December 4, 2005 (Advent IIB)

Text: Mark 1:1 - 8

Title: "When Your Religion Fails" 

I'm glad that everyone made it to safely to worship this morning, braving all of the Saints traffic! I feel that I may need to issue an apology for the email I sent out a few days ago to our "St. Alban's News" email list. Several people had asked me, "Will we have services this Sunday morning? You know, the Saints are playing at noon at Tiger Stadium." I wrote: "We will have Sunday services as scheduled this week. If the early Christians could worship regularly in Rome while the gladiators games were held in the Coliseum, then we can certainly hold regular services here despite whatever is happening in Tiger stadium." (One second after I hit "Send" I thought, "Maybe that was a bit much.") But, you see, I'd been reading about John the Baptist! John was an uncompromising preacher. It's John's particular message of repentance and forgiveness that I'd like us to consider this morning.

 Mark writes: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (1:4). John was a one-theme preacher; repentance was his theme. John was direct, "You need to repent." Let's be sure we're clear about what that word means. Repentance isn't an 'attitude adjustment'. In the Bible, repentance means a total turning around, a turning 180 degrees around from the direction you were heading. Repentance means to turn away from sin, and towards God. We are not used to being told we need to repent. We're used to being told, "You are special, precious, people with no faults, who deserve better than what you have. What you need is a hug." Our leaders don't repent. They don't say, "Lord, have mercy." They say, "Mistakes were made."

 Instead of repenting, we practice evasion, self-defense, and cover-up. I was reminded of this tendency towards cover-up last week. I took the boys fishing and, for the first time ever, we had fabulous success -- about ten, large (large!) redfish. We've never had to deal with success before. So we brought the fish home and I cleaned them all in the garage. It was a bloody, stinky, scaly, smelly, fishy mess! Then, all through the next day, even though I'd showered and cleaned up, I kept smelling fish. Finally, I realized that I'd forgotten to take off this watch, which has a canvass watchband, while I was cleaning the fish. Every time my hand passed by nose I got this whiff of awful fish stink! So I had a brilliant idea. I'll just pour cologne on my watchband. Soak it in perfume. That'll take care of it. But what happened. Now, I smell like a perfumed fish! That's our approach to sin. Just put some strong cologne on it. Cover it up. Perhaps the stink will just go away. That's not repentance. John preached repentance.

 There was also a blood-earnestness about John's preaching, especially evident when we look at the other three gospel accounts. John was blood-earnest, deadly serious about the moment. We are not used to hearing that either. We expect levity in preaching. Humor does have a place in preaching. A certain kind of humor can unmask our pretension. A certain kind of humor can help us to not take ourselves so seriously. Then maybe we can begin to take God seriously. Still, I know I'm often guilty of biting sarcasm, or of shallow humor. I want to be liked. I want people to think I'm funny and clever. There was no place for that in John's preaching. The realities of heaven and hell, sin and death, forgiveness and salvation were too serious. John's blood-earnestness was appropriate to our situation before a holy God.

 Given that constant theme of repentance, and his high seriousness, you might think that people would run from John. You'd think he'd be by himself out in the dessert alone with his judgment, urgency, and confrontation. You'd think people would immediately head in the other direction. Not so. 

Mark writes: And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him , and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins (1:5). The people poured out of Jerusalem. They came out in droves. And they didn't just go out in the dessert out of curiosity, to be entertained. No, they went out to John on his own terms (on God's terms, rather)! They did it his way. Mark says they were . . . baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. They didn't say, "Repent? I'm just not there, John." No. They submitted themselves to his baptism, 'a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.'

 Why did these people respond to John's call to repent with such total abandon? Why did they respond so whole-heartedly?

 In the Sunday morning class, we've been studying the Gospel of Mark. One of the things we've noticed is that Mark always tells us precisely what we need to know, but not much more. (It's sort of the gospel on a 'need to know' basis!) Mark doesn't give us a lot of the details that we might be interested to know about. But whatever Mark does include, you can bet that it's important. This passage is a case in point.

 Mark tells us: And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him . . . . They came out from Jerusalem. As you know, Jerusalem was the seat of Jewish religious practice. The Temple was in Jerusalem. The sacrifices were made in Jerusalem. But John's ministry, significantly, is out in the wilderness. And he calls people to come out of Jerusalem and into the wilderness to repent and be baptized.

 This is Mark's point: John baptized religious people, the Jews of Jerusalem. John called Jews out from Jerusalem to repent and be baptized. To Jews, the idea repentance was nothing new. Jews had practiced ritual washings back to the time in the wilderness with Moses. Many ritual washings were laid down in the Old Testament law. But the call for Jews to be baptized was new and radical. Baptisms was normally reserved for proselytes, those joining the Jewish faith from outside the race. John was saying to these religious people, "Your religious behavior is empty. Just being Jews is not enough. You need a total turn-around, just like those non-Jew proselytes. You need to be washed in the water. Baptized!"

 This is not the first time in the Bible that a prophet issued this sort of call to leave religious activity behind and repent. The prophet Amos records God's words to Israel. And it's not hard to insert ourselves into the text: I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your [10:30 and 6:00 services] solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your [pledge cards] burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your [offertory anthems] songs: to the melody of your harps I will not listen (Amos 5:21 - 23).

 Do you find it hard to imagine that God does not want your religious activity? Do you find it hard to believe that, instead, God desires a penitent heart? That's what John the Baptist says is required of us.

 But it is not the call to repent that brings people out into the dessert. It's not the repentance that will change your life. And it's not even the baptism that changes lives. It's the forgiveness! The forgiveness! That's the end of the repentance and the baptism -- a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin -- forgiveness, real -- total -- complete -- forgiveness by God Almighty. That will bring people out into the dessert in droves! John's baptism represented to them the possibility of a 'clean slate', a fresh start, a new beginning with God and with each other. That's worth leaving Jerusalem for, isn't it?

 In the movie The Mission, Robert deNiro plays Captain Mendoza, a slave trader and mercenary. Mendoza kills his own brother in a fit of jealous rage. He seeks forgiveness, and a Jesuit priest, played by Jeromy Irons, gives him a penance. Mendoza is required to haul a huge bundle full all the weapons of his former life up an enormous waterfall. He drags this awful mass all the way up this huge waterfall. When he finally reaches the top, one of the Indians there takes a knife and - instead of killing him as the viewer and perhaps Captain Mendoza fears - cuts the rope. The huge bundle, all of the burdens and baggage of his former life, goes crashing down the waterfall to sink in the river below. Mendoza comes up out of the water and is received by the very Indians that he had tried to sell into slavery. And he weeps like a child, full of gladness. Why does he weep? He weeps because he experiences forgiveness. Complete forgiveness.

 Haven't you ever wanted to have a fresh start?

Haven't you ever wanted to begin with a truly clean slate?

Haven't you ever wanted to completely begin again?

 Let us pray. Lord, we in the bad habit of offering you the outward forms of religious activity, when what you require is repentance, a real and total turning back to you. You call us to repent, but we cling to the dirty rags of the past; we nurse our wounds; we refuse to change. Lord, I ask that you would soften my own heart today. And I ask that you would also soften the heart of someone in this congregation who is desperate to experience your forgiveness. Help us to repent. Enable us to turn back to you. Right now. This morning. Thank you that you offer us a fresh start, a clean slate, a new life. Thank you that we can, with you, begin again. Amen.