by Mark Stenberg
Gospel Reading: Luke 3:15-22
For Sunday, January 13, 2013: Year C—Baptism of our Lord
Ripping the Revised Common Lectionary folk has become pretty standard fare. Excuse me for piling on, but this week's gospel text is the RCL at its absolute worst.
The wags over at textweek will tell ya that this is one hack job on the part of the lectionary, shredding a single, carefully told story (Luke 3:1-22) into three bits that simply fail to tell the tale of John the Baptist handing things off to Jesus.
The Political Edge to Luke 3
As chapter 3 opens, Luke names the powers. From the mighty Roman Emperor Tiberius, to Pilate, to the evil and controlling father and son tag-team of High Priests, Anna and Caiaphas—it's all very political stuff. The Roman coins claimed that Tiberias Caesar is the "son of God." No, the voice in the baptism tells us, it is Jesus who is the son of God.
In Luke, John the Baptist is not some weird, crazy hick. He is a political prisoner. He is less Harry Dean Stanton, more Nelson Mandela. He is taken away and locked up. Silenced. For speaking the truth about injustice in high places.
Not only did John the Baptist speak the truth about Herod’s wicked accumulation of money and power, he also was a direct threat to Herod’s economy. He was teaching tax collectors and soldiers not to extort or bully the people. He was teaching people to share their stuff. All of this was too much of a threat to Herod, to his system. So The Baptist is locked up.
Stuck in the Role of Bad Cop
For all the rich political edge to his over-arching tale of love in the midst of Empire, Luke gives short shrift to John the Baptist. Not counting all the hoopla about his birth, Luke spends a paltry 20 verses on John the Baptist.
Unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke doesn't even tell the gory but gripping tale of Herod serving up John's head on a platter. Furthermore, as a character in the story, doesn't he seem rather flat and lifeless? He's the bad cop. He's no fun. He's like your cranky Uncle Roger who shames you for the way you hold your knife and fork.
The Hardest Question
We can infer that John the Baptist had a wide and active community of followers that were merged into the Jesus story. Why does Luke create such a wooden, one-dimensional figure out of the rich legacy of John the Baptist and all his followers? And what does this say about the whole great big community of active disciples of John the Baptist?
Is this just another case of history being written by the winners, trampling over the rich details of those on the underside?
Mark Stenberg is a trained academic theologian who got side-tracked planting churches. He started House of Mercy House of Mercy, with co-pastors Debbie Blue and Russell Rathbun in 1996 and ten years later he left that call to launch Mercy Seat Lutheran Church along with his current colleague, Kae Evensen. Mark holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University where he studied philosophy with the likes of Jürgen Habermas. He is also an adjunct professor at Luther Seminary, teaching in homiletics and in the D.Min. program. Mark lost his spouse to cancer in March of 2007 but is profoundly grateful for every moment he gets to spend with his amazing children, Angela and Mateo.
