Isaiah 11: 1-11 / Psalm 72: 1–7, 18-19 / Romans 15: 4–13 / Matthew 3: 1–12
This is the written version of the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA), in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, December 7, 2025, by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.
“THE PROPHETS’ VOICES CALL OUT TO US: “TURN
AROUND!””
(Homily
text: Matthew 3: 1–12)
Some years ago, there was a
long-distance truck driver who, while driving in the western part of the
country, steadfastly followed his GPS-directed navigating device. Following the
directions faithfully, he found himself deep into the woods in the mountains,
on a one lane, dirt road. The news story about this event related that the
truck driver had to walk miles and miles to get back to civilization, where he
could get help.
Though, perhaps, many of those who
heard the news story might have wondered how someone could depend so completely
on a navigation tool as to miss the fact that he was heading, more and more,
into the wilderness, and not to wherever his destination was, still, as we live
life, we encounter those who seem to be just as lost. The difference is that
they are headed in the wrong direction in life, they just aren’t driving a semi-truck.
To such a lost, confused and
misdirected way of living, God appointed and sent His spokesmen (and women, I
suspect) to point out to those who were heading in a wrong direction, away from
God, that they should “turn around”, and head in another, more-godly,
direction. We’re talking, of course, about the prophets in ancient times, and
those with prophetic voices in all times and places, those whom God appoints to
be heralds of God’s will and God’s ways.
This morning, we remember and honor the
life and witness of St. John the Baptist, who was many things to us Christian
believers: For one thing, he seems to be the culmination of a long line of Old
Testament prophets. For another, he spoke clearly and forcefully to the
leadership of God’s people in the time of our Lord Jesus Christ’s earthly
ministry, a group of leaders who were just as lost and misdirected as that
trucker we talked about a moment ago. For another, he was the one who prepared
the way for Jesus’ ministry to begin.
We owe John the Baptist a great debt
for all that he did, witnessing to God’s ways, rather than to human pride and
earthly wisdom. We owe him a great debt for preparing the way for the Lord.
John the Baptist (or Baptizer, as he is
also known) fits the mold of the Old Testament prophets, of whom he is the last
representative.
He is counter-cultural, hanging out in
the wilderness, which is a place where one often finds God, but which is also a
place where society’s trouble-makers ply their trade.
He was rebel, leaving the career path
that would have been expected of him, having been born of a father who was a
priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. For, you see, as the son of a priest, he
would have been expected to fulfill his own priestly duties in the Temple once
he reached the age of thirty. Instead of encouraging the faithful people to
undergo the ritual bath[1] that
was required prior to entering the Temple’s precincts, he stands in the Jordan
River, inviting people to wash themselves and be cleansed of their sins. John
has cast aside any sense of mere formal religious observance: His voice calls
for genuine and deep repentance, a turning around so as to face God squarely,
to see what God desires rather than to harbor any pretensions that human beings
are so good at creating for themselves.
Matthew’s account of John’s ministry
informs us that two groups of the leadership of God’s people 2,000 years ago
came to the banks of the Jordan to check out what John was doing. One group,
the Sadducees, were a priestly group, to be found in the Temple in Jerusalem.
(One wonders if some of them remembered John, and perhaps, thought that he was
a promising young man “gone bad”.) The other group was a lay group known as the
Pharisees. Oftentimes, these two groups differed in their perspectives, but –
it seems – when there was a challenge to their leadership, their positions of
power and influence, and their prerogatives, they could find a way to work
together. (That, of course, is the truth of our Lord’s betrayal, trial,
suffering, execution, death and resurrection.)
“You brood of vipers,” John says these
two groups of proud, self-satisfied people, who prided themselves on their
heritage as children of Abraham, “Who told you to flee from the wrath that is
to come?” “Bear fruit that is worthy of
repentance”, he continues, adding “The axe is laid at the root of the tree….all
that does now bear fruit will be cut down.”
He is – in essence – telling these two
proud, self-satisfied groups of leaders that they are full of wickedness.
(Remember that, in Holy Scripture, snakes are the personification of
evil…recall the account of the Fall in the Book of Genesis.)
Old Testament prophets were often very
plain spoken in their condemnation of the waywardness of God’s people. John is
cut from the same cloth.
Human pride is a troublesome thing. It
blinds us to the ability to see ourselves as God sees us. We’re much like that
truck driver we talked about at the beginning of this sermon: He was so careful
to follow all the directions that he heard that he was oblivious to the fact
that he was completely and utterly lost, in the wilderness. Human pride does
the same thing, for it encourages us to look only at ourselves, and often with
satisfaction. Human pride leads to the
same destination: Being utterly lost, and out-of-touch with God and God’s will.
In every age, we human beings, we
Christian believers, need to hear the voices of the prophets of old, and the
prophetic voices in our own time, those who faithfully stand in the tradition
of faith we have inherited. Those voices of old and the voices of today call us
to look around and to turn around, to lay before God all that is unseemly, all
that does not befit the attitudes and actions of those who claim the name of
Christ, all that does not commend the faith that is in us to an unbelieving
world around us.
Come then, Holy Spirit, enable us to
turn around, and to look around, at ourselves and at God.
AMEN.
[1] Known in Hebrew as the Mikvah.
