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Repent, Prepare and Bear Fruit

Matthew  3:1-12

December 5, 2004

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

Matthew 3

¹In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”^{£ 3}This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

     “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

     ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

       make his paths straight.’”

⁴Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, ⁶and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷But 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? ⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance. ⁹Do 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. ¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹“I baptize you with^£ water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^£ the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹²His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

In a time across Europe when people carried weapons like we carry wallets, that is in the third and fourth centuries, it became customary for men to disarm themselves before entering into the sanctuary for worship. The bulk of these weapons were simple wooden clubs--not elegant, but effective as protection against highway bandits and wild animals. Thus, it became common for the back of the church to fill up with a pile of the wooden clubs during services.
Gradually, congregants developed a kind of game associated with this practice of leaving these signs and symbols of animosity and violence behind them. After services the men would collect all these clubs, pile them together and compete among each other to see who could knock down the most clubs as possible by rolling stones at them. The more clubs knocked over, the more sins the individual was believed to have left behind.

Eventually this contest became more intentional and more organized, ultimately developing into nine pins--a bowling game. Knocking down sins turned into a much anticipated pastime on Sunday afternoons. By the time of the Reformation, about 500 years ago, bowling nine-pins had grown well beyond the church's front door to become a hugely popular betting game at taverns and inns. In fact it was Martin Luther's favorite sport, and he is often credited with being the one to standardize the game of bowling with nine pins. Luther loved the symbolism of Christians as holy bowlers, enthusiastically bowling over all the sins that kept them from seeking God's fullness and fulfillment.

When bowling made its way to the United States, it quickly lost all of its religious pedigree and became an exercise in gambling. Local and state legislatures took exception to this activity and passed all sort of laws outlawing the nine-pin bowling sport. But some bright bowler got the idea of replacing the rectangle of nine-pin bowling with the triangle of ten-pin bowling to circumvent the law. Hence our modern bowling was born.

Last week, our youth group went bowling.  Frankly I wasn’t quite as aware of the history of bowling then.  Had I been, I probably would have been much more interested in getting up and knocking down pins and sins myself.  I stood by Gregory as Kim bowled with the kids.  Don’t you wish it were that easy to repent and to do away with sin in our lives?  To just get yourself down to a local bowling alley, or even set up some sticks and things in the yard and heave a ball at them and watch our sins tumble away with those pins?

Martin Luther probably loved the symbolism of that 500 years ago because he hated so much the even more ancient practice in the church of his day of selling indulgences.  Priests would take a parishioner’s money and give him an indulgence, somehow absolving him or her of  all their sin.  Luther felt like it was too much like selling God’s grace. He also felt it was too fake and ineffective.

There is an old story about Johann Tetzel, a 16th century Dominican monk and adversary of Martin Luther, who travelled Germany selling indulgences.   A thief who came up to Tetzel and asked how much it would cost for an indulgence to forgive all his past sins. A thousand gold pieces, Tetzel replied. And how much for one to forgive all my future sins as well? Two thousand more. All right, here's three thousand, the thief replied. Now give me the indulgence. Tetzel said: “Here it is. You’re free!” “Thank you.” Said the thief, “And now here's one of those future sins. See this sword? Hand back the three thousand.”

Repentance is serious business, at the same time easier and yet more difficult to sincerely accomplish than buying an indulgence or even bowling your sins away.

John the Baptist was a missionary of God.  He went out into the world to prepare the way of Jesus, his own cousin.  Before either was born, when they were both in their mothers’ wombs, Jesus inside of Mary and John inside Elizabeth, it is said that John was announcing Jesus’ coming by kicking and jumping when their mom’s were in the same room such that Elizabeth knew that Mary’s baby would be a special child.[1] 

In the same way, John is in the wilderness before Jesus arrival in that part of the country, and he is announcing Jesus’ coming.  And as he does so, he announces three things to the people.  First, he tells them to repent.  “Jesus is coming, REPENT,” says John.  Face sin and understand it and repent of it.  What exactly does this mean if it isn’t about bowling or buying your freedom?  We’ll get into it a little bit more in a moment. 

Another one of John’s messages is one that warns the Pharisees and Sadducees, the false and fake church leaders of his day to bear fruit.  To do what God has called them to do, not just take up space in the vineyard of God’s planting, but to bear results that would come by applying their God given talents..

Years later, when these words were recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the author uses John’s message and preaching to bring across another message.  When he tells of John’s ministry, he reminds his hearers that what John was doing was what we all should be doing, and what was predicted in the ancient book, which now has a place in the Old Testament, the book of Isaiah.  In Isaiah’s prophecies, it predicted the coming of a messiah.  It also predicted the coming of John, the one who was,

     “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

and who said:

     ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

       make his paths straight.’”

Isaiah said that before the Messiah arrived a voice would be heard, preparing the way for the Messiah’s arrival.  Matthew reminded his listeners of Isaiah’s prediction and pointed out that John was that voice, he was the one calling out from the wilderness, He was the one telling people to “prepare!” speak out, tell the world that the messiah is near and do what is necessary for his coming.

So John’s message was one which said Repent for the Messiah is coming, prepare for his arrival and bear fruit as evidence of that repentance.

So let’s come back to repentance.  What is repentance?  It means to turn around.  To “feel bad” for what has happened in the past; to reevaluate one’s entire life and activities and to turn around.  The Greek word for repentance in the New Testament is one that is just as often translated “transform” as “repent.”  To repent is to turn completely around and head in a different direction.

