Well, maybe. True as far as it goes. But the author of the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke contends that the Christ event was very firmly grounded in our world, that the Word became flesh in the midst of a specific time and place and circumstance, that Emmanuel, God-With-Us, came to us in this very political world….

As a theoretical matter, drawing the line between preachin’ and meddlin’ may be hard to do, but, as a Supreme Court justice once opined about obscenity, we all know it when we see it. Preachin’ turns to meddlin’ when the message cuts too close to home, when it uncomfortably confronts us and our real-world choices and preferences.

I expect the same charge made against that Appalachian preacher – that of going from preachin’ to meddlin’ – could have been leveled against John the Baptizer. Indeed, I know it was, because his preaching got him imprisoned by Herod, the ruler of Galilee, and ultimately cost him his head. It was not John’s call to people to repent, to turn away from their sinful ways, in the abstract that got him into trouble. No, John had the audacity to call Herod out on his scandalous and unlawful marriage of his brother’s wife, and he had the boldness to call Herod on his abuse of power and oppression of the people – his politics. His faithfulness, courage and honesty got him what it often gets prophets – killed.

The evangelist known as Luke, when he wrote down his gospel account, goes to extraordinary lengths to convince his readers that the gospel of Jesus Christ is, at its very core, a political gospel, that it is a gospel which has implications not only for individual salvation, but also for all aspects of the public world, starting with what we call politics. You remember the opening words of Chapter 2, often read on Christmas Eve: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Jesus is born in Bethlehem because the ruler of the Roman Empire, some thousands of miles away, thought it politically expedient to conduct a census, the first step towards a more effective tax policy. And then here, at the beginning of Chapter 3, when we meet John the Baptist: it is in the fifteenth year of the reign of the emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod the ruler of Galilee, and over in the Temple, atop the religious hierarchy, presided Annas and Caiaphas. There they are, all the most important men of the day, the shakers and the movers, the ones who set the agenda for the rest of us, who shape society.

The society that they shaped was not an accident – it was deliberately and consistently structured for one purpose, and that was to promote and sustain the wealth and power and security of the governing class. In the Roman Empire, that meant, first and foremost, that all aspects of society were structured so as to benefit the ruling elite in Rome – the emperor, his family, and the political elites surrounding them. Rome ruled client states, such as Judea, through appointed local rulers, usually drawn from the native aristocratic class. These rulers were supported and legitimated by religious elites, who claimed that these rulers ruled by divine will. The whole structure was designed and maintained not to serve the people, but the top 1-2% of society.

And yet, and who would of thunk it, Luke tells us that upon this great political stage the word of God comes to John, son of Zechariah, out in the wilderness. Not to the religious professionals in the grand cathedral in the nation’s capital, not to the high and mighty who supposedly ruled by divine right, but to an unknown peasant living off of locusts and wild honey out in the desert. And the message is political to its core – yes, John talks about “salvation”, but the salvation he is talking about is for “all flesh,” and it is not simply a matter of “eternal, time-less truths” and getting one’s head on right – it is about working for justice, it is about remedying inequality, it is about turning from the domination system and its rulers to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Boiled down to a nutshell, John’s message is this: “The Messiah is coming.” “Messiah” is a political designation, the name for the longed-for and expected ruler who would come to confront and throw-out the Romans and their sycophants, who would bring back the kingdom of Israel. It is the announcement of a transforming revolution with real-world implications, not just a spiritual change of heart.

And John tells them that they can get aboard this freedom train now, they don’t have to wait. “What must we do?” the crowds ask. If we were to live as if we really believed that the Messiah, the Christ, were coming, what would that look like? John’s answer is direct – what God wants is not that you have a change of feeling, not that you feel guilty, not that you be afraid; no, what God wants is that you live differently. Whoever has two coats, share with someone who has none; whoever has more than enough food, share it with someone in need; if you are a public official, turn your back on corruption; if you are a soldier, do your duty, but do not use your power to extort money from the powerless.

Luke tells us that Christianity is, at its heart, a religion that cares deeply about the world, about all aspects of the public domain, about how we live together, how we care for each other, how we treat each other. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, that concern goes beyond our neighbors’ souls to embrace everything that affects their situation – as the Letter of James affirms, faith without works is dead.

And those works must extend beyond charity – which is both necessary and to be applauded – to engagement with the social, economic, and political factors that shape and affect our neighbors’ lives. As John the Baptizer might put it, we must not only share with those who have nothing, but also work to defeat the institutions which are created to ensure that the poor get poorer so that the rich might get richer; we must not only administer triage to the jobless, but also strive for an economy that makes good jobs for all who need them; we must not only fund local hospitals who are legally obligated to care for those unable to pay, but also labor together for a health care system that leaves no one behind, and yet is affordable to all.

The Messiah that Christmas brings us is more than a spiritual phenomenon – he is also an ethical, moral, political demand, a demand that saves us not by whisking us away from this world and its institutions and its complex demands, not by somehow having us rise above the suffering of our fellow humanity and this lonely planet, but by calling forth a new people who will follow him in his self-sacrificing, justice-demanding, life-giving path.

Strangely, Luke calls this “good news”: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Perhaps what is good news here is that, like John out in the wilderness, who had nothing going for him other than the word of God, you, too, who are not leaders of national stature, who are not giants of the church like the Pope or Joel Osteen or even the new President of the United Church of Christ, Geoffrey Black, you too have just what John had.

You have the everlasting word of God to guide you; you have the priceless invitation of Jesus to get up and follow on his way; and you have the power (are you ready for it?), the power to move from preachin’ to meddlin’.

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