Health Food and Camels' Hair
a sermon based on Luke 3:1-17
By Dr. David Rogne
 
The shaggy-haired young man, named John, had spent most of his life out on the desert. He liked it out there, away from the neon lights, the noise of disco music, and the ladies of the night on the street comer. A person could meditate in the desert, get really lost to God and not be disturbed by telephones, doorbells, sirens or five o'clock freeway traffic. He really wasn't suited to the city. After his parents had died, he had gone to live in a religious community on the edge of the desert. They had told him about life in the city and about the importance of staying clear of all those things that are likely to corrupt a young man.

All his life he had tried to avoid city people, but in recent days he had been feeling an irresistible urge to go to them and tell them to shape up. He had become convinced that somehow there wasn't much time left, and he should at least warn people of the wrath to come. With his country vocabulary he doubted that he would get much of a hearing in the city. Searching through his dog-eared Bible be found what he felt was a divine calling beamed directly at him. "The voice of one, crying in the wilderness." That is what he was all right.  He was in the wilderness, he had a voice and he could use it.  "Prepare the way of the Lord." He was to go on ahead of the main act. He was to warm up the audience. "Make his paths straight." He was called to put people on the straight and narrow. He was to urge people to mend their lives, not their roads. No gasoline tax would be needed for this project! He would tax their guilty consciences instead. "

Every valley shall be tilled." Those who live in the valley of the dark shadows, the depressed, the despairing will have their moods elevated. "Every mountain and hill shall be brought low." Yes, he thought, the exalted, the proud, the obstacles to the flow of God's grace will be leveled out will be removed. "The crooked shall be made straight." To go into Tinsel Town, where so much was based on sham and pretense, and to tell those people to straighten out.  Just to attract their attention one would have to be different.  "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Yes, salvation. God taking his rightful place at the center of people's lives...But first, there must be repentance, and it was his job to see that people got the message.

Convinced that these words were intended for him, and that he had a mission to fulfill, the young man packed his cardboard suitcase, tied it with a rope for good measure, and thumbed a ride as far as the state line, where there just happened to be a river. His first stop was the local watering-hole where the tourists stopped to get fortified before the long trek to the gambling halls across the desert.  Jumping up on the bed of a dusty pick-up truck, parked in front of the establishment, the country preacher opened his limp leather Bible, thumped on the cab of the truck and began to preach. People hadn't seen anything like this for years. It was a better show than the tired soap opera pouring out of the T. V. over the bar, so people came out to listen, to laugh, and to cheer the preacher on as he worked himself into a frenzy.

When he talked about the evils of drink, they offered him a beer; when he talked about gluttony, they offered him a hamburger; when he talked about purity, they looked at Rosie. Some poked fun at his long hair; some poked fun at his camel-skin coat, which still smelled of the original owner, and some poked fun at his professed preference for health food when they had offered him meat.  And yet, there was something about his conviction, the confidence in his voice, the courage with which he stood up to ridicule, that made him appealing to some. Some jeered, but others became uncomfortable. They had heard these words before, but had never applied them to themselves. They knew there were problems in the country, but this man said that the problem was with them and with the way they were living. When he finished preaching, the fiery-eyed evangelist invited any who were under conviction to meet him at the river, where they could be baptized, symbolically washing away the defilement of the past and starting over. Some took him up on it.

Day after day, the preacher repeated his routine, crying out against sin, calling for repentance and offering baptism as a symbol of the newness of life. Before long, he had quite a following, and many people began to boast that they had been personally baptized by the guru from the desert. Catering trucks came early to the baptism site so they could offer coffee and bagels to the hungry crowd who gathered to watch. Hucksters sold little bottles of authentic Jordan water, and tee shirts that had "Repent" printed across the front, and bumper stickers that said "I love John." Everyone agreed that it was a real revival. The whole country was getting born again

But the preacher was not satisfied. Individuals were getting religion, but nothing was changing in society. Religion was thought of as a private matter, with plenty of warm feelings toward God, but the world was still going to hell in a hand basket. As people came out of the cities to be baptized, in the desperate hope of being saved from the wrath to come, the preacher was reminded of the times on the desert when he had seen brush fires race up dry creek beds, sending the desert creatures off in all directions in their attempt to avoid the flames. "You brood of snakes," he said. "You are trying to escape the flames of hell without truly turning to God. That is why you want to be baptized. Well, it’s not enough! Show that your repentance has made a difference. And don't content yourselves that you have a religious heritage that goes back for generations. I don't want to hear about what your grandfather did or believed, I want to see what this faith means to you. God is not interested in roots, but in fruits. In fact, trees that don't bring forth fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire."

The preacher had a way with words. People could smell the fumes of hell; they could feel the heat rising; they could hear the cries of the damned. They had hoped that the waters of baptism would put out the flames for them. What more did this baptizer want? "What shall we do then?" asked a young woman clad in skin tight Calvin Klein jeans, and an Izod sport shirt, her small Gucci purse hanging smartly from one shoulder.  “Whoever has two coats let him give one to the poor,” replied the baptizer. “And whoever has extra food, let him do the same." "Why, that's communism," muttered a heavy set fellow who by all appearances had never missed a meal. "Such actions would only encourage the laziness of the poor," said someone else, turning away disappointedly. But a grey-haired lady wearing snagged nylon hose rolled below the knees, fingering the last few food stamps inside her purse, heard him gladly.

