Matthew 3:1-12

Advent 2 - Year A

 


Here are two responses to the nearness of heaven come to earth:

  • Repent
  • Receive the “fire” of Holy Spirit

Question: Is this a necessary sequence? Repentance is required for Holy Spirit fire? Is it an implied prerequisite to, “Follow me”.

Regardless of how that is responded to, there is a basic duality here of gathered wheat or burned and scattered chaff that seems negated by Pentecost and a Holy Spirit that simply tells of Wonder, cutting through all language divisions.

Question: On what basis would a Holy Spirit not be conferred? Preordination? Resistance?

Whatever form of Holy Spirit is received, there is encouragement here to live well, fruitfully.

Question: All this may be helpful at the beginning of a movement. What happens after years, decades, millennia of there being no discernible connection between repentance and good fruits, between Holy Spirit fire and abominations? How do these play as part of a play filled with heart-warming trees, creches, and noels?

This passage may have other helpful attributes, but it mostly helps us reflect on a past presence of G*D, not one still before us. At this point it would be more helpful to reflect on the genealogy that begins Matthew and to draw it from the point of Jesus through Pentecost to the present time and ask questions of what folks faced in their day and how they persevered. In anticipating a new heaven and a new earth we could use those reminders and a discerning of our current situation that we might persevere until a surprising new presence becomes known to us.

Question: Given what you know about the lived situations and culture around you, how evangelistic is this passage? Is it only for an insider?

A note from the Wesley Study Bible: “Wesley connects this ‘fire’ with ‘love’.… (Notes 3:11)”. Is this some sort of “tough love”? Does this modify the passage enough to suggest that John has a limited view of Holy Spirit and fire/love that will also show up when he sends his disciples to see what Jesus is up to? If there is room for modification because this is more about a projection of John than an experience with Jesus, what does that mean about how you would preach this in the context of this year?

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience


  

Lots of people attempt to emulate John the Baptist. They get the feel of John right. There is righteous anger, counter-cultural living styles, and denunciation. It is an honorable tradition and one that can be quite satisfying in the action of the moment and a bit more uncertain when out of action.

One of the Rorschach type tests available here is the phrase about Jesus baptizing with "the Holy Spirit and fire". There are many ways of seeing this this, as many as there are denominations, orders, or sects. We do much arguing about the real meaning of this poetry.

In the midst of the bombast of John we hear this word of promise, "God is able from these stones to raise up children."

How would you label the stones of today? Fear? Irony? Death? War? Poverty?

Has GOD called you to join in the process of raising up children or raising up an ax?

- - -

On a separate note: play with this aphorism attributed to Mason Cooley, "After ages of bombast, the rhetoric of virtue has become ironic and shy." Is it important to respond to bombast with bombast and so it needs to make a comeback in today's world of negative advertising and misrepresentation of fact and truth? If so, who will do that? Can we do both bombast and child raising? If not, which takes precedence in our current experience?

- - -

Dave, a Reader, writes:

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to go through the space mueseum at Hutchinson, Kansas. In it was part of the Berlin Wall. As I reflected on the stones referred to by John the Baptist, I thought of the wall, and the good that has come from the wall coming down.

Now my heart aches, as I see our own country creating new walls, which relates so directly to the question, How would you label the stones? Fear? Irony? Death? and War?

- - -

Thanks, Dave -

I had been focusing on the action of raising and asking what was being raised. Your reflection on your recent experience began having me raise some additional thoughts.

One of them has to do with single and corporate. Often we look at individuals (stones) or structures (trees) as if there were only one overriding characteristic that identifies them and that one is good and the other bad. As in so many cases, the devil is in the details.

Raising children is not a straight-line. Confronting systems is not straight-forward. Razing walls means reawaking the various stoney parts to internally weaken the monolithic nature of a wall as well as applying pressure in key foundational areas to weaken the connection between the wall and its environment.