Do you know that saying “Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing?”  Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach is the one who first said that. Do you know that he eventually came to regret and repent of his words? When Lombardi saw how his words were being used by other coaches, he said, “I wished ... I'd never said [it]... I meant the effort. I meant having a goal. I sure ... didn't mean for people to crush human values and morality for the sake of winning.” --Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley, TransCompetition (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1998).

An elderly woman had just returned to her home from an evening church service when she was startled by an intruder.

As she caught the man in the act of robbing her home of its valuables, she yelled, Stop! Acts 2:38! (Repent, and be baptized... in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.).

The burglar stopped in his tracks. She wasn’t surprised.  She figured the few words she had said, so close to the words that John the Baptist spoke in the wilderness, would be enough to chang his mind and his life.  But the police weren’t so convinced.  The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.

As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar, Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a Scripture to you.

Scripture? replied the burglar, She said she had an axe and two 38s!

When people speculate about religion, one of the idle speculations which usually arise is something like this. Take, well, Adolph Hitler. Or, better, Joseph Stalin, because he killed more people. What if at the last minute, as Stalin lay dying, he turned his heart to Jesus and confessed his sins. Suppose he repented at the last minute, repented of the 14 million Russians, his own people, Stalin killed when he acted as a dictator in his Russia.. Would he have a place in the kingdom of God?

Perhaps he might.

This is what Christianity is precisely about.  This is the grace of God. No matter what we have done, how much we have stolen, how many deaths we have been responsible for, no matter if we come to the moment of our death and now it is too late to remedy any of the suffering we have caused, no matter how great our sin, we can be forgiven if we truly acknowledge what we have done and acknowledge it in faith that God loves us and forgives us.

So this is repentance, but John has more to say.   He says “prepare the way of the Lord”  If we’re going to do that, we’ve got to tdo what he did and that is to open up, to speak of Jesus’ coming and to bear witness to other what Jesus what God’s grace and good news has meant for and does in ones own life.  To share the good news and let others know about the Grace of God.

--Lloyd Prator, The penetrating gaze, St. John's in the Village, April 8, 2001, www.episcopalchurch.org.

There once was a man by the name of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1968, Currier's sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the farmer for whom he worked had died.

Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned about Currier's plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He was a free man.

Sweeting concluded that story by asking, "Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message -- the most important in your life -- and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?"

We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others.

So John said, repent and prepare for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah by telling the good news.  He also says to bear fruit for the kingdom of God.  The Apostle Paul also speaks of bearing fruit.

He talks about fruit in the sense of the fruit of the Spirit: In Galatians 5: 22-26, Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit “…is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control…”  It is important to recognize that the fruit we see represented here are integrated and complete in hearts of folks for whom their faith is important.

British statesman and financier Cecil Rhodes, whose fortune was used to endow the world-famous Rhodes Scholarships, was a stickler for correct dress--but apparently not at the expense of someone else's feelings. A young man invited to dine with Rhodes arrived by train and had to go directly to Rhodes's home in his travel-stained clothes. Once there he was appalled to find the other guests already assembled, wearing full evening dress. After what seemed a long time Rhodes appeared, in a shabby old blue suit. Later the young man learned that his host had been dressed in evening clothes, but put on the old suit when he heard of his young guest's dilemma.

This is kindness, caring about another’s dignity and doing something to care for that person and save them embarrassment or pain or suffering or some other discomfort. 

Kindness is only one of the nine fruit that the Apostle Paul outlines.  Peace and self-control are two others.  If we are going to find ways of allowing our lives to bear fruit, we’ll love, we’ll show kindness, we’ll allow these fruit to come forward, maybe by finding ways to eliminate road rage from our lives, we’ll be developing more fruit of the spirit to blossom forth.

Today in the Word, February, 1991, p. 10.

John Garrison, PhD, Director of the Stress Management Program at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, MA, says, "The root of road rage is not in the situation itself, but in the way the driver perceives the situation, if he perceives other cars and drivers as threatening, the 'flight or fight' response may kick in, overloading him with adrenaline. Unfortunately, in this situation his automobile may become a lethal weapon."

Federal officials say that aggressive driving is the leading cause of urban accidents and results in 8,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year. It's a problem that's on the increase: a recent AAA survey found that aggressive driving - tailgating, speeding, running red lights, giving other drivers dirty looks or obscene gestures - has increased 51 percent over the last five years.

"To better manage aggressive driving and prevent it from becoming road rage, a driver can become a diplomat on the road rather than a warrior," suggests Garrison. "He can try to look at other drivers as partners rather than adversaries and the road as a place of community, not competition."

Aggressive drivers who suffer from too much stress in their lives can find ways to change their behavior, according to Garrison. "Using special relaxation techniques and anger management strategies, aggressive drivers can dissipate their pent-up hostility before getting behind the wheel. Once on the road, they may transfer the benefits gained from relaxation into more courteous driving practices."

To avoid becoming a victim of road rage, practice the following "rules of the road":

§   do not make eye contact

§   practice relaxation techniques; try deep breathing

§   do not make or return angry, obscene gestures

§   back off and let the other driver get ahead of you

§   congratulate yourself on your maturity and self-control

Peace, kindness, self control.

As we take the advice of John the Baptist, to repent, prepare and allow the fruit of the spirit to take hold, these are only a few of the things in our lives that can change.

As we prepare for the coming Christ by putting up decorations, by buying gifts, by getting into the Christmas spirit, I hope we might also begin the process of repenting and changing our lives of speaking out in preparation of the coming of the Lord and in allowing the fruit of the Spirit to take root and blossom in our lives.

Amen