Matthew 3:1-12; Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13
I was ten when my father’s parents died. They had been married over 50 years and only moved twice, the last time just across the road to a house they built. Mom thought they had saved every greeting card that they had ever received. Grandpa had lots of old tools, nails, bolts, etc. We spent the summer packing and emptying the station wagon of the stuff we hauled home. Since their only child was Dad, there wasn’t anyone to divide it up with. It all came home.
Mom’s family wasn’t any better. Mom and Dad helped clean out several family homes. In one station wagon load they got a gate-leg dining table, six Windsor chairs (one with arms) and a wing-back chair, not to mention other odds and ends. When Mom’s mother moved out of a large house into a two-bedroom apartment, we got more furniture and a lot of china.
Granny had several sets of fine china. One set had cream soup bowls and saucers. Another had bone plates and finger bowls. Yet another set had the service plates that went under other plates. She had all the flatware to go with the china. She knew where to put the soup spoons, salad forks, dessert spoons, and seafood forks. She could set a table worthy of Amy Vanderbilt, Emily Post, or Downton Abbey.
Etiquette is more than silverware placement. The Wikipedia article on etiquette suggests that it is a topic which has floating cultural and social boundaries. The initial definition is “a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group.” Some contributors to Wikipedia think that the topics “rudeness” and “respect” should be merged into the etiquette article.
After some history of social mores, the article focuses primarily on manners, a “term usually preceded by the word good or bad to indicate whether or not a behavior is socially acceptable.” It goes on to say that manners “are a subset of social norms which are informally enforced through self-regulation and social policing and publically performed. They enable human ‘ultrasociality’ by imposing self-restraint and compromise on regular, everyday actions.”(1)
It would be safe to say that the Bible has no interest in where the forks and spoons go or what order of plates get used. But the Bible, like books on etiquette, is interested in the social economy, the interaction and interrelation of individuals of the same or differing stations. Yet for all that, the Bible might just be anti-etiquette, at least as we usually think of it.
The Mosaic law was a form of etiquette. It laid out avenues of social contact that were acceptable or unacceptable. These had to do with health and hygiene, diet, property rights, and human rights. Yet anytime rules and regulations are laid out, it is so easy for them to become the focus rather than the original purpose for their enactment.
The Pharisees were the chief enforcers of the religious etiquette of the Jewish people in Judea in the decades before and after Jesus’ birth. The focus was on meeting the letter of the ritual code which made certain demands on those under its thrall. The measurement was to be precise, nothing less, nothing more. So when Jesus ate at the same table as people whom the code called sinners – outcasts, tax collectors, men and women of questioned moral status, foreigners, Samaritans – he was breaking the etiquette of the day.
Another etiquette breaker preceded Jesus. A man named John, who lived in the badlands along the Jordan River, dressed in the rough clothes of a wild man, ate a peculiar diet, and who preached the necessity of repentance of sin made visible through a water baptism. He was a curiosity. People flocked to see him and to hear his message. He was a celebrity, even if he didn’t seek the notoriety. He preached repentance and he didn’t soften his message for the people who were recognizably religious. On the contrary, he cranked it up several levels. His message was consistent: “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!”
The command that John thundered, “Repent – change your hearts and lives,” is in the present tense. That means continual or repeated actions: “Keep on repenting!” “Continually be repentant!” It isn’t like a door we pass through once that gets us into the kingdom. Repentance is the ongoing lifestyle of the people in the kingdom.
Notice how John connects repentance, life change, with the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. That sets up an interesting dynamic for us. How are we supposed to respond to the coming of heaven’s rule? Would you believe that it is not worship or praise, but repentance? That’s the hardest part of the coming of the Kingdom, or the biggest problem with remembering the coming of Jesus at Christmas or Palm Sunday. We want to celebrate and praise, rather than repent. We back off from letting the coming one change our lives. We don’t want to admit to ourselves and God, “I am wrong” or “I’ve done wrong.”
The arrival of heaven’s rule messes things up for the world, and for us. We find out later in Matthew’s gospel (10:7-8) that the coming of the kingdom means healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing those with leprosy, driving out demons; and freely giving as we have received. That’s the message which Jesus gives to John’s messengers when the imprisoned John begins to wonder if Jesus really was the one he was to herald. Perhaps those radical activities are the good fruits worthy of repentance of which John speaks.
Changing our hearts and lives is no simple matter. Richard Jensen offers an understanding for repentance:
Repentance is often understood as an “I can” experience. “I am sorry for my sins. I can do better. I can please you, God.” So often we interpret repentance as our way of turning to God. That cannot be. Christianity is not about an individual turning to God. Christianity is about God turning to us.The Greek word baptizo literally means “to dip,” and secondly, “to wash, (often by dipping into the water)”. If we use the word “wash” — “I wash you with water for repentance” and “He will wash you with Holy Spirit and fire,” we can sense the difference. Washing with water cleanses only the outside. Being immersed in the Holy Breath also cleanses the inside — or one’s entire life — like oxygen in the air we breathe which rejuvenates our blood and every part of our bodies. In other words, baptism is not a finger bowl experience.
In repenting, therefore, we ask the God who has turned towards us, buried us in baptism and raised us to new life, to continue his work of putting us to death. Repentance is an “I can’t” experience. To repent is to volunteer for death. Repentance asks that the “death of self” which God began to work in us in baptism continue to this day. The repentant person comes before God saying, “I can’t do it myself, God. Kill me and give me new life. You buried me in baptism. Bury me again today. Raise me to a new life.” That is the language of repentance. Repentance is a daily experience that renews our baptism.(2)
Brian Stoffregen tells of leading a workshop on worship. He drew a crude stick figure of a person walking into a big box. Then he had the figure walking out of the box. He labeled the box, “Worship.” Then he asked, what do we expect to happen to people in this box? After some responses, he suggested, “Cleansed.” Worship is a time where we are cleansed. Cleansing requires going into one’s life to root out the dirt and filth and crud – and the deeper one goes, the more sin one will find – and the more sin that will be rooted out, washed away, and forgiven.(3)
John throws away the etiquette book. Jesus never picks it up. Nor should we. Repentance – changing hearts and lives – is not about nice social graces that ease social interaction. Repentance is not about what we can do. It is about what we can’t do and what God does do for us through Jesus Christ. The kingdom of heaven is arriving and continues to arrive. God is seeking us. God is excited about the changes that can happen to us. “Change your hearts and lives. Here comes the kingdom of heaven.”
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiquette. Downloaded December 7, 2013, 21:15 EST.
(2) Richard Jensen, Touched by the Spirit (Eugene, OR, Wipf and Stock, 2000), 49.
(3) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday, Matthew 3:1-12.” Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 4:41 PM
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com
Copyright 2013 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
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