For us, raising individuals is not just a matter of a few well chosen rules, its a life-long process that takes a structure. For us, razing walls is not just a matter of absenting ourselves and waiting for erosion and entropy to take over, its a life-long process that takes one specific act after another.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/december2004.html

 


 

A contributor to the Midrash Discussion Group (participate at bottom of page) writes:

 "I ... didn't get something a friend of mine cooked up -- a John the Baptist Christmas Card. You can just imagine what such a card might look like: "Merry Christmas, you brood of vipers!" "Happy Holidays to you and yours, and may you flee from the wrath to come!" We'll all gather around the local river for a John the Baptist Christmas with our holiday dinner of locusts and wild honey. We'll open our John the Baptist presents. "Wow, Mom! It's clothing of camel hair with a leather belt to go around my waist! Gee, thanks." And then we'll sing John the Baptist Christmas Carols about impending destruction and the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire."

This is often the story folks are left with (or "Left Behind" with) — repent with regard to your professed dogma. That is very much a political result that measures correct belief by who can get whom to agree to what.

If we listen a bit beyond the bumper-sticker sound-bite, "Repent", we might hear a measuring rod beyond the political — "bear fruit worthy of repentance". Regardless of what others are trying to get you to do, this is not dogma as works-righteousness — Simply believe "this" and then "that" won't get you.

John and, at our best, ourselves know there is something more than our take on things. There is something more than working to change the past, even though repentance and restitution are important quality-of-life issues. There is also, at least, the mystery of approaching the present (Holy Spirit) to transform (fire) our currently projected future into a better future.

Between John and Jesus and you and I there is a wholierness (sp?) that is more desirable than any one by itself. (For those worried about the blasphemy that Jesus is not enough, all by himself, remember the power of context and the self-imposed limit on power evidenced by said Jesus.)

In light of our coming Kairos CoMotion March Celebration (yes, registration is appropriate right now) — how might we shift substitutionary atonement carols to Emmanuel (GOD-with-us) carols? Anybody willing to try their hand at modifying a carol or writing a new one for our day?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/december2004.html

 


 

While waiting between times, atween coming 1 and coming 2 (or coming sometime ago and coming some time to come) or any two moments in time, we are constantly faced with issues of righteous wolves and faithful lambs and what they mean to one another. Again and again the righteous question of prosperous justice arises from the lamb. Or is it just(ice) a question of prosperous righteousness, wolfwise? Each constantly calling the other to account and into question.

While the prayers of David may be ended, ours are not. We still appeal to a G*D of hope we hope is able to fill us with all joy and peace. Unfortunately the text adds "in believing" and all of a sudden we find joy and peace turned on their ears into teaching to the test of right answers defining what we shall see and hear; what we might divine, what we must filter.

While doing cost benefit ratios on every part of life we eventually must face water or fire, the biblical equivalent of a rock and a hard place. Water for the worthy fruit of repentance, fire for the fruit of worthy forgiveness.

We wait and waver between water and fire. We are always to blame they are always forgiven. We teach the extremes of life that both end up making everyone less than they are and might yet be.

Are we ready by dint of harmony set loose by steadfastness and encouragement to experience in any moment the steam power of water meeting fire needed for hope? If not, a shoot from the stump has not yet come. If so, a shoot is already a tree. Come play under a spreading chestnut tree where at a flaming forge our "toiling - rejoicing - sorrowing" is shaped into joy and peace.

- - - - - - -

we are so easily caught casting an eye about
for wolf that will devour
for lamb to swallow in a gulp
for water to engulf
for fire to consume
seeing only one horizon at a time

we listen repeatedly to echoing cares
hungry wolves and lost lambs - bleating
enfolded lambs and shunned wolves - howling
water fired - hiss
fire watered - whimper
hearing every sleepless nuance

come, root of jesse,
welcome us welcoming others
raise a standard of mercy -
on straying eye and roving ear
on cycles of poor and oppressor
- a once and future mercy

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

 


 

This being the second week of Advent, is there a sense of progress being made? Are we any closer to being ready this week than we were last?

Well, we have moved from one being taken and one being left, so "be ready", to a sense that even if we wanted to be ready we would only make it to the category of viper (no not the lovely automobile). So, in some sense, our progress is that of taking a step backward – out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak.

There is no longer a 50/50 shot at ending up at a good place (those who are left behind to enjoy a good creation, G*D's presence come on earth). Anyone who approaches is now 100% in trouble.

No matter if we double the number of brightly glowing candles this week, we are in a darker place – fleeing from a wrath to come.

While not wanting to denigrate the usefulness of wrath as a motivator, the image that is more energizing for many is that of hooking their star to a larger purpose – preparing a better future than we now have present.

