Evensong
24th June John the Baptist Year C Malachi Ch4 and Matthew 11:2-19
A visiting priest, seeing the list of hymns chosen for a service, sent a message to the organist that the final hymn (519) did not suit his sermon and that he wanted no. 213 instead. The organist sent a message back, “In this church the organist chooses the music and I will play no. 519.” The priest sent back this message, “At this service I announce the hymns and I will announce no. 213! 1
Some people can be very stubborn in the face of change!
Today we commemorate St John the Baptist. John’s ministry was a threat to some. A threat because he spoke about the need for change.
If you look carefully at the scriptures you will see that from the very beginning John was always going to challenge and question the status quo.
We are told that his parents were Elizabeth and Zechariah. Zechariah is a good Hebrew name – often associated with the Jewish priesthood. In fact Zechariah was himself a priest (so St Luke tells us). As a country priest he would have probably officiated at the Temple in Jerusalem about 2 weeks every year.
It was because of this priestly connection that the child should have been named after his father – to carry on the priestly custom in those days. The priesthood was an inherited thing – passed on from father to son.
But Elizabeth’s was an obstinate departure from this family tradition.
She wanted to name him John: a shortened version of the Hebrew name Jeho-hanan which means God’s gracious gift, or one sent from God.
This proposal met with quite a bit of opposition from the family. However, as strong mothers often do, Elizabeth won the day. Her son was named John.
But to the Jews (and to us as well) a name is more than a label. It is closely associated with the character and nature of the bearer. To name a child John with its association as one sent from God carried with it a great expectation about the future, about what God might have purposed for the child’s character and future life.
Change then, was a part of who John was and what he preached.
We know that the change he represented had implications far beyond John’s family circle itself and this change that he preached, that he lived and symbolised, was to threaten many and eventually lead to the death of this person John. But not before he prepared the way for his Lord.
In tonight’s second reading we see Jesus acknowledging this ministry and message of John.
Jesus praises John the Baptist. For those who question John’s message, Jesus more or less says, well what did you expect? You can feel the tension in Jesus’ voice:
What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes?… What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes! I tell you and more than a prophet! … Let anyone who hears listen!
This is a wholehearted blessing and affirmation for John’s ministry.
We commemorate John the Baptist not just because we think he had a message for the people back then, but that his message it just as apt today.
What was John’s understanding of the change that had to take place in Israel in order to prepare for the Lord?
For John this change had its basis in people’s daily lives.
The best way for people to prepare for the way of the Lord was to examine themselves and to amend their personal lives in terms of their daily work and their duty to their fellow men and women. The judgement that was to come could be met with confidence if there was evidence of righteousness in daily life.
George Herbert’s poetry provides an insight here:
Sum up at night, what thou hast done by day;
And in the morning, what thou hast to do.
Dress and undress thy soul: mark the decay
And growth of it: if with thy watch, that too
Be down, then wind up both; since we shall be
Most surely judged, make thy accounts agree.
Stanza 76 The Church Porch, George Herbert: The Complete English Poems, 1991, Tobin.
It’s the duty of prophets to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Most of us naturally prefer the prophets who comfort us in affliction. But John was a prophet who afflicted the comfortable. His words are meant to unsettle us and challenge us.
But they don’t promise death and destruction. They promise judgement. That’s not the same thing. It’s up to us what that judgement will be.
The preaching of John is meant to alert us to the life and message of Jesus. John was challenging people to reconsider their rule-bound conformity to Jewish custom and law.
… To open themselves to the life of this person Jesus so that they could be ruled not by the law but by a personal relationship with Jesus.
If we have this relationship we have nothing to fear on the great day of the Lord of which Malachi writes in our first reading tonight.
The first portion of the Malachi reading is quite unsettling and fearsome:
4v1 “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble: the day that comes will burn them up … so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”
But for those who have responded to John’s warning, those who have opened themselves to Christ and live in his way there is no such fear but only rejoicing:
4v2 “But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”
Let’s be ruled by our relationship with Christ so that we too might experience the healing wings of the sun of righteousness on that great day of the Lord.
Eternal Spirit, living God,
In whom we live and move and have our being,
All that we are, have been and shall be is known to you.
Living flame burn into us
Fountain of water, well up within us
That we may love and praise you
In deed and in truth
For the whole of our lives. Amen.2
1. Christian Crackers Volume 7 page 11 Phil Mason 1991
2. New Zealand Prayer Book 1989 p168