Wednesday, December 19, 2018

You brood of vipers and heralds of the Gospel . . .


     My social