😇 Advent 3
Readings: 📜Isaiah 35 :1-10; 🎶Psalm 145 (146) 5-10; 📜James 5 :7-10; 📜Matthew 11 2-11.
Central Thesis/Theme: John the Baptist's doubt from prison reveals a fundamental debate about confronting systemic oppression. John sees Rome as the primary enemy requiring direct anti-imperial resistance, while Jesus targets something deeper—the ideology of entitlement that creates in-group/out-group categories. Jesus refuses to alienate those trapped in corrupt systems (like military families) even while condemning the systems themselves, modeling a "sharper razor" that separates the bathwater of oppression from the baby of human dignity.
Key Textual/Historical Insights: The Greek word hodos (The Way/path) connects Isaiah's prophecy to John's preparation ministry. "Born of women" is Hebrew idiom for "all humanity"—Jesus declares nobody in all human history greater than John while still moving beyond his approach. First-century Galilee had brown-skinned Herodian troops, not Roman legionnaires; the "centurion of great faith" would have been a local auxiliary soldier, not a white Roman. Luke's placement of this episode immediately after the centurion's healing highlights the tension, while Matthew's different timeline may reflect anti-military concerns. Jesus uses basileus (kingdom) language because Antipas rules Galilee as a client king, but the Greek concept of politea (republic) better captures Jesus's power-distribution model versus pyramid hierarchy.
Theological Argument: Jesus rejects hoarding divine authority at the top of a hierarchy, instead "digging down deeper" to distribute God's power among ordinary people. This isn't soft compromise—it's recognizing that the root problem isn't the emperor but entitlement itself: "the idea that we have the right thing and those on the outside have the wrong thing." Jesus warns against being "scandalized" by his healing of an imperial collaborator's child, arguing we must condemn corrupt systems without alienating vulnerable people trapped within them who need "backdoor handouts" from the charity industrial complex or military industrial complex for survival.
Contemporary Application: Modern movements for justice face the same tension: How do we resist oppression without alienating those who joined corrupt systems for survival—money, social stability, lack of options? Logan draws on his own military experience to argue Jesus models separating the bath water (illegitimate autocratic systems) from the baby (salvation for people at the dirt level). The challenge is going "even deeper" than surface anti-imperialism to address root ideologies while maintaining compassion for those the systems exploit.
Questions Raised:
How do we differentiate legitimate resistance to oppression from alienating the very people who need liberation most?
What does distributing divine power rather than hoarding it look like in practice?
Can we condemn corrupt systems while extending grace to individuals surviving within them?
What is the difference between opposing an empire and opposing the ideology of entitlement that enables all empires?
How do we avoid recreating in-group/out-group categories even while pursuing justice?
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Isaiah 35:1-11
1 Be glad, you thirsty desert: let the wilderness exult, and flower as the lily. 2 And the desert places of Jordan shall blossom and rejoice; the glory of Libanus has been given to it, and the honor of Mt. Carmel; and my people shall see the glory of YHWH, and the majesty of God(s). 3 Be strong, y'all relaxed hands and palsied knees. 4 Comfort one another, y'all faint-hearted; be strong, fear not; behold, our God renders judgment, and they will render it; they will come and save us. 5 Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear. 6 Then shall the lame leap as a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak plainly; for water has burst forth in the desert, and a channel of water in a thirsty land. 7 And the dry land shall become pools, and a fountain of water shall be poured into the thirsty land; there shall there be a joy of birds, ready habitations and marshes. 8 There shall be there an uncluttered Way, and it shall be called a holy Way; and there shall not pass by there any unclean person, neither shall there be there an unclean Way; but the wanderers shall walk on it, and they shall not go astray. 9 And there shall be no lion there, neither shall any evil beast go up upon it, nor at all be found there; but the redeemed and gathered on the Lord's behalf, shall walk in it, 10 and shall return, and come to Sion with joy, and everlasting joy shall be over their head; for on their head shall be praise and exultation, and joy shall take possession of them: sorrow and pain, and groaning have are no more.
