Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 3:13-17
As I was walking back to my hotel last night in the French quarter it occurred to me that perhaps instead of convening here in New Orleans to present and circulate our research we should be convening to do some research. It seemed to me quite a fitting setting for making the claim that the decisions and actions of every human being have innumerous consequences for the world and lives of those around her. I have no doubt, for example, that most of us can’t help but hang our heads as we pass by the scores of homeless people that inhabit this city, especially on this very cold weekend, and lament the decisions and policies render people homeless. I suspect, too, that many of us are discomfited by the commercialization of the problematic and romanticized history that haunts this landscape. It almost seems as if history isn’t history unless it comes with a free (or cheap) souvenir. The history itself is disconcerting: plantations built and sustained by African American slave labor abounds. And you could fairly claim that New Orleans is the hometown of the “Separate but Equal” doctrine, which was introduced after an African-American man named Homer Plessy contested judge John Ferguson’s upholding of the racial segregation of passenger trains in Louisiana, and lost. Lest we delude ourselves into thinking that such ethical failures lie only in the American past, the senseless and avoidable deaths of a thousand local citizens in the late summer of 2005 reminds us this is not so. And of course, we are rightly disturbed by the objectification of women’s bodies that doesn’t only occur here on Mardi Gras, but also fuels this town’s burgeoning and appalling sex industry. A simple walk down the street in New Orleans makes it clear that human decisions and actions matter.
That hunch of ours, fellow ethicists, is far from novel. John the Baptist beat us to the punch. In the chapters before the verses we read from the New Testament text this morning, Matthew tells us that John went to the Judean wilderness, where he began to admonish people to repent of their sins, turn to God, and produce good fruit. Matthew 3:6 says that it was as the Jews confessed their sins that John baptized them. Baptism was a sign of repentance, a sign of commitment to God’s will. It was a validation of that commitment that we ethicists share with John, that what people do matters—tit matters before one another and before God.
Here’s the problem with that, though. There’s John, in the Judean wilderness, rightly tearing into people for their neglect of God’s justice, encouraging people to be baptized in a gesture of repentance for their sins, and Jesus shows up. And Jesus is determined to get baptized, too. Now, I am a geography nerd, and so I think it’s probably relevant to mention that the distance from Jesus’ hometown in Galilee to the site where he was most likely baptized is about 70 miles. Of course, Jesus wasn’t going to use, say, Uber. No, that 70-mile journey could have easily taken a week, each way. So, when I say Jesus was determined to be baptized, I mean Jesus was really quite determined to be baptized.
His cousin John must have known all of that. And yet he was just as determined to resist Jesus’ request. “You’ve got this backward,” John seems to object. “If anything, you should be the baptizer and I the baptizee, not the other way around.” And really, John’s reasoning is perfectly logical. Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. And Jesus didn’t have any. Why was he asking John to baptize him?
I’d like to invite all of us this morning to meditate on John’s refusal, and on Jesus’ reply. Because the fact of the matter is, John’s theological analysis is perfectly justifiable. But Jesus’ response makes it clear that Jesus is less concerned with doctrinal logic and more concerned with fulfilling God’s will. And there, at the banks of the Jordan, where God first led the Israelites to the land he promised them, Jesus sought to show once again how deeply God identifies with his people, even in their sin. Jesus reassures John that the baptism Jesus seeks would fulfill all righteousness, but not because it would reverse Jesus’ wrongdoing. Jesus didn’t do any wrong. Rather, John’s baptism of Jesus would fulfill all righteousness because righteousness is fulfilled when God’s love is made known.
This is even more striking when we consider that Matthew is as least as committed to our sense that actions matter as John the Baptist was. The word for righteousness used here—δικαιοσύνη—features in Matthew’s gospel. It’s central. Dale Allison, an authoritative Matthean scholar, claims that, in Matthew, the word means “either god’s norm for human conduct or behavior in accordance with that norm”—a definition which seems pretty relevant to a crowd interested in Christian ethics. Indeed, the term is often and justifiably translated not as “righteousness,” but as “justice.” Friends, in this text, Jesus is teaching John—and teaching us—about the fulfillment of God’s will, the fulfillment of justice.
It would be reasonable for us to object, with John, that God’s justice would demand that an innocent person be required to behave as if he were not innocent.
But in this morning’s text God’s will is fulfilled not in acts that are reasonably justified but in acts that exceed the human categories of righteousness—in the baptism of a sinless man.
And that’s where the real show begins. Not only does this baptism demonstrate Jesus’ total identification with sinners, but it occasions the opening of the heavens, the revelation of the divine to humanity, the hearing of God’s own voice, the expression of God’s delight. And while I’m fully certain that God could have ripped open the heavens and spoken to the people on Jordan’s banks whether or not John was willing to baptize Jesus, I also want to suggest that it was John’s baptism of Jesus, the fulfillment of righteousness, that prompted God to do so.
I think there’s a lesson here for us. I wonder how often we fail, how often *I* fail, to follow John’s footsteps here. Jesus calls us to some unthinkable, incomprehensible task, and our refusals simply will not be dispelled by Jesus’ reassurance that the unthinkable might be the very thing that fulfills God’s will. We may rightly, with John, proclaim God’s law, and yet be unwilling to proclaim God’s grace. We may rightly, with John, proclaim God’s judgment, and yet be unwilling to proclaim God’s mercy. We may rightly, with John, remind the world of the just wages for sin, remind one another that the individual and structural sins we witness and enact here in New Orleans have their logical consequences, that our repentance is required, that the reckoning will come, that, as Malachi tells us, God will punish those who deceit the public, and those who commit sexual abuse, those who cheat their employees, those who oppress widows and orphans, those who disenfranchise refugees. This all we may—nay, must—rightly do, as John did.
But when Jesus approaches him at the Jordan, Jesus makes clear that sometimes righteousness, indeed justice, is fulfilled when we dare to hope in God’s promise to be compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness. And lest we fall into the sentimental idealism that all we have to do say our prayers and just have faith, we should remember that true hope in God’s promises never leads to inaction. No, it’s our actions that bear out our hope in the faithfulness of God. Jesus journeyed the 70 miles from Galilee—and to the very depths of hell—out of his faith in God’s promise.
Are we as willing to proclaim and demonstrate our hope in the gospel? Am I? I wondered, as I reflected on this scene over the past couple of weeks. I remember thinking to myself this awful, shameful thought after it had fallen to me to draft a sermon for this Sunday: you know, SCE is a conference, and I’m an aspiring scholar. Can I put my preaching at SCE on my CV? Preaching is kind of like presenting—you’ve got a message and an audience—and I’ve gotta work on expanding that thing. Does this count?
I realized that I was rehearsing the very worst version of John the Baptist’s initial instincts, sticking to the strict definition of my profession and a very limited understanding about the way the world worked, rather than being enthusiastic about witnessing to those unthinkable promises of God. It is a joyful duty we are, with John, invited to partake in, to allow our professional lives to be diffused with the proclamation of our hope in God’s faithfulness.
Thus, I pray this morning that in the wildernesses each of us finds ourselves relating God’s good law in in the coming months—in the classroom, in the administrative office, and indeed even in the pulpit—each of us might at some time glimpse Jesus approaching the river bank, inviting us to also proclaim the hope that fulfills all righteousness. After all, it’s only then that God is revealed to is in joy and love. May it be so for all of us. Amen.