A rallying cry for Methodists at their beginning was, "Flee from the wrath to come." This still makes good economic sense in today's world, but, theologically, its fear-based presentation needs to find its relevance in light of a promise of "Today you can be in Paradise".

Either way, we have to deal with repentance, a change of focus. If we are going to participate in a formation of a better future by what we do today, we will be called upon to change our ways, as continuing them will only bring us back to where we are, not move us on.

A question is how powerful an appeal to a better future is when compared to the fear of a worse future? During Advent time we wrestle with which of these is going to hold our heart. Can we be terrorized into better behavior and if so how long might such will behavior continue after the terror is removed? Can we be loved into better behavior and if so how lasting might such behavior be when it reenters its previous environment?

As practical people we usually propose that we need a little of both, terror and love. We just need to know when to apply which.

Unfortunately our tendency is to begin applying a little more of what worked most quickly last time without a reappraisal of a new situation and eventually find ourselves addicted to one mode or the other with no way to return to a considered diagnosis as to which to apply now.

Given this, it may be healthier to run with one. Even though wrathful language does periodically show up in Scripture, it shows up in trying to motivate us to a changed present that a better future might be available. I basically disagree with the idea that you can threaten someone into salvation. Therefore I recommend an Advent of practicing models of promised better living as though our whole culture had finally arrived at such as its norm.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html

 


 

In those days, in this day, any day—tomorrow is just a day away. Changing today is our last best opportunity to welcome the fullness of tomorrow or to further limit it.

So, what needs to change today? It won't be a going back to some idealized past. It will have to do with making a shift in the momentum of the past. It will have to do with making life easier for those with whom we are joined hip and spirit. It will have to do with doing more than waiting. It will have to do with more than not making things worse.

Remember that the wilderness outside the boundary of promise is the locus of John's work. It is also to be the locus of our work. Standing inside a promised land makes it too easy to hold on to the limited power and privilege we have managed to rise to. Inside the promise raises our fear level that we may lose the little we have. Outside the boundary makes it easier to hear, "Be not afraid—proceed to bear 'good fruit' just because you can."

Here ends today's comment.

= = = = = = =

To encourage you to consider purchasing our new book, Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience here is the comment for this pericope from this new resource:

= = = = = = =

Here are two responses to the nearness of heaven come to earth:

• Repent
• Receive the "fire" of Holy Spirit

One is claimed to be more powerful.

Question: Is this a necessary sequence? Repentance is required for Holy Spirit fire? Is it an implied prerequisite to, "Follow me".

Regardless of how that is responded to, there is a basic duality here of gathered wheat or burned and scattered chaff that seems to be done away with by Pentecost time and a Holy Spirit that simply tells of Wonder and cuts through all language divisions.

Question: On what basis would a Holy Spirit not be conferred? Preordination? Resistance?

Whether one receives some form of Holy Spirit there is encouragement here to live well, fruitfully. A metaphoric fire from Holy Spirit burns wastrel trees and the fire from those burning trees, in turn, refines others. Around and around we go.

Question: All this may be helpful at the beginning of a movement. What happens after years, decades, millennia of there being no discernible connection between repentance and good fruits, between Holy Spirit fire and abominations? How do these play as part of a play filled with tree-trimming, unstoring creches, and heart-warming noels?

While this passage may have other helpful attributes, but it mostly helps us reflect on a past presence of G*D, not one still before us. At this point it would be more helpful to reflect on the genealogy that begins Matthew and to draw it from the point of Jesus through Pentecost to the present time and asking the question of what folks faced in their day and how they persevered. In anticipating a new heaven and a new earth we could use those reminders and a discerning of what our current situation is and how we might persevere in the midst of us until a surprising new presence becomes known to us.

Question: Given what you know about the lived situations and culture around you, how evangelistic is this passage? It has a feel that it is for the insider.

A note from the Wesley Study Bible: "Wesley connects this "fire" with "love". . . .(Notes 3:11)". Is this some sort of "tough love"? Does this modify the passage enough to suggest that John has a limited view of Holy Spirit and fire/love that will also show up when he sends his disciples to see what Jesus is up to? If there is room for modification because this is more about a projection of John than an experience with Jesus, what does that mean about how you would preach this in 2010?

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/11/matthew-31-12.html