as it is making change for a different future.
John is successful in launching this movement. I say that because great crowds of people are leaving their homes and making their way out to the wilderness to hear him. Yale Theologian Willie James Jennings notes that we often tend to think that those with power and wealth need to hear God’s directives most urgently. Surely if God would speak to them, the world might change for the better. But God prefers to speak through prophets, who most often lived among the common people or at the edge of society. [1]
The emperor and other rulers whom Luke names at the beginning of this chapter represent the military, economic, social and religious powers fully intact and functioning. Jennings says “they collectively imagine that they already embody the will of God and that they have the word of God in hand. They need to hear no new word because they conceive that they are enacting such a word.” [2]
And so, John speaks to the ordinary people, to the ones who are keenly aware that things are not right, that change is urgently needed. Large-scale reform is like building a road in the wilderness. It is a multi-step process which can seem overwhelming. John offers concrete and practical steps that these people can take.
The people ask “what should we do?” John says “if you have two tunics, give one to someone who has none. If you have food and someone else is hungry, then share.”
The tax collectors ask “what about us? What should we do?”
John says “Don’t collect more taxes than required. Don’t be greedy. Don’t take advantage.”
Then the soldiers also ask “And us? What should we do?” John tells them “Do your job without extortion or threats of violence. Don’t use fear as a tool.”
John offers specific things that each person can do – sharing resources, enacting fairness, making peace. Each set of actions is a layer in the process of transformation. No one needs to be daunted by the size of the project, because acting within their own daily sphere of influence, everyone can do something.
But even if everyone does their part, it is likely to be bumpy. Luke’s first readers would likely have been offended that tax collectors were being included. They had a reputation for being crooked and deceitful. They were collaborators, working for enemy Rome to exploit their own people.
Luke’s audience would have also been offended by the inclusion of the soldiers. Roman soldiers were the literal enemy and for the first 300 years of its existence, the early church did not allow its members to serve in the military.
Did John really think that people like tax collectors and soldiers should get to participate? Surely they aren’t capable of metanoia, are they?
But building the highway is about providing access for everyone, it is about extending justice and mercy to all.
As Isaiah said, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” All means all. All flesh means regular folks and tax collectors and soldiers, all flesh means the identified bad guys, all flesh means even those the church might have been excluded before, all flesh means even those whom we don’t expect to be capable of change.
This is how John prepares the way for Jesus, by calling for change, in our daily interactions, in our political and economic systems, even our religious rituals. He calls for a focus on what gives life and restores dignity and in the words his father Zechariah said, “guides our feet in the path of peace.” This is hard, often tedious work, like building a highway by hand.
A colleague named Nathan shared the story of a memorable Christmas Eve service. He said that a young woman came to worship that night, someone who had a friend in the congregation. As the service went on, he noticed her and he thought that she was shrinking back from it, almost physically withdrawing into herself to avoid engaging with what was happening.
His first thought was that the style of worship offended her, but when he spoke to her afterwards, she said she thought it was really amazing. But she also said that she had never been in a service before where it felt like the words really mattered and that if you said them you had to be prepared to change your life and live them. And she wasn’t. She wasn’t willing to make those kind of changes, so she had to withdraw, to distance herself from the claim on her life. She got it. Nathan thought that John the Baptizer would have been pleased.[3]
We also heard a reading from Zephaniah today. The book of Zephaniah is only 3 chapters long, but it contains 9 oracles, and 8 of the 9 are oracles of judgment. It ends with our reading, an oracle of salvation and joy. Before we jumped in, the unrelenting word from Zephaniah was about God’s anger. It was about the impending destruction of Judah because of violence and fraud, because of corrupt leadership and idolatry and complacency – he lived in a time like John’s and a time like ours. But suddenly, the word from God which Zephaniah brings is a word of restoration and joy.
This oracle proclaims the end of the shame and ridicule they endured by being the pawns of other world powers. It speaks of gathering in the outcast and the lame, because God will liberate them from oppression, illness and social ostracism.
Those who are vulnerable, those who have been shamed will be gathered back in to the community. And the joy will be enormous.
There is no evidence in the book of Zephaniah that the people changed. The warnings of judgement do not seem to have changed their behavior. The gathering of community and the joy are possible because God forgives.
The people of Zion are encouraged to rejoice and sing, but if they do, they will be joining God who is already belting out the festival songs. The Hebrew words used here are found elsewhere in the Bible describing great jubilation. As David danced in front of the Ark of the Covenant, in exultation, so God rejoices over God’s people. As the morning stars sang at the creation of the world, so God sings with elation over God’s beloved.[4]
It is not just God’s people who rejoice in their forgiveness and restoration. God sings. God shouts with joy. God, who is deeply invested in the life of the world, is overjoyed at the restoration of relationship.
John calls us to participate in that relationship, to make necessary changes in our lives and in our systems, to protect and empower the vulnerable, to speak truth to power, to share, to each do what we can.
But please hear the good news – it is not all on us. We can sing Joy to the World because God is powerfully present. Present to heal and build, to care and mend, to challenge and stir. God is among us, and we who are wondrously and inexplicably God’s beloved, join in celebration.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come . . . Beyond the pain and injustice and heartache of the world in which he lived, Zephaniah heard God singing. He saw a glimpse of God’s future, of justice and peace, a glimpse of a future in which all are well and all are gathered home. Zephaniah saw God in their midst, and God was singing.[5]
[1] Willie James Jennings in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Editors, , (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2018), p. 30.
[2] Jennings, p. 30
[3] The Rev. Nathan Nettleton in his sermon Christmas Joys and Fair-Weather Supporters http://southyarrabaptist.church/sermons/christmas-joys-and-fair-weather-supporters/
[4] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-zephaniah-314-20-2
[5] This beautiful paragraph comes from the Rev. Patrick Johnson, in his sermon Songs for a Weary World https://patrickwtjohnson.com/2015/12/15/songs-for-a-weary-world/