The roaring preacher strikes again. This week we hear the voice of John the Baptist cry out again, "You bunch of snakes! Who warned you to run from God's judgment?"
Lots of fun and happy times in church this Sunday!
As I read the text for this Sunday's sermon (Matthew 3:1-12), a thought hit me. Matthew quotes Isaiah 40: "He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the LORD's coming! Clear the road for him.'" I remember from another place (maybe a psalm) that righteousness will go before the LORD and prepare the way for him. That has always made lots of sense to me. Maybe righteous living prepares people to accept God and his kingdom. Maybe it prepares us and prepares other people. Maybe the Kingdom is always "at hand" and is just waiting for us to get out of the way so that it can come. And that brings me to the thought that hit me today. Maybe WE are in the way. Maybe WE are the obstacles in the path of God's Kingdom coming into our world. Maybe it is us, our sin, our systems, which are blocking God and God's Kingdom out of our world. Maybe repentance means getting ourselves out of God's way. Maybe repentance means actually obeying the truth that we already have so that we can experience the Kingdom of God in ways we have never yet seen.
Questions:
How are we in God's way today?
Who are the Pharisees and Sadducees of our world?
I think it must have been pretty shocking for the people to hear John call their religious leaders a bunch of snakes. How would we feel if John called our pastors and denominational leaders a "bunch of snakes"? How might John be right if he said that today? Clearly, these religious leaders had God's Kingdom all wrong. How might we (and our leaders) have it all wrong today? How might we be leading our people into being IN God's way instead of preparing the way for God?
What do you think? Give me your feedback.
2 comments:
Josh,
I've been going through a time of "crisis" in my life since early July. The end is not yet. I've discovered that God uses times like this to help me get to the end of myself, or in your words, to get me out of the way, so His Kingdom can come. I've long since gone beyond the questions, like the ones your daughter is now asking, about answered prayer. I have discovered I can make so sense at all concerning what God is doing or not doing. All I can do is allow Him to be in control sometimes--most of the time. He doesn't often change the weather to make it snow or rain or not snow or not rain. He doesn't often, if ever, cause another person to do something or not do something (He doesn't eliminate someone else's free will because I ask). He does love me, even when it seems like He doesn't even hear my prayer for help. These are the learnings from seeing the bottom of a personal "crisis." Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get high enough to something other than the bottom of the bottom. I'm trusting Him. I have no other way because I have put my faith in Him. "I've gone too far to turn back now," one of my spiritual mentors once told me, shortly before his death. Keep learning as you are, and asking those important questions and asking, "What do you think?" You asked and I responded.
We are in God's way when as countries we sit on our hands in the face of genocide.
We are in God's way when the 'least of these' needs food, clothing, comfort, a hand and we deny it.
We are in God's way when we believe our religious code does not allow us or our children to have non-Christian friends.
We are in God's way when we make presuppositions about the eternal destination of a person's soul.
I ramble....
Fundamentalism is the modern day Pharisee. Whether Christian, Islamic, Hindu, whatever.
John confronts the facade that false piety creates, and tears it away. John sought to expose those that used and manipulated religion as a means to an end for what they were, snakes.
I don't find that many religious leaders have gotten the Kingdom of God wrong; they have simply ignored it, or treated it like a trivial entity next to personal salvation, and a personal relationship.
We are leading people into being IN God's way when we encourage unholy patriotism, consumerism, and that Christ's primary means for justice was the sword and not the cross.
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