There goes that wild man with his old rototiller. He pushes that rickety old machine up and down the street knocking on doors asking if anyone needs some tilling done.
When he starts that machine up he must pull on that cord at least a dozen times, and it chokes and puffs and spits until suddenly it explodes into life. The muffler fell off years ago.
He puts that thing into gear and it takes off like a stuck pig, nothing can stop him.
He goes in a straight line, bouncing along, getting dragged along behind, rattling his teeth and yelling up a storm and he never stops. He just keeps on going tearing up the dirt without a clot of earth left behind in his wake. Perfectly tilled earth ready for planting.
But like I said he goes in a straight line and he never stops.
He tears through the backyard, runs over the shrubs, hits the fence and knocks it flat, he heads into the woods hits the trees, and you wouldn’t believe it, but those trees get up out his way, branches swaying and clapping and birds flying off every which way.
You can follow him from a distance by the sound of that Brigs and Stratton engine coughing up its gears, and the crashing sounds of whatever happens to get in the way, the swaying trees in the distance, and the barking of dogs, and the general yelling and screaming as he tries to hold onto that speeding rototiller.
Yep, that’s the thing about ole John the Baptist, you can always tell where’s he’s been and where he’s going. That wild man leaves that straight road of perfectly tilled earth, like the first day the earth was made, good dirt ready for life to spring up.
John the Baptist. St. Jerome called him a shaggy man.
He was all about one thing, getting ready for the arrival of God’s Kingdom and God’s Messiah, the Chosen One, the Christ.
John tills up our lives.
We are creatures of dust made from the good earth, and John tills us up getting us ready to grow the seed of God’s kingdom, he knocks down all the walls and fences, he rips up all the weeds and undergrowth, he makes a general mess of our lives telling us to get ready, to make room for God to walk through and plant the stuff of life.
Jesus is about to walk down the row that John has hoed scattering seed all over the place, throwing it willy nilly, higgledy piggledy, casting handful after handful of God’s life making Word.
And we want that Word to have well tilled earth prepared for it.
How do we make sure that our lives are prepared? What does it look like?
In the Gospel according to Matthew a well prepared life is a life that extends God’s blessing to all, especially those who are without, doing for those who can’t do for themselves. God has this thing about making sure that none are left out or forgotten or cut off and we are to continue in that same divine pattern of radical hospitality and reckless generosity.
Jesus is the arrival of God’s radical hospitality and reckless generosity, we don’t want to miss it and John is all about getting us ready, all about tilling up our cluttered lives so that we are able to notice, pay attention and respond.
Here comes that wild man, John the Baptist, with his old rototiller. He pushes that rickety old machine up and down the street knocking on our doors asking if we need some tilling done.
When he starts that machine up he must pull on that cord at least a dozen times, and it chokes and puffs and spits until suddenly it explodes into life. The muffler fell off years ago.
He puts that thing into gear and it takes off like a stuck pig, nothing can stop him.