“It ain’t enough”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, December 15, 2022
Matthew 3:1-13 (Forward, p 47) CEV p. 983
We humans have a deplorable habit, and tendency, to ‘rest on our laurels’, to figure that somehow we have it ‘made’, that we have done enough. This habit, though seldom named or identified as such, has featured big in many church controversies over the years, and was a big issue even back in the time of Jesus. There are two ways that this shows itself.
The first has to do with ancestry or identity. People figure that because of who they are, or where they ‘come from’, that they ‘have it made.’ Sometimes this has to do with one’s ethnic or national identity. For instance, many Brits assumed that because they were of British ancestry that they were somehow better. And now some Americans assume the same sort of thing. And, unless I am sadly mistaken, I think that this might well be true of other ethnic or national backgrounds, that people from China or Japan or India or France might well think of themselves as superior.
Certainly, many Jewish people at the time of Jesus thought this way. They figured that because they were descended from Abraham, they somehow had it made. In other words, they were guaranteed salvation and a place in heaven simply because of the merits of their ancestor Abraham. It was this ill-founded supposition that John the Baptist especially singles out as being erroneous. As John says, God, should He choose to do so, could turn the stones around us into descendants of Abraham.
And this idea applies equally as well to denominational markers as well. We can assume, we can believe, that simply because we are Anglican or Baptist or Pentecostal or Mennonite or Hutterite or Lutheran or Roman Catholic, that we ‘have it made’, that we are guaranteed entrance.
The second fallacy has to do with belief vs. practice. This manifested itself in the Reformation and post-Reformation disputes between works and faith and between free will and predestination. John the Baptist addressed these questions as well. There were many that were coming to him for baptism, that ‘talked a good talk’, that espoused faith and trust in God and a desire and a willingness to follow the ways of God, but weren’t quite as steady, as far as he was concerned, in how they practiced it.
The truth is, of course, that faith and works need to go together, that faith—that is, a decision and a stated desire to follow Christ—has to be shown or evidenced by how we live. Yes, that faith saves us, but not a faith that never shows itself in practice. And likewise, with the debate between free will and predestination. The truth is that God chooses us, wills us to be saved, but even so, we must respond and somehow say ‘yes.’ How those two ‘work together’ is a paradox, one of the mysteries of the faith, but both are true. There is always God’s part—and our part. And what John the Baptist was alleging, on the part of some people, was that something of ‘our’ part, their part, was missing, namely the evidence of their faith in God as show in how they lived.
So, the caution here is that we must not ‘rest on our laurels’, whether that be expressed in terms of our ethnicity, nationality or denomination, or expressed in the dynamics of our faith in God. Whatever our background, or our faith, might be we still need to live it, to put it into practice. We can never assume that it is ‘enough’, enough for us to relax and no longer live it. We will always need to keep on trusting, and keep on doing, no matter what. Amen.
Forward notes: “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham’” (verses 7-9)
“John the Baptist failed homiletics. No preacher would start a sermon by calling the crowd a brood of vipers, and to make matters worse, he tells them that their ancestor Abraham isn’t going to give them a calling card to heaven.
“I wonder how John’s listeners felt. Many of them were pious folks; otherwise they wouldn’t be gathered to listen to the new preacher in town. They must have been shocked to be lectured. John is quick to let them know that if they want to be part of the coming kingdom, they need to change their behaviour.
“Little do the people know how much the one who is to come would demand, but during this pronouncement, they get a sneak peak of the future.
Moving Forward: “Piety or action: which pleases God?”