Advent Week 3: Clowns, John, and the Native Covenant

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Hopi Katcinas drawn by native artists (1904) From Wikimedia Commons

Steven Charleston, an Episcopal bishop, writes:

…the funny thing is, even by his own admission, John is the one prophet in the Bible whom we should ignore. Without his message of doom and destruction, we see him in a different light. John becomes a character of pathos. He stands flailing his arms by the banks of the Jordon, wearing his outrageous outfit, making much ado about nothing. In short, John comes off looking a little odd, a little strange, even a little funny. And that is exactly the point. We should remember John, not because he was a very good prophet, which he was not, but because he was a very good clown.

[Charleston, Steven. (2015). The Four Vision Quests of Jesus (p. 56). Church Publishing Inc.. Kindle Edition.]

After this past Sunday’s story of John the Baptist railing about Jesus burning the unrepentant with “unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:17), I’ve been sitting with Steven Charleston’s interpretation of John as a clown in Native American tradition. John was wrong. Spectacularly so. Yet at the same time, he was preparing people for Jesus’ arrival — if only by setting them up for a contrasting idea of divine fire.

Charleston goes on to talk about how Pueblo koshares and Plains heyokas served to draw attention to the absurdities and contradictions of life. Hebrew prophets were also performance artists—just think of Ezekiel cooking food over a dung fire, or Jeremiah wearing a soiled loincloth.

Advent and Christmas continue to embody these contradictions: we are in a season of frenzied consumption, yet the message is one about simplicity and poverty. The holiday blues and loneliness sit side-by-side with messages of hope and togetherness. At the darkest time of year, we celebrate the light coming into the world. It’s a time when the holy, mundane, and the profane get mixed together. Advent and Christmas are full of contradictions. No wonder our symbol for Christmas waiting is a pregnant virgin.

I think Bishop Charleston is onto something. John prepares the way by embodying these contradictions. He’s the herald for an already-but-not-yet kingdom.

Prayer: Paradoxical God, you defy our descriptions and confound our reasoning. Help us pay attention to the clowns who reveal our world’s absurdities and contradictions.

—Rev. Dr. David Barnhart, Jr.