Saturday after Epiphany
As I was reading today’s scripture, I was reminded that John the Baptist is awesome. Sure, camel hair shirts and a diet consisting primarily of bugs doesn’t sound like the most appealing way to spend your earthly existence. Though in light of all this snow and cold that we’ve experienced in Dayton, I’m sure a few of us would welcome the desert heat. So while I wouldn’t want to walk a mile in his shoes, or sandals rather, I really aspire to his sense of humility.
I know what just happened. I mentioned John’s humility and immediately the line from today’s gospel ran through your mind, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Good! First, that means you might know scripture better than you thought. Second, that is exactly the line I wanted you to think of because that is only half of John’s humility and I want to focus on the forgotten part of John’s humility.
See, John’s humility was crafted out of profound wisdom and a Spirit led discernment of God’s will for his life. It was not marked by thinking less of himself, or even C.S. Lewis’s thinking of himself less. His humility was more in line with a traditional Jewish approach that sees humility as taking up as much space as one should. This definition also ties in better with John’s language of increasing and decreasing as he considers the space he occupies.
Now before we allow this definition of humility to give pride a free pass or cause us to fall back into self-debasement I want to bring us back to the two descriptors I used earlier, profound wisdom and Spirit led discernment.
John’s humility was marked with profound wisdom because he already understood a key principle, he is not the one who decides how much space he occupies. John knows that he is not in control, but that God is. He exhibits this with his wild-hair, scratchy clothes, and bug munching lifestyle. I mean the man was the son of Zechariah who was of the priestly line and would serve in Jerusalem, and somehow he found himself as a mendicant preacher calling the Pharisees a brood of vipers. And before we conclude that this was just some teenage rebellion (because who doesn’t try out ridiculous clothes, unkempt hair, and a bug or two in their teen years) we must remember that if Jesus is beginning His ministry around 30, John is just 3 months older. No, I would argue that John is in the wilderness, because in the wilderness there is no illusion that you are in control, and surrendering his desire to have the steering wheel, or maybe reins would be more apt, is the first ingredient of his humility.
The second ingredient is his Spirit led discernment. We know this was present because the angel told Zechariah that he would be “filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.” His being led by the Spirit is really the logical conclusion of recognizing that he is not in control, but sometimes the rest of us don’t get that far. Sometimes we read “God is in control” as “God is just going to take care of this for you.” But Paul calls us co-workers with God. John the Baptist recognized that he was not in control, but he did have something to do, he had to occupy the space God had carved out for him, and he learned what that space was through discernment. This is why he was occupying so much space that people were coming from all over Israel to be baptized by him. This is why he occupied enough space that people consulted him about Jesus. And, this is why he was able to recognize when to get out of the way. With great frequency I discern about starting something, but how seldom do I allow my discernment to tell me when to get out of the way. But if we don’t get out of the way sometimes, we can end up overstaying our welcome in a space that shouldn’t be occupied by us, but should be occupied by Christ.
So, today, let the words “He must increase, I must decrease,” continue to ring in your ears, but with the understanding that it is He who sets me in the space I should be occupying and it is He who takes me out of it. I only increase for His glory and I only decrease for His glory, because He is in control. Lord, may we discern your will for our lives with wisdom and the Spirit so that we may live humbly. But please, mercifully, leave bugs out of our diet.
- Spencer Hargadon