It’s Advent and if you’ve been around awhile, you know that John makes several appearances during the season but perhaps this is his most famous. It’s difficult to not memorize the beginning of his sermon in this morning’s gospel: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I want you to listen carefully, because what starts out sounding like bad news, ends up being very, very good news. It’s good to be part of the brood of vipers!
But it’s not just about being part of the brood. It’s clear that John doesn’t have a publicist and doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave those who took some time and effort to come and listen to him. It seems he moves from name called to projection, as he seems to suggest what his listeners had been thinking but no one said, or at least it’s not recorded. He tells them to be careful how they respond to his preaching. He said, “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
This feels like a low blow. For all these ancestors of Abraham, that was the one thing, the only thing they had. They didn’t have wealth or privilege. They were not oppressors; they were the oppressed. They pitched their tent in a place that John was now threatening to remove. They were absolutely without anything to hold on to other than a sense that they were the chosen ones of God. They were under occupation of the Roman Empire. Even the most holy place of their religion, the Temple, was under constant threat of desecration.
It seems like these people needed pastoral care. They needed to be affirmed and supported. Life was rough. Hopes and dreams were non-existent or meager at best. How could a people, selected by God to be the chosen ones, even show up in public without being completely embarrassed or simply beaten down. And how could Luke call all this haranguing “Good News.” Could it be there’s something more important than privilege.
So John doesn’t let up. John shouts that the judgement he is warning them is not some future event. He says that “even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” It sounds like judgment could be good news.
I expect those who gathered to hear John to say something like, “well John, thanks for sharing, we’re out of here.” But that’s not what they say. In fact, if we’re paying attention, we might be taken up a bit short on their response. They don’t turn and walk away but instead ask a very important question. It’s simple and to the point, “What then should we do?” It appears that judgment may be good news.
I mean if the crowd was smart, they would leave. But instead of just cracking open the door a little, they throw it wide open. “What then shall we do?” Surely there had to be someone in the back willing to shout John down or at least tell him to shut up. But that’s not what we get. Could it be that judgment is good news?
“In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” I’m at the point where I am about to shout, “Enough John. They get your point.” But wait, next comes a bunch of notorious sinners, the tax collectors, who have a question. Now tax collectors were the worst of the worst. They collected taxes for the Romans and were told that they could keep whatever they could collect from the poor among them beyond the regular taxes that they accumulated. These guys were so bad that if you even hung out with them on a Saturday night, you were contaminated and considered sinful. Tax collectors only had other sinners as friends and couldn’t even go to the Temple.
Yet here they are seemingly make matters even worse by speaking up. But maybe judgment is good news. They had questions but they were also wanting this guy who had to cause more discomfort than relief to baptize them! Baptize them!! Again, if I’d been there, I would have stopped paying attention to John and probably asked the tax collectors if they were out of their minds. But notice they ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” And they got the answer they had to be dreading because it cut into their pocketbook. It’s not like they were on Social Security. I mean this is all the money they have. And money was needed to live. You needed it buy food, shelter, that sort of thing. Of course, you could barter your way into a Sunday dinner, but what did they have to trade for stuff they needed? And so, John, doesn’t surprise anyone and responds to them “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
OK enough is enough. But there must be something here beyond the words we read. After beating up all the Jewish people who came out to hear this “motivational speaker” John turns on the foreigners. The soldiers step up. “And we, what should we do?” And again, John seems to know what these soldiers have been doing and complaining about behind closed doors. “He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation and be satisfied with your wages.”
We have pretty much exhausted the cast of characters who came out to hear this odd sermon that began in a way that will get you to fail your homiletics course in seminary. You would think he lost them at the “brood of Vipers” line. But maybe God’s judgment is good news..
We suffer from familiarity which can cause to lose the shock of this scene. We have heard it so many times, Advent after Advent. It’s here, we listen, and we go on about our merry way. But the first hearers felt the scandal. Indeed, it feels like John knows them better than they know themselves. And instead of just shutting down the conversation they begin to wonder how John knows them so well. Luke tells us that they began to wonder among themselves if John just might be the messiah. They seem to understand that God’s judgment is good news.
Have you ever considered why they might think John was the messiah? We have already learned that there was a high degree of Messiah expectancy in the first century in Palestine. Many had stepped forward and made that claim. There was either good money to be made in suggesting that you might be the messiah, or there was at least a lot of fame to be earned if one did that. Biblical scholars point out that a great number of people struggled early on with John’s identity, and many did believe he was the messiah. But at least here, John will have none of that talk. Again, Luke tells us that “John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Doesn’t that mean revealing the truth of how we are living is good news?
He’s not the Messiah but there is one who is coming that is. John is prophetically laying the groundwork for the one who is coming. And when people heard the truth about who it was that they were and how it was they were living their lives, even if it was shameful, they took it as good news. Luke says “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” And oddly, seeing who we really are, can lead to the ultimate question of God’s judgement, “this is who you are, is it who you wish to remain?” This is good news because that which is denied can never be healed.
Then John, referring to the real messiah, someone he emphatically says he is not, says that the true messiah has a “winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
We all have felt like chaff from time to time, right? And a lot of fear, and money I might add, has been made by scaring people for a long time by throwing out threats like, “you better do this, and don’t do this, and yeah do that, but you better not do this other thing, because, don’t you know, the unquenchable fire awaits all who screw up.” That’s not the way God deals with us. Instead, what always feels like judgement and condemnation, ends up as love, care, and hope. God is not in the business of quid pro quo, you know, do this and you’ll get that. Or better, don’t do this and this won’t happen to you. Attach a list of moral demands and condemnations, add a sprinkle of hate and hell and well, you have a volatile cocktail that has caused many, many people to feel like God’s love is a tack on. But instead, love, not condemnation, not hate, is the context, the entire context of how God deals with all of us. Judgement is simply an honest look at who you are and how we are living. Without judgement, we wouldn’t know. In this way, God’s judgement is loving and crucial to those who desire to live lives that reflect God’s love.
During this season of Advent when we are all asked to prepare for Christmas with hope, peace, joy, and love we are invited to let the truth of John the Baptist soak in and reveal to us those places where the Good News is blocked by our unwillingness to acknowledge where our selfishness and greed make the good news into bad news. But we don’t have to pitch our tent here, but we can allow this unlikely saint of Advent, John the Baptist, helps us to acknowledge that the love we expect on Christmas morning must be shared and given away, not by what we say but how we live our lives, even if we are tax collectors, soldiers or spies. We need to listen; we need to repent. What seems like bad news, God revealing who it is we truly are, is good news because if we list, after showing us this truth we can hear God say “is this who you wish to remain.” He then give us the grace, God’s love, to change.