Psalm 146:5-10
5 Blessed is anyone whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord God(s):
6 who made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all things in them: who keeps truth for ever:
7 who does judgment in favor of the wronged: who gives food to the hungry. The Lord releases those imprisoned:
8 the Lord gives wisdom to the blind: The Lord sets up the broken down: the Lord loves the righteous: the Lord preserves the strangers;
9 they will relieve the newly orphaned and widowed: but will utterly remove the way of mistakers.
10 The Lord shall reign for ever, even your God(s), O Sion, to all generations.
James 5:7-10
7 Folks, be patient until the arrival of the Lord. Look, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, preparing, until it receives the early and late rain. 8 You need to be patient. Prepare your hearts, for the arrival of the Lord is buffering.
9 Don’t grumble, friends, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Look, the Judge stands at the door. 10 Use, as an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Matthew 11:2-11
2 John was imprisoned when he heard of the works of Christ, so he sent two of his disciples 3 to ask “Are you our Expected, or should we look for another?”
4 Joshua answered them, “Go and tell John the things you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame are starting to walk, the sick are being healed, the deaf can hear, the dead are stirred up, and the poor receive good news. 6 Count yourself lucky if you aren’t scandalized by me.”
7 As John’s friends went their way, Joshua began to say to their mutual followers, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A blade of grass shaken by the wind? 8 Seriously, what did you go out to see? A gentleman and a scholar reclining in fine linen? Look around you, those kinds of people are in bed with royalty. 9 So tell me; why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes! That’s right, and much more than just a prophet. 10 John is the one about whom it was written, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare The Way before you.’ 11 I’m telling you, among All Humanity there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptizer; yet but even still, anyone less scandalized by the Republic I’m building is greater than he.”
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Good morning and welcome to. First Formation slash Fightin Words. This is Brother Logan Isaac broadcasting from The Chapter House in Albany, Oregon. This morning's readings come to us from Isaiah 35, Psalm 1 46, James five, and Matthew 11. The podcast it's in transition.
We're going from First Formation, which is what I've been doing for a couple of years, [00:05:00] and I'm keeping in the same RSS feed, but I'm changing it to Fighting Words where we go over in depth into scripture based on the Sunday lectionary every week. Um, and it's also all, uh, hyperlinked pewpewhq.com/tfw.
There you'll find my entire exegetical project with the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint. The Greek, Hebrew Bible, and the Christian scriptures, as well as the liturgical Sundays throughout the next three years, or one liturgical cycle. So this morning's readings, um, Isaiah is probably used based on the text from Matthew about the blind, can see the poorer, having the good news preached to them.
The, uh, and from Isaiah verse five, the eyes of the blinds shall be open. The ears of the deaf shall hear the lamp. Uh, they shall be the, the lame shall leap as a dear. Um, and you'll notice if you're reading along that I've capitalized The [00:06:00] Way, and in Greek, in the sep two, again, the Greek, Hebrew Bible, um, it's the same word in the Greek New Testament, hodos. But hodo basically means the way, the path, the freeway, and this is the same word that John uses earlier when he says, or he quotes from the prophet saying, make straight The Path of the Lord. It's hodos. And the word there is, uh, kfar usually in Hebrew, which is where we get, uh, atonement in Yom Kippur.
And what happens on Yam Kippur, we pave the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, so the travelers are not jumped and beaten and carjacked. Um, making straight The Way of the Lord is also making clean and uncluttered and brightly lit the road to Jericho. But I really want to focus on Matthew 11 if you are a subscriber to Martinalia, my ghost newsletter.
Ghost is the brand name. Anyway, [00:07:00] um, I'm recording this a day late because I had some unanticipated distractions yesterday when I usually record, but I sent out an essay talking about Matthew 11 and Luke seven, and Matthew is a shortened version and Matthew places it a different, at a different place in the timeline.
And I'll, I'll try and stick to the Matthew version because we're in year A, which is a Matthew. Uh, lectionary cycle with the angel because that's Matthew's, uh, evangelist's symbol. But anyway, I want you to notice that John has doubts when he gets arrested and he suspects. I'm sure that he's not long for this world, but he doesn't know yet.