A group of minor government officials, each dressed in a three-piece, navy-blue, pin-striped suit, were standing off to one side of the crowd, discussing what the baptizer had said. "And what about us?" said one of them, nervously fingering the latch on his slim briefcase. “Collect no more than you are supposed to,” said the preacher, "avoid temptations to graft, and don't resort to coercion." The men moved further away from the baptizer, mumbling to one another about their low wages as government workers, about their inadequate pension program, and about how unappreciated by everyone they were.

Some soldiers were also standing by. Obviously, they were just passing through on their way to the gambling houses across the desert.  Standing in the shade of a tree and sharing a six-pack with his buddies, one of them hollered out,  “And we, what shall we do?" They were sure they knew what he would say: "Quit the booze, quit the women, quit the gambling, and quit the army." But the preacher didn't say that. Instead, he cautioned them about the temptations of their profession: violence, taking advantage of the defenseless, seeking personal profit at the expense of others. The baptizer seemed to be saying, "Whatever your profession, stay with it and do the best job you can."

For a lot of people, what the preacher had to say made sense. Some dismissed him as a religious nut or as a country boy out of his element, but others felt that his call for a change of lifestyle was just what the country needed. Some even thought that maybe John was the one that they had been waiting for all these years, the one who was going to make everything work out okay. John smiled and said, "No. My job is just to get things ready. I am baptizing you with water, but when the mighty one comes, he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I'm just the warm up. The main event comes later." Nobody knew what he meant by Holy Spirit, but the part about the fire frightened people. He said that the one coming after him would separate the wheat from the chaff, the useful from the useless, and that whatever was useless would be burned. John knew how to stoke the imagination, arouse guilt, and bring the fearful to their knees.

The preacher himself didn't really know who was to come after him, but he was convinced that when that person came, there would be a fearful time of judgment. Time went by, and then one day, as he was baptizing people in the river, his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, appeared and asked to be baptized. Something told John, "This is the one you've been talking about." John was reluctant to baptize the one who would do such great things, but Jesus insisted and John eventually gave in, When Jesus came up out of the water John was sure that he heard thunder, or perhaps it was the voice of God, he couldn't be sure. Jesus immediately went out into the desert to think through the experience for himself. John went on from one preaching place to the next, never pulling his punches, even when called to speak to the governor.

When Herod, the ruler of those parts, heard that the preacher was in the neighborhood, he called him in for a private audience.  John didn't know that it isn't nice to point, so he proceeded to point out that it was not right for Herod to be living with his sister-in-law. Everybody knew about it, but no one ever mentioned it to the governor. The governor had John thrown in prison, there to stay, until the governor decided what to do with him.

It was while John was in prison that he began to have second thoughts about Jesus. John had preached a grim justice and he expected the one who came after him to carry out that justice. Instead, Jesus was preaching about a forgiving love and picturing God as the host at a marvelous party, or as a father who can't bring himself to throw his children out even when they spit in his eye. John had told people to shape up if they wanted to save their skins. Jesus said that even if you went on making one mess after another out of your life, it still wasn't too late. John ate locust and honey to keep himself pure from any possible defilement; he spent his time in the wilderness, away from the corruption of the big city. Jesus ate and drank what he wished in Jerusalem. John kept himself in good company so that his reputation would never be besmirched.  Jesus spent his time in the company of known sinners and seemed to prefer their company to that of the "religious" people. It just didn't seem to John that Jesus could be the one who was supposed to complete what John had started.

Confined in his prison cell, John decided to settle the thing once and for all by sending a couple of his disciples to put it to Jesus straight: "John wants to know if you're the one we've been waiting for or if we should look for somebody else," they said. "You go tell John what you’ve seen around here," said Jesus. 'Tell him there are people around here who have received their sight after having lost it. Tell him there are people here who have hung up their aluminum walkers and taken up jogging. There are people who have turned in their hearing aids for cell phones. Some people have gotten off their death-beds, and some down-and-outers are living it up for the first time in their lives."

Lying in his prison cell, the baptizer tried to put it all together. He remembered the sense of conviction that led him to respond to an inner call. He remembered how sure he was that those words from Isaiah fit him. He had preached repentance; he had tried to show that repentance calls for more man just words, and he had tried to point to one who would reveal the justice of God. He remembered that day when Jesus had presented himself for baptism, and how convinced John was that Jesus was the one John had been preparing for. Then John thought about the unused hearing aids and the aluminum walkers, and he began to see that he had not had the whole story. He had been right to speak of keeping the law, but it as not law at the heart of the universe, it was love. And that love had been made visible in what Jesus was saying and in what Jesus was doing. Threats may get people’s attention, but love wins the heart. With that thought to comfort him, John rolled over in his prison bed and went to sleep. He and the world were in loving hands. Amen.