There was a feeling of restlessness, as often was the case when Stephen held the floor, partly because of his style but, on this occasion, because no-one could think of anything sensible to say. And while this didn’t always bring proceedings to an end, on this occasion, it did.
As she drove home, Melanie felt discontent with the evening; so much had been passed over so quickly. She had been hoping that someone would want to talk about the dreams mentioned in the text. So many dreams in the first two chapters and then only one more in the whole gospel: to the wife of Pilate. She wondered idly if Jesus ever dreamed. “Maybe the Kingdom is his dream.” Her rambling thoughts distracted her and before she knew it, she had missed her turn off the highway. Her way home would pass through unfamiliar parts of town but eventually she drew up, relieved, into her parking place. It had been another memorable evening.
Chapter 3
A small coffee shop near the Cathedral was a favorite hangout for locals and on the following Monday morning at about 10, Melanie, Al, and Webster had taken over one of its more remote tables for a discussion of progress to date.
She wanted their candid opinions and wasn’t disappointed; the two of them had obviously been in touch and had agreed that things were going well. They both acknowledged that, without serious commitment to “homework,” the Tuesday gatherings would be too much, too fast. Matthew’s Gospel had twenty-eight chapters and it was going to be a scramble to get through in one year. Melanie said, “It’s like being in a straight jacket. I am dreading the Sermon on the Mount chapters. It’s almost impossible to do justice to all that stuff!” But the other two thought it would be better to keep the chapter a week schedule. “Leave us something to read at home,” suggested Webster.
“Part of my trouble,” she grumbled, “is my idea that we should do more rather than less. For example, what about looking at the 1964 movie on Matthew’s Gospel by Pasolini? You might not know,” she said, addressing Al, “that I am a bit of a movie buff and have a copy at home. It’s black and white and takes a very literal approach but it has a power of a very special kind. But that would take a whole evening.” Webster replied, “If you want ideas along that line, I have a friend who teaches New Testament. He visits me occasionally and would probably be willing to come along and tell us what’s going on out there in the world of the scholars.”
In the end they agreed to keep going as best they could and Al suggested that Melanie would need to keep talkers like him “under control.”
Their conversation came to no clear conclusions but it was brought to an end when Al, indicating that he was about to depart, stood and raised his glass of Sprite, toasting their joint enterprise with the words, “I drink to your well-being!” before leaving to take his bicycle from the rack outside. Webster and Melanie exchanged glances. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking,” she said, “that we have a jester on our hands?” Webster grinned at her. “Indeed, it does occur to me that a sprite is a kind of water spirit, often associated with wells!” he said. “Watch out for Al’s sense of humor.”
Back in business the next evening, the group agreed that they had read Chapter 3 in advance so that the overhead was just a reminder. Several commented that the text displayed was not quite the same as what they had read. Melanie explained, “Aunt Matty was rather partial to the Weymouth Translation of 1903 because there was some family connection to Richard Weymouth. Since the overheads were already prepared, I have gone along with them and made a few alterations here and there when I think that Weymouth is a bit obscure!”
They looked impressed and she hastened to assure them that she was not a Greek scholar but had tried simply to smooth out the English.
So there it was:
About this time John the Baptist made his appearance, preaching in the desert of Judaea. “Repent,” he said, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is now close at hand.”
He it is who was spoken of through the Prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying aloud, ‘In the desert prepare a road for the Lord: make His highway straight.’”
This man John wore a garment of camel’s hair, and a loincloth of leather; and he lived upon locusts and wild honey. Then large numbers of people went out to him—people from Jerusalem and from all Judaea, and from the whole of the Jordan valley— and were baptized by him in the Jordan, making full confession of their sins.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he exclaimed, “O vipers’ brood, who has warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore let your lives prove your change of heart; and do not imagine that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our forefather,’ for I tell you that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones. And already the axe is lying at the root of the trees, so that every tree which does not produce good fruit will quickly be hewn down and thrown into the fire.
I indeed am baptizing you in water on a profession of repentance; but He who is coming after me is mightier than I: His sandals I am not worthy to carry for a moment; He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. His winnowing-shovel is in His hand, and He will make a thorough clearance of His threshing-floor, gathering His wheat into the storehouse, but burning up the chaff in unquenchable fire.”
Just at that time Jesus, coming from Galilee to the Jordan, presented himself to John to be baptized by him. John protested. “It is I,” he said, “who have need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
“Let it be so on this occasion,” Jesus replied; “for so we ought to fulfil every religious duty.” Then he consented; and Jesus was baptized, and immediately went up from the water. At that moment the heavens opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him, while a voice came from Heaven, saying, “This is My Son, the dearly loved, in whom is My delight.”
They were all ready for discussion: Stephen couldn’t wait to tell anyone who would listen about the persistence of the John the Baptist loyalists into the next generation, that in Acts 19, Paul arrives in Ephesus and finds disciples of John the Baptist alive and well there. And Webster had a handout ready to be distributed, showing a page from his “Gospel Parallels” in which the various accounts of John the Baptist were put side by side. Then, someone wanted to know how bad the Pharisees and Sadducees were, really, that they were singled out for such condemnation; maybe they were truly interested in what John had to say . . . and what about all the threats of fire?
For the first time, Melanie was perplexed. It wasn’t the start she had envisioned. There was energy in the group but the possibility of anarchy. So she called them to order and appealed for a more systematic approach to the text. “Let’s start at the beginning; there’s safety in that!”
Putting aside her discomfiture, she tried an introduction:
“For this chapter, then, we have high drama; this wild man from the desert (according to Luke, a cousin of Jesus) and his fiery rhetoric. Even his first recorded words might get him into trouble as talk of ‘the Kingdom’ would play into popular expectations of liberation from Roman rule. And his scathing denunciations of the Pharisees and Sadducees made sure of their enmity.” She paused and looked around the group, realizing that she was in full lecture mode, exactly what she had vowed to avoid. “Did anyone have better luck than I,” she asked, “ in discovering why John came on so hot and heavy?”
Some thought that it was a reflection of later conflicts between the early church and the ascendant Pharisaic influence in Judaism in the later part of the first century. But against that idea was the fact that Sadducees had disappeared by the year 70 so their inclusion as enemies would be somewhat redundant. Several had read up on the Pharisees and identified them as pious Jews, keen to keep the law in every detail. They wondered if the scrupulous observance of purity laws by Pharisees was an effective barrier to all but the leisured classes and that they thereby created a barrier to “the outcasts and sinners” with whom Jesus had such sympathy. “If you’re a working man, grabbing lunch from