Hi folks… I hope you are doing ok… This week we have Beer and Carols… It would be great to see you at Platform 2 on Tynemouth station if you are able to join us!
We are though carrying on our advent themes, and this week, Caleb has written the blog although we wont be discussing it, you would be welcome to answers the questions on the Sunday@thepub discord channel or by commenting on the website.
This week’s passage is about someone known to us as John the Baptist, described in this gospel as a “voice … in the wilderness”, “a man sent from God” to testify about Jesus. The gospels describe John as prophesying about a messiah to come, calling people to repent because God’s reign was coming, and baptizing (literally “dipping”) people in the Jordan river.
One thing that immediately stood out to me in this passage was the location on the banks of the Jordan. The town where it happened is still called Al-Maghtas (“Baptism/Immersion”) or Bethany Beyond the Jordan, in the country of Jordan on the east bank of the river of the same name.
There’s been a lot of attention recently to the illegal military occupation experienced on the other side of the Jordan, in the West Bank (part of Palestine). This whole area (both sides of the Jordan) has been subject to occupations by many empires throughout history, including the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Crusaders, Ottomans, and British. In the time of John the Baptist the area was under occupation from the Romans.
In this context of occupation and colonisation, there were plenty of people around at that time claiming to be messiahs, preaching religious-political messages of divine revelation and national revolution against the Roman occupiers (this is one of many things the movie Life of Brian gets right historically).
John would seem to fit naturally into this tradition of attempted messiahs. However, John in this passage makes the point that he’s not the messiah (or even a very a naughty boy). He’s not Elijah or a major prophet. He’s not “the light”—he’s there to testify to Jesus who’s the light.
There were people who followed John as their spiritual-political-ethical leader, and actually to this day there’s still a religion, Mandaeism, that follows John as the last and greatest prophet. I probably shouldn’t speak about a religion of which I am profoundly ignorant, but at least from our Christian point of view, based on what John is quoted saying in these gospels, we’d say that they’ve missed the point in following John himself rather than the “light” to whom John pointed: Jesus and the Reign of God that we believe broke into history with Jesus.
It is an interesting mission to not really do a thing yourself, but point to someone else who’ll do the thing. A lot of us (at least those who were raised by boomers) were taught that we could do anything we set our mind to, that we could be the best and the greatest and the big deal, the rockstar or sports star or political hero, the person to cure cancer or walk on Mars. Even in more everyday walks of life we still buy things like cups saying “world’s best Mum.”
I always thought all that was pretty stupid, as not everyone can be the best. But it must have rubbed off on me anyway. I’ve tried a lot of things in my time from music to writing to activism to comedy to academia, but I’ve often had an annoying feeling of futility if I didn’t think I could become the world’s best at something… even though I know it’s stupid, I still feel it affect my motivation.
Recently, though, I have started to make peace with the idea that maybe if I could just make a small positive difference to someone else who could make a small difference to someone else, etc. etc…. maybe that’s enough! As a parent, maybe the best thing I can do for the world is not to try to do something “great” but do the greatest job I can for my son (and any future siblings he might have). Maybe I should focus on things like: healing from the issues I’ve inherited, to try to avoid passing those issues on to Ishmael. Teach him the values and skills to help him be happy and be good in this world, and just generally give him the best start I can to help him best who he’s meant to be.
In other areas of my life, my role is also more about setting things up for others… e.g. I teach people training for Christian ministry in theological ethics. I love the idea that my teaching can help them be better at their jobs. But then also from their perspective as ministers, they are really setting things up for others too… ministers serve a community, help meet their spiritual needs and then send them out into the world to love and serve.
There are also broader ways that we prepare the way for others. We all leave a natural environment for future generations, and we leave them social, political, cultural environments too. Sometimes we only think about what we can get out of our lives for ourselves, and not about what mess we’re leaving behind. (This doesn’t necessarily even mean we’re selfish… sometimes we only have capacity to think about our own survival.) But when we’re at our best and healthiest, we also think about leaving the world just a little bit better than we’ve found it.
Another way we set things up for others is the values and the politics that we live by. Some people focus a lot on whether their politics are ‘realistic’ and ‘achievable’ or criticise others for having more radical goals. For example, white US Christians often told the Civil Rights movement that they agreed with their aims but that they were unrealistic and shouldn’t expect radical change so quickly (this is one thing Martin Luther King responded to in his famous letter from jail in 1963). But the more we support radical values or ideas that aren’t going to ‘win’ any time soon, the easier it is for future generations to live those values when they don’t seem so radical anymore. Whenever political reform happens, it owes a lot to the radicals of previous years who were rejected and laughed at in their own time. So I think we should be encouraged when we support radical values like abolishing prisons or ending war or transforming to more sustainable economic systems. Maybe we will never see any major party in our lifetimes implementing those policies, but we’re pointing to the way that others may follow sooner or later.
None of these things… radical politics, environmental impact, raising a family, or doing our jobs (depending on the job I suppose) is exactly the same as John’s role preparing for Jesus. But when we think about how we can “point to the light” in all these situations, maybe we can still learn a bit from John.
Firstly, we can learn from John’s humility. It would have been easy for him to start a movement following him, in fact he already had disciples. But he didn’t make it about him. He didn’t lose his head (well, he did in one way… sorry). He pointed to Jesus as the one truly worthy of being followed and worshipped.
Secondly, we can be encouraged that the meaning of our lives isn’t just in the immediate results. John never even lived to see most of Jesus’ ministry or his death and resurection or the spread of the Jesus movement, but John supported all of that.
Thirdly, we can learn that life can still be exciting and you can still be a pretty wild individual even if your mission is not really about yourself but about something else. John “pointing to the light” didn’t stop him being an extreme dude living in the wilderness wearing camelskin and eating wild honey and locusts.
Having said all of this, I want to end with one comment in a slightly different direction: We should also be careful of leaning too hard on the idea of serving some other bigger vision or some other person to the point that we neglect ourselves. Unfortunately there are countless people, especially women, in abusive relationships, who don’t feel that they can get safety and freedom for themselves because they have to stay and support their abusive partner or provide a “stable” home for their family. Unfortunately this is particularly a problem for Christians, partly because of misinterpretations of teachings about humility and putting others first. So: we might feel that our call is more to prepare the way for others, and that is a very good call to have, but our lives and our wellbeing matter too.
Questions
I now realise that we are not doing the discussion this week as we’re doing beer and carols. But I’d already written the questions and Hilary said they were the best part of the blog. So I thought I’d leave them in, just in case anyone is interested.
What are some really good supporting performances in movies/TV shows you have seen? Or some great backing vocals in music?
How do you think John felt about his life mission? How do you think he felt when Jesus came for baptism?
What messages have you received about being the ‘star’ or supporting others?
What can be healthy or unhealthy about wanting to do something special?
What can be healthy or unhealthy about the idea of supporting others to do the special things?
How can we live to set things up the best we can for others while also flourishing in ourselves?
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.