He sends his own followers to his. Not cousin, but he may be a cousin, but they're blood relatives. He sends his followers to his relative, Joshua, real name's Joshua. You call him Jesus as a fourth [00:08:00] century invention by Jerome. But anyway, and think about what is going on, John's like. John Ha comes to a point in which all of his prior ministry, he's come to doubt.
He baptizes Jesus in Luke three and Mark, uh, Matthew four. And you sees the dove, he hears the voice and still John is not so sure we have this doubting Thomas because one of Christ's disciples wants to put the finger in his side to be sure. But John's doubt at this moment is very. Significant. And so ge and I want to play make sure we understand Jesus.
Joshua starts by following John. John is older by nearly a year, but not quite a year. Remember, Elizabeth is pregnant first, and then Mary comes to her pregnant saying, I'm also gonna have a kid. So they're very close in age, John. It [00:09:00] goes out into the, the wilderness with camel skin, uh, camel hair and the belt.
And he eats locust and he's. Got this wild look in his eyes and he preaches a baptism of repentance. Joshua comes out and Joshua is baptized by John. That means, in other words, Joshua is becoming John's disciple. John is arrested. Joshua inherits or absorbs. John's followers, students, disciples, pupils, and so some of them.
A couple are sent by John, probably from Jerusalem, because that's where Herod is kind of based, well, he's, he has a big base in Sebass. Anyway, he sends these two people, and despite everything that John has seen, John's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And in Luke, this the parallel here in Luke seven, it immediately follows the healing of Captain [00:10:00] Marvel, the centurion of great faith.
And now some civilian, uh, exes, uh, have suggested that Centurion, the centurion, great faith Captain Marvel, you know, he's a soldier. That's all we need to know. If you think, if you hear soldier in first century Palestine and you think white skinned with a cool little like Roman or Greek styled helmet, you've got the wrong image in your mind.
Uh, in Galilee, at least, I don't remember where this specifically occurred, but the Romans don't have Galilee. That's Antipas. And Antipas is a Roman puppet, but they give him leeway. They only have Brown skinned Herodian numerii, which are local troops, uh, that are, that are equipped and supplied by Antipas. Uh, then they have the auxiliary troops, which are [00:11:00] local recruits, brown skinned recruits, who would've reported to a (Roman) Syrian auxiliary unit.
This is in Galilee, remember? But there wouldn't have been that many because Antipas is the one who's in charge. And so the Syrian recruits, maybe they encountered them whenever they went down into the Roman province of Judea underneath Pilate's control.
Like Joshua up in Galilee, they don't see Roman soldiers. They only see hero soldiers. And down in, uh, in the province of Judea, it is under direct Roman control, under Pilate whose base is in Caesarea Maritima off on the coast where he probably maybe has a Legionnaire cohort. Um. And then in Sebaste (Samaria), there's a strong recruiting center for Syrian recruits, and then in Jerusalem there's a Jerusalem cohort of auxiliary troops.
All of those auxiliary troops would've been dark skinned, just like Jesus and [00:12:00] up in Galilee, they would've been even closer to the culture because they don't answer to Rome up in Galilee, they answer to Antipas or Antipas. Anyway. So in Luke, this happens right after a brown skinned, but Roman collaborator has a son who is healed.
And that is the moment that Luke introduces John's doubt. But in Matthew it's a different timeframe and the doubt is no less significant. And for my money, I think Matthew comes after Luke. But that's just, that's just me. 'cause we get Mark who is like, wham bam. Thank you ma'am. Short. Sweet. Impactful, right as the the war is going on that will eventually destroy the temple in 67 to 70 ad the first Jewish Roman revolt.
Um, and Mark is urgent, right? We need to figure this stuff out. Then for my money, Luke comes along, he writes Luke and Acts, which is very Gentile leaning, and then in Matthew for my [00:13:00] money. Um, we get kind of a like, well wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But he is Jewish. Let's not forget about that. And so Matthew is probably, I think, a little bit more anti-military than Luke is.
