Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 10
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
At one time or other, we have all
heard someone make a call for a return to the basics. It is often a cry that laments the
present state of things in favor of some past, prettily clothed in
nostalgia. In our day it is all too
often the cry of some religious or social conservatives, and which often
hearkens back only so far as the time of their childhood. It is a call usually to a very narrow
understanding of personal morality, and while posed as a challenge, whether to
individuals or society generally, it is actually a desire for facile comfort – comfort
in the midst of change, comfort in the midst of the unknown, comfort in the
midst of the stranger.
Yet the call for a re-engagement
with the basics is not a bad thing in and of itself, especially if we are
realistic about what those basics are, especially if are prepared to be
challenged by their significance and sometimes surprising ramifications. Take for example, the book of Deuteronomy in
which God says, “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your
community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving
you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor…Since
there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore
command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ ” (Deuteronomy
15:7, 11) As Christians, one can’t get
any more basic than Torah, God’s covenant with the Jews, our ancestors in
faith. The message is similar in the
prophets: “Is not this the fast that I choose?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless
poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide
yourself from your own kin?” (Isaiah 58:6a, 7)
Or, “this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had
pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and
needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49 The ethical
demands here are far from privatized, far from nostalgic. They challenged the Hebrews into new ways of
understanding and contextualizing their relationship with God, their
responsibilities to others.
John the Baptist is trying to
recapture this vision. In the wilderness
he is making a call for a return to the basics – yes, but there is nothing of
nostalgia or privatized morality. The
Gospels, justly or not, present a Judaism losing vitality; a Judaism in which people
justified themselves not by what they did or how they lived, but by claiming an
ontological connection with the past, for example through a genealogical relationship
to the patriarchs: “We have Abraham as our ancestor.” (Luke 3:8) Rather, John reminds them of the
covenant. He calls them back to the
basics of God’s will and purposes expressed in the law and the prophets: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone
who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” (Luke 3:11) He calls the people not to some idealized
past, but the living truth of God’s law of justice and compassion, and to the
making of it a present reality among them.
This too was in large part the message of Jesus and which he called – as
I have often said – the kingdom of God.
He called people to the basics, and not only to the basics of the law,
but to the very basics of our human existence – the basic reality that we
cannot control everything, the basic reality that worrying or fretting changes
nothing, the basic reality of our utter dependence on God, the basic reality
that little of we think is ours really is ours: “…do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.
Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34); “Give to everyone
who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”
(Matthew 5:42) Jesus’ call to basics,
like John’s, was not just a lament for a bygone era, but a challenge to live at
a more human level, to live with more compassion and understanding, to live
more authentically.
When we really begin to ponder on
the basics of life, we recognize how little we can control and how much of what
we receive is at the hands of others or of God, or both. Those of us who are more or less comfortably
well-off can hide from that reality more easily. We can distract ourselves by our possessions
or our wherewithal to make plans and follow them through; but have real tragedy
or disaster come our way, and we realize how much we are at the whim of
things. They level the playing field,
unmasking the lies we tell ourselves about self-sufficiency, about the power we
have over the events of our lives. And
while a simplistic call to basics is about controlling things according to our
comfort zone, the scriptural call to basics is about giving up that false sense
of control or superiority, recognizing how much we are all of us in the same
boat in one way or another, recognizing our own poverty in any of its many
forms.
There is little doubt that for many
of us, the poor and issues of poverty make us feel just a little
uncomfortable. It’s more than just
guilt, but rather the hint they may suggest that “there but for the grace of
God, go I” or we. In part, for this
reason in so many cultures and among so many people the poor are ignored or
demonized (we used to do this with the sick as well, but that’s perhaps another
sermon for another time). The call to the
basics of Torah, of the prophets, of John the Baptist and of Jesus confronts us
with the reality of the poor and the downtrodden, and the truth that they are
not separate from us: “You shall also
love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy
10:19) A return to the basics in this
respect, can carry us into the a future of living more honestly, can point out
the many little ways we hide from, ignore or disguise the precariousness of our
existence; and can make us more compassionate, more willing to see ourselves in
the other. A return to the basics, in
this respect, challenges us to engage with our basic, shared humanity
regardless of anything else. It allows
us to the see the poor and disadvantaged not as other, but as us, and demands
that we make a difference in their situation; which could be ours but for grace
or luck.
The future God plans for us, and
envisions for the human family is enshrined in much of the ethical teaching of Torah and in the pronouncements
of the prophets. Both John the Baptist
and Jesus emphasized this aspect of the Jewish tradition, this particular
concern for the poor and preoccupation with the most vulnerable in
society. It is basic to anything we may
want to say about God, basic to any engagement with the Gospel. When people cry out for a return to the
basics, I wish they would think about this – rather than some cozy view of the
1950s. I wish they would allow
themselves to be challenged by the reality of our basic and shared humanity,
seeing themselves in the poor and disregarded, and especially in Advent when we
not only prepare ourselves to celebrate Christmas, but when we look to and
confront the truth that, as an old song says:
“The time it will come when our Saviour on earth
“And the world will
agree with one voice…
“Saints, Angels and men, Hallelujahs will sing,
“And the rich must
lie down with the poor.”
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