Zephaniah 3.14-20
A Song of Isaiah
Philippians 4.4-7
Luke 3.7-18
Advent 3
©Suzanne Grimmett
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
These, of course, are words spoken by the character Morpheus in the classic movie, The Matrix. Now 25 years old, the film remains a classic because it speaks a compelling and haunting truth. In case you are not familiar, in the first of the series;
…computer hacker Neo is contacted by underground freedom fighters who explain that reality as he understands it is actually a complex computer simulation called the Matrix. To escape the computer simulated prison, the person has to first be disconnected from the machine’s control by taking a “red pill” which allows the freedom fighters to then physically trace and disconnect the person from the mechanical cocoon in which they continuously sleep and dream, all the while oblivious to their true condition. Neo chooses the “red pill” of freedom over the “blue pill” of forgetfulness which would have returned him to the Matrix’s illusory reality.[1]
Morpheus is the prophet who wakes Neo from his slumber to live in reality.
The work of any prophet is to reveal truth and break down our delusions, exposing the lies any society, political group or religious community tells themselves. Earthly power or authority does not mean anything when such powers are self-created and not aligned with the deepest reality that is God. Like Morpheus, John the Baptist is one who awakens others to see the truth about the world and about themselves.
John is perhaps the greatest of the prophets because he recognised the presence of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the Messiah amongst them when the rest of the world was blind. John saw what was real when all else were stuck in a constructed version of reality and his task was to point to the One who would lead the way out. Those who tried to defend their illusion based on their position in life or ancestry were told very sharply that it is not status, or being a descendant of Abraham that mattered, but rather how they lived. Given the absolute judgement John declares over the religious and political systems of his day, his remedies are surprisingly simple and achievable. John seems to have a realistic assessment of the human condition and our capacity to not have all our motivations right, and says, “Look, for now, while we wait, just get on with being fair in everyday things and act with some decency and basic compassion to everyone.”
Not bad Advent advice, really.
Escaping the matrix and seeing the truth of what was real was as simple as taking the red pill instead of the blue in the movie but is not so easy to discern for us. Evil can masquerade as goodness, and we live in an age where the media which constructs our view of ‘the way things are’ is far from independent or objective. The prophet Isaiah was perhaps one of the first to cry woe upon those who call evil good, and good evil, but how skilled are we today at recognising where this is happening? John the Baptist’s call to repentance is as necessary as it was in the first century. The great analysts of the human psyche, Jung, Freud and Adler recognised and recorded encounters with destructive forces within not only individuals, but nations. They saw, as Christianity has always declared, that there is a capacity for great violence within the human soul. While many have believed in progress and the capacity of humanity to perfect lives of decency and social responsibility, if only offered sufficient education and the right institutional support, this view is difficult to maintain in view of the bloody legacy of the twentieth century. The quest to build a utopian society through ideological or political revolution has failed time and again. Theologian Paul Tillich described two sources of evil in human history which he labelled as demonic. One is within our own psyche, but the other is what Richard Holloway describes as;
The collective dimension of humanity that could possess and override the conscience of the virtuous individual. Together these forces create structures of evil that are well beyond the influence of the normal powers of personal good will. They promote individual and social tragedy of the sort witnessed throughout the twentieth century and which we continue to observe helplessly today.[2]
Looking at the horrors around the globe, the truth of this is clear. What else can you call but evil the violent conflicts that have resulted in the loss of safety, health and homeland and the violent deaths of so many men, women and children. We hear the horrifying statistics, and the sheer numbers make it hard to take in, remembering that every one is a life, with dreams, families, stories. Even in the conservative official figures, 50,000 Palestinians have been killed this year- so many of them children- and around 1500 Israelis in the war on Gaza.
61 000 are known officially to have died in Sudan in the last 18 months. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that there are now around one million Russians and Ukrainians dead from that conflict since it began. Syrians continue to suffer in a bloody, multi-sided civil war. Everywhere, different sides declare their own righteous or ideological justifications, and the bloodshed continues. Groupthink can become an impenetrable barrier to rationality or the ability to separate ourselves, stand back and look at what is happening and who we have become.
We have to hope our communities can also take the red pill of freedom and not simply believe everything media feeds us. I think if John the Baptist were here today he would cry out against not only military domination but also the politics of identity only interested in the pursuit of votes, and against the corruption which allows money to influence the formation of policies. I think John would call us to repentance where religious agendas are motivated by self-glorification or the self-sustaining of institutions not for God, but for their own sake. And I think John’s strident prophetic voice in the wilderness should make us suspicious of our own capacity to hide the lies we tell from ourselves to maintain our comfort and resist the disquieting truth of who we are and who God is.
So, we would be right if you think at this point that we are stuck and can’t get past ourselves. That is where the good news of the coming Christ should reach us, even though a ‘winnowing fork’ and ‘chaff burning with unquenchable fire’ does not sound hopeful! Burning the chaff is not about a division between people of good wheat and the those who are rubbish. Too often the church or individuals have decided they know how to make that division between the worthy and unworthy. In reality the only way of peace is to recognise that the wheat and the chaff are both within ourselves. The presence of the Holy Spirit brings a refining fire that helps us to let go of all that not real- all that is not of love’s kind.
So ultimately the one who comes to baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire comes to heal us- leading us to freedom, breaking us from group think and exposing the lies we have believed about our world our structures and systems and even about ourselves.
The bad news is that we do not have reason to be cheerfully optimistic about humanity and the world. Such positivity is mindless and untruthful.
We do, however, have grounds for relentless hope.
We can and should continue to dream God’s good dream of peace.
And there is reason for joy. Joy because God is coming to us. God is always coming. The systems that demean and enslave will not endure forever, and our own freedom is possible now through the healing power of Christ who is both alpha and omega, and eternally present now within and amongst us.
So take the red pill. Be brave enough to look under the storm of words and positivity propaganda to see that there is great evil and it seems to be our human condition to hurt one another.
And in the face of that truth, be vulnerable and be real. We are all broken and messy and imperfect. But God loves us nevertheless and Christ comes bringing healing, helping us to dream God’s dream again through our lives and by our prayers.
And while we allow that transformation, beginning again and again through the mercy of God, let us take the Baptist’s advice and get on with the small stuff- being generous, being fair and being kind. +Amen
[1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/richardmurray/2020/02/the-matrix-as-an-archetype-of-christian-cosmolgy/
[2] Richard Holloway, “Creating Hell” in On Reflection: Looking for Life’s Meaning, Canongate Books, 2024