And I don't know if he just got the timeline different or is, but this community is remembering these events as no less significant, but maybe in a slightly different timeframe. And the very last thing I'll say is that look at what Joshua does. He does not take a moment to make a clean break from John and say, ah, John is wrong.
'cause John I think is much more anti-imperialist than Joshua is. Um, and I think Luke shows that, but Matthew kind of obscures it a little bit, but he doesn't want to alienate John's more ardent defenders, uh, followers who are more anti-imperialist. There are more, you know, zealous against Rome. 'cause Christ had zealot followers who [00:14:00] probably he inherited from John.
But he says, look, um, in, in Matthew, he says, there is nobody sat in the, the specific thing in Luke and Matthew, it's "nobody born of women," which is a tongue in cheek way of saying. Lotty, Dotty, everybody. There has never been in all of humanity, anybody greater than John the Baptist. And here he's basically saying like Elijah and Moses, nobody's better than him because we know Moses had a mom that Elijah had a mom, and John had a mom.
We know John's mom and we know Jesus's mom. So nobody is greater than John. But if you are scandalized by what I'm doing, and here I put the Republic because. The Greek has basileus because that is what Antipas is. Antipas has a kingdom. If this movement had arisen primarily in the land of Judah underneath Pilate, [00:15:00] the Romans had a slightly different system.
It wasn't a democracy, but it was closer to it. And in Acts 22, when the centurion, uh, Claudius Lysias says, I bought this. politea at a great price. Politea was the Greek word for what preceded the Roman Empire before the Roman imperium, which in Greek would've been autokratia, autocratic state. Um, it was a politea and some English translations translated as freedom.
Some of them say citizenship. But in the Greek mind, the original, uh, the original politea was "republic." And he doesn't say, Matthew does not say politea. That's me making a paraphrase of what's going on. Christ is not building a kingdom and putting himself on the top. He is clearly empowering a whole lot of different people to follow his example and do greater good than even he was capable of doing.[00:16:00]
It is all biblical. And so that for me, it's not a pyramid with a cool kid at the top, the cool kids at the bottom, digging down deeper into God, figuring out what's really going on. And so that's why I've put republic. But John sees the empire as the greatest problem and Christ is a little bit more nuanced.
Just, just slightly. His, his razor is just a little bit sharper and he says, don't be scandalized just because I healed an imperial collaborator's child. Uh, blessed are those, gifted are those who are not scandalized by the, the, the distribution of, of God's divine power that I'm setting up.
'cause he is not the high priest. That's caiaphas, he's corrupt appointment. But what he's doing is he's as, as Christ I'll say, like digs down deeper into. Uh, the loving God who gave us this earth that we stand on. He's in my leadership [00:17:00] model, I guess. Like there's a whole lot of shit that can roll downhill and Christ is there for it.
He's gonna take all the suffering that in that is entailed in distributing power rather than hoarding it and hoarding is wrong. And John, I think sees the emperor and Rome as hoarding power because they are. But there's people that are caught up in this system like Captain Marvel, like military families, who even, even in Galilee, they, they are being recruited for the same reasons I was recruited for money and social stability.
And Jesus is essentially saying, don't get mad at them just because you want to tear down the system, which is corrupt, which needs to be, uh, reformed. Don't get mad at them. Get mad at the system. And the system is not really the emperor, emperor or the Empire. It's Entitlement. It's the idea that we have the right [00:18:00] thing and those on the outside have the wrong thing.
Get, get rid of those categories and begin seeing the Embodiment of God, the incarnation Christ, as the distribution of God's power amongst even the lowliest of people, the people at the, at the dirt level. And then get ready to go even deeper because it's, you know, we don't want to alienate the very people that God has come to save from oppression.
The people who need the backdoor handouts, the people who need the charity industrial complex or the military industrial complex like military families. So Jesus and John, I think in Matthew and, and Luke seven. Are having this debate that we often take for granted, but we really need to look as closely as possible in times like ours to be able to differentiate the bath water from the baby, the baby of salvation, from the bath water of the systems that prop up illegitimate [00:19:00] autocrats.
