Interpreting the Story

The Gospel stories convey messages which are deeper than the particular events they tell.  Readers may think that belief concerns acceptance of the events reported in the narratives; I believe that faith is better placed in the meanings of the stories as depictions of who God is and how we are to live.

With this in mind, I interpret three verses from Matthew, chapter 3, which will be familiar to many church-goers from the Sundays leading up to Christmas.  There is more going on here than John shouting at the rocks in the desert!

Mt 3:1 Now in those days comes John the Baptizer preaching in the wilderness of Judea…  The story picks up after Matthew’s story of annunciation to Joseph, Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the arrival and departure of the Magi, and the rage of Herod.  “In those days,” when God has become incarnate, and some humans have worshipped and others have threatened violence and destruction, there comes a man with a message.  John speaks his words in the wilderness – “preaching” here is derived from the word kerygma, message, and “wilderness” is derived from eremos, the root for hermit, meaning empty, abandoned, desolate.  For God’s message to be heard, it cannot be shouted into the cacophony of the city, into the noisy distractions of everyday life and mind.  It is uttered into the spacious silence where its deep reverberations can be heard and felt and known both deeply and intimately.   From the start of this story, then, we are asked to enter into silence, to abandon the voices that invite us to judge, plan, review, praise, regret, or in whatever ways, try to exert control. Instead we are invited to let all of that go so that we can attend to the message, the word, the kerygma that John brings.

Note, too, that once again God is speaking something into being.  In Genesis, God spoke into pure formless void, and the whole living cosmos was created.  The Spirit of God was hovering over deep waters, the creative impulse of God was expressed in living plants and animals, and the human community was formed in God’s image and likeness.  In Genesis 2, God gives humans life by breathing into their very lungs.  Speech and breath are God’s creative media, from the very beginning.

Mt 3:2  And what is John’s message?  “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near!”  Kingdom of heaven is, of course, the reign or presence of God.  It is a way of saying “God” without actually speaking the divine name, a practice that began with the rabbis. The nearness of God is indicated by the word engizo, which indicates proximity in both time and space.  John is telling us that God is both Here and Now, not past or future or far away.  And that is an eternally revolutionary message.  Revolutionary, not because it upsets political apple carts, although living in the Presence may tend to upset certain political endeavors, but more because it flies in the face of our daily preoccupations.  Even if our immediate needs are met, our minds are teeming with worries and plans, most of which turn out to be insubstantial.  Yet we cling to those rather than allowing trust in God to bring us genuine Peace.  And therein lies the real translation of the word “repent,” metanoia, which we think of as “saying sorry” when we’ve committed a sin, but which actually means “Get beyond your mind!”  Meta =  beyond, nous = mind. That swirling vortex of mental distractions is NOT going to get us closer to God – God is already Here and Now and if we’d just quiet down our crazy thinking brains we might actually have a chance of “getting it!”

Mt 3:3  And this message is not new.  Matthew reminds his readers that we’ve heard it all before, back in the book of the prophet Isaiah (chapter 40), in which God urges the prophet to speak “comfortably” to Jerusalem, that all is forgiven, and that God will meet the people out in the desert where they are to build him a highway.  First, a look at Isaiah: that word, speak “comfortably,” means to speak to the heart, to the “inner person.”  It is less about sending a road crew into the desert, for surely God does not require our building projects to come close to us, and more about smoothing the rough and rocky places in the human heart, where we have created obstacles in God’s path.

Now, to Matthew: “Prepare” the “way” of the Lord, “make straight” his “paths.” Again, it’s not about sending out the highway department!  Prepare, get ready – get what ready?  Ourselves!  Turn down the static so we can hear the message.  Prepare the way – not just the road, but the Way, hodon, which means the journey, the path, the Way as in the Tao, or the “straight path” of life as in Islam.  Get yourself ready for the God-journey we call Life.  Straightening the path is to make it eutheias, proper, direct, with no unnecessary deviations; in a personal sense, “pleasing,” or in an ethical sense, “upstanding.”  And the other word for path?  Tribos, meaning a well-worn, familiar, beaten path.  Walk that path until it has become so familiar, so well-worn, and so straight beneath your feet that you’re no longer thinking about it, you just know it’s there.  

All those First Sunday of Advent sermons about preparing a highway in the desert because Jesus is coming on Christmas… well… it’s a good metaphor, but as with all metaphors, it needs some interpretation.  Here’s mine.  Wake up!  Get out of your head!  Enter into deep silence so that you can hear the message: God is Here and Now. When you know this for Truth, you will Live the Way [of God] which is simple, straight, pleasing, and upright.

 

Blessings!