Earth Movers Still Reshape the World

If you were eager for the Iraq Study Group to weigh in on the handling of the war in Iraq, you’ve been rewarded. For many folks, simply putting such a big problem into the hands of aging, formerly powerful, wealthy wise men – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the only female member – offered real comfort.

This eminent group offered the president 78 recommendations to change not only the course of the war, but to reshape the world in which the war is being fought. They did that very publicly.

If Mr. Bush intended these “fresh eyes” to focus narrowly and quietly on his old problem, he got this week a completely new problem. Turns out it wasn’t just the president, or congress, or the military, or only average Americans who were waiting expectantly.

Inside Iraq Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds expressed displeasure. Within the gulf region Jordan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Israel registered complaints. Countries across Europe and Asia, as well as Africa’s Egypt listed criticisms. In all these places, editorial writers and ordinary citizens joined their government’s dissatisfaction with the ISG’s process, specific proposals, or both.

High profile communication has a way of getting beyond its intended audience. Luke’s Gospel is a bit like that. Look at Luke’s first four verses.
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.

This rather private sounding document is now in our hands. Moreover, John’s recommendations, intended primarily for faithful Jews, are now Gentile Christianity’s ritual center!

Good writers know their message and appreciate their audience. It shouldn’t surprise us to see Luke adopting a formal style to keep a cultured dignitary like Theophilus reading.

However, Luke is more than a clever author. He’s a theologian, a Jewish theologian. Luke adopts what Theophilus already knows from his own social, political and religious experiences. He then builds a bridge from his very Jewish message, across the cultural divide in order to connect with Theophilus’ Greco-Roman world-view. It’s a tall order.

So we see Luke adding explanations about Jewish ideas, laws, customs, and places to the similar message we read in Mark. We also see Luke determined to keep his message faithful to his very un-gentile proclamation. He’s not merely trying to expand Theophilus’ knowledge about an interesting local squabble.

Luke’s is a message designed not only to change Theophilus’ life-course, but also to reshape his world for all time. So he identifies Jesus as the Jews’ promised messiah. Luke also aims to show, persuasively and convincingly, that Jesus, not Caesar, is Savior of the whole world. That’s a huge undertaking. (He makes clear that’s his claim in 3:23 by extending Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam. Matthew, writing primarily for Jews, ends Jesus’ family tree at Abraham.)

Luke is masterful. Luke says, in essence, that the era of the Pax Romana is in jeopardy, as the era of God’s Pax in Terra (God’s shalom) is breaking-in. (I suspect both Luke and God would make similar claims against the Pax Americana.)

Look at this list of dignitaries leading up to the call of John in 3:1-2.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

For Luke, the list serves several purposes. It sets Luke’s story in a particular time and place. John’s call to prophetic office is anchored in Jewish tradition. Look quickly at Isaiah 1:1
The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Also, Jeremiah 1:1-3
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

You see the similarities.

The call is set in the wilderness. That’s the place where Israel has often met God. Think about Moses at the burning bush, or the giving of the law at Sinai. John’s ministry is located in the region of the Jordan. That river place is where Israel was transformed from a horde of slaves to the free nation of God’s chosen people. Last, and most importantly, Luke makes plain that before his story is about any human endeavors, these events he’s recorded show forth the intention and the activity of God. “…the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”

3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
I said Luke is a master writer and theologian. We also believe his mastery is the inspiration of God. At one level, Luke’s use of these standard writing forms is a gigantic set-up. We get to the story of the Baptizer with the lyrics of liberation sung by two nobodies, Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79) and Mary (Luke 1:46-55), still echoing in our ears and stirring our hearts.

Authoring the story in this way, Luke sets the aims of Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiaphas – powerful, high-profile, though unauthorized some-bodies - in direct conflict with the God-authorized voice of nobody-John and God’s soon-to-arrive authorized new word in nobody-Jesus. Each of these leaders is, in their own way, a messianic pretender. They - with their ambitions, aberrations, and accommodations - have altered God’s shalom. Now God accuses them of high crimes and misdemeanors, the annihilation of God’s beloved, as described in the testimony God delivered through Malachi 3:5

5Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

This course, Luke tells Theophilus, is now changed. Listen, then, to God’s deep desire to transform all people and to reshape world, as seen through John’s fresh eyes.

It sounds so simple. John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. God must have known how people like us, religionists, would neuter those deeply dynamic ideas and those potent, way-shaping, symbolic actions. That’s why John explains himself with Isaiah’s prophesying. Hear the power!

Prepare the way; make straight the paths; fill the valleys; lower the hills and mountains; straighten the crooked; smoothen the rough ways! This isn’t a call to tinker at the edges of our ethical decisions. This isn’t a cry for minor adjustments to our moral choices. The energy required to do this work come from tools heartier than doctrinal sandpaper and ritual nail files.

Some while back it took two years and $180 million to modify a short stretch of Interstate 70 West near the Indianapolis airport. That quite straight, nearly flat stretch was not quite level enough to move water off the roadway. Standing water, particularly in winter, caused numerous accidents, with injuries and fatalities.

John announces now as the time to reconfigure the landscape of our minds, and describes the processes necessary to reengineer the bedrock in which our hearts are grounded. The truth is we’re not sure we want to change our minds. The truth is we can’t change our hearts. Talk about set in stone! I think I’m fine. Don’t you think you’re fine too? I’m on course. Aren’t you on course? Look around. Are there any really bad folks on your Christmas card list?

What separates us from those on Luke’s list of unauthorized some-bodies are time, place, and opportunity. Our motivations, our desires, and our egos are no more legitimate than theirs were. We, too, want just a little more than our share. Like them, we’re willing to do almost anything to get that, and nearly as eager to do just about whatever is necessary to keep it. Staying the course isn’t working; is it? We need some fresh eyes; agreed?

Lost in the gloom of our own darkness we can still hear God crying through a voice seeing what we cannot. The voice has seen God on the move; moving toward us with an extraordinary invitation to be refined, purified, changed.

The voice says, “Repent,” meaning, return, turn back, change course. The voice says, “Be Baptized,” not our effort to reach high for God. Rather, move toward the Jordan to receive rebirth and renewal by a promising word from a coming down God, attached to the most basic element of God’s creation, water. In that turning, by that washing, God offers us forgiveness, in Greek aphesis, release from bondage to sin, that old course on which we keep “missing the mark,” and remain stuck in a world that prefers death to life.

On a new course, within God’s shalom we’re free to see with new eyes, to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Inside the shalom of God’s reshaped world we’re bold to trust the promise given long-ago to low-born, low profile, un-wealthy, not particularly wise women and men. Refined, they received the stamina to do the heavy lifting. Liberated, they were guided to walk the promise’s straight paths.

Knowing that their freedom gave them not merely new eyes, but also new responsibilities, they courageously took the message public. They kept challenging the ruling oppressors by comforting the disturbed and disturbing the comfortable. They, then, entrusted the promise to us, that all flesh, especially we who are not worthy, shall see the salvation of God.

We sing, still, as we move to greet the God on the move toward us a chorus that marks us as movers and shapers, inheritors of the living faith of the dead: Rejoice, Rejoice, O Israel - chosen people of God - shall come to you Emmanuel.