John the Baptist and today’s dragons

Imagine a dragon giving a press conference. He speaks with his big, dragon head, down over the podium, carefully controlling his fiery breath. He talks about how creatures should treat each other with love, how the world would be a better place if we didn’t light each other’s homes on fire and didn’t kidnap princesses. “For too long we’ve carried on in this way, but TIME’S UP. All creatures, everywhere, must commit themselves to a better way – a way of peace.”

“Now wait a minute,” one reporter says. “Who are you to be telling people this? You’re a dragon. Dragons burn homes, kidnap princesses. That’s what you do.”

“Oh, not me, never. I’m a vegetarian. And I wouldn’t bother a princess – I’m married now, going on our 400th year!”

“But you could! You’re the threat here. Who are you to say anything at all?”
 

The prophet
John the Baptist was a prophet, and prophets existed for one reason: They held up a mirror to Israel, saying, “Look what’s really going on. Now, let me tell you how God feels about it.” Prophets were never popular and always had hard things to say.

When God wanted his people to change, but they didn’t, God sent prophets. Their message was hard, calling Israel to give up idols and treat each other fairly. To care for the poor, the orphan and the immigrant. Considering how often God sent prophets to teach his people how to live, you’d think Christians would be the most pro-immigrant, anti-poverty, anti-idolatry people on the planet.

John the Baptist was a prophet to Israel, sent to prepare for Jesus. In Luke 3, we find John baptizing at the Jordan River and calling his people to repent. So the listening crowds ask, “John, what must we do?” John: “Whoever has two coats, share them. Whoever has food, share it. Don’t extort each other, don’t use your authority for unjust gain.” His message was exactly what all the prophets preached before him: “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God. A broken heart is the offering God desires.” These elements became the hallmarks of Christ’s teaching: “Love the Lord your God with everything you have, and love your neighbour as yourself.”

John’s prophetic call today
The world has changed since the first century, but God’s call hasn’t. Not long ago Canada – and the Christian Reformed Church – finally started reckoning with our ethnic legacy, about the way our forebears treated native Canadians, minorities, marginalized people and women. The U.S. president has accidentally started conversations about race, power and injustices inherent in our systems of society and governance. This isn’t just some random cultural phenomenon; it resonates with the messages of the prophets sent to Israel.

More now than in 60 years, we’re talking about what racism and sexism mean and do – and what to do about them. At the Golden Globes, Oprah Winfrey pointed people to a world where you don’t get a worse life for being black, or get paid less for being a woman. A world where being a man and being white doesn’t give you a free pass to abuse power.

Living in a world where these conversations are taking place sounds like John’s call to neighbourly justice. And that’s what made me feel like the dragon. I can’t seem to be anything but a white, middle-class guy. But as a leader in Christ’s Church, I can’t afford to say nothing. At a time when our churches can be perhaps too quiet about #MeToo, about racial inequality and about white privilege, it’s time for God’s people to remember the voices of the prophets.

Poisoned white male power
We’re in a season in which the long, broken legacy of white men having more power or privilege than others may be coming to end. And that’s not to be resisted – that’s justice. People are being heard who’ve long felt silenced, unable to find others who believe their reports of sexual abuse or harassment. And I think that’s justice, too.

It’s right that people like me won’t have power just handed to us for no good reason. And at bottom, this should give us, as God’s people, hope. Men find themselves in a situation that’s poisonous – not just for women, ethnic minorities or victims. It’s poisoning men’s souls. If we men know what’s good for us, we’ll rejoice that the era of white privilege, male power and ever-more-broken male sexuality is finally being challenged.

A world that gives tacit approval to pornography and to treating women as objects is killing us, our gender and our kids. A world that approves of treating people badly because of their skin colour, while telling people like me that we’re the way that life’s supposed to be. Or that implies that sex is all about what you want, or that you deserve a life better than people different from you. It poisons our souls. It makes us think God looks like us, shrinking God. It’s a culture that hardens our hearts to our neighbours, and no one will escape it unharmed.

A bit of Kingdom justice
What’s happening today has happened before. It fits with John the Baptist’s call to repent, to treat each other better. Christ promised in the Gospel of a different John that the Holy Spirit would be at work, leading us into ever deeper truth. When our world is being pushed painfully toward acknowledging brokenness, idolatry and sin, God’s people must pay attention, examining our own communities, histories and hearts.

God is trying to set us free to do something new, to make a world where men are set free and healed from our own broken legacies. Where women know that they’re equal, valuable and created in God’s image. This is one important piece of justice in the Kingdom of God.