Last week I suggested that we were still, like John the Baptist, waiting for Jesus, waiting for redemption, waiting for all to be made right by the action of God.
But that’s not quite right, is it? After all John didn’t even know the name of the one greater than he while we have a literature and a tradition rich in detail about the saviour and we are taught that the incarnation, God coming to be with us, changes everything. We have Jesus’ example, Jesus’ teaching, and the belief that his life and his death on the cross transform our relationship with God. We are not, then, really in the same position as John.
This means that when we look at John’s teaching as it is reported in Luke’s Gospel, we have even more problems than when we hear Jesus’ teaching reported in the Bible. We have to work out whether John’s words have any authority for us given that they come before Jesus and then we have to work out what difference the historical and cultural context makes, whether we can agree with what he says, how we might respond. Are these words of John’s of interest, of no interest, a matter of eternal importance, or what?
John, remember, says that the eternal judge is coming and those who hear need to bear fruits worthy of repentance if they’re going to avoid being the chaff consigned to unquenchable fire. This sounds like a matter of urgency – who would want to be chaff? Who would want to be consigned to the fire? If we believed these words of John’s we would, presumably, be eager to bear the fruits and would be anxiously analysing the examples given to work out how they applied to us. None of us are tax collectors or soldiers, as far as I know, but we all have coats and food we could give away.
If we thought John’s teaching had authority, was true and applied to us, we would, I think. sleep uneasy in our beds as long as we hadn’t given away as much as we could afford to. We would also, I imagine, worry about our professional ethics. Were we behaving as John says we should, or do his strictures apply only to certain, rather dubious, jobs, soldiering and collection of tolls on behalf of occupying powers?
Before we got into this, though, we’d need to think about whether Jesus’ coming and Jesus’ teaching make a difference. One obvious comparison is between John’s “give away one coat” and Jesus’ “sell all you have”. In general Jesus doesn’t say much about the right way to do one’s job. His teaching tends to be stark and demanding: “everyone who is angry .. is guilty”; “everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”; “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”;”do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also”; “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”; “you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
What Jesus asks of his followers in the sermon on the mount makes John’s “do your job according to the rules” look easy and tame. Think for a moment about not resisting an evil person, for example. Think about being guilty simply if you become angry. Think about the demand that you sell everything you have and give it to the poor. That’s a long way from the conscientious tax collector and soldier being content with what their job description and terms of employment allow them.
So why does Jesus demand so much more of us than John? And where is his pitchfork? Where is the unquenchable fire? What, having encountered Jesus, are we to make of John’s teaching?
Well it’s clear to me that whereas it’s quite possible to do what John demands, to do whatever job we have in the complex division of labour that is modern society within the rules and according to conscience, Jesus’ ethical teaching is much more difficult. Can we really be quite without anger, totally without lust, can we love our enemies and not resist the evil person? These seem impossible standards to meet. One way Jesus changes everything is to raise the bar of behaviour so high as to be out of reach.
He does this, I think, for two reasons. First he announces and inaugurates the direct rule of God: the Kingdom has come near, he says, the Kingdom of God is within you. He often speaks of the Kingdom as still to come but at the same time he implies that it is here, that we can enter it now. This nearness, though, is hard to see: no one can see the kingdom of God, he says, unless he is born again.
Jesus describes, in the sermon on the mount, what it would be to live wholly in that kingdom, to be subject completely and only to God’s law of love. With him God’s rule comes directly amongst us and he shows and tells us what it is like.
At the same time the full realisation of the Kingdom is still to come, when Christ returns in glory, so we struggle, against the influence of the world, to become like him, to live in that way.
But there is more good news. Not only does Jesus announce the coming of the Kingdom, the already and not yet reign of the prince of peace. He also promises us that we will enter it, by God’s grace, not because we are able to prove ourselves worthy, but even though we can’t. Even where we fall short, even where we feel anger, are driven to resist evil, where we can’t love our enemies, God sees our potential, sees our worth and reaches out to us in love.
Jesus tells us what it is to be a citizen of the holy city and says that God will fit us to live there, that we don’t have to earn our entry, we have to have the humility and the courage to accept it as a gift.
This is a different teaching from John’s. John described a righteousness we could achieve and threatened us with awful judgement if we fell short. Jesus describes a bliss we can’t achieve on our own and promises us mercy and love in our weakness.
John was a good and an honest man. Jesus was more. Here’s what Jesus has to say about John
Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he … John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
Jesus goes on to say The Son of Man (one of Jesus’s favourite ways of speaking about himself) came eating and drinking, and they (those who reject him) say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”’
Jesus says that John followed and demanded the strictest rules of behaviour and was called mad, whereas Jesus reaches out to the lost and rejected. He looks, to the righteous, like a glutton and a drunkard. He promises forgiveness, he throws open the gates of the kingdom and invites all to enter who will acknowledge God’s love and allow themselves to be transformed by it. He is our friend.
Thanks be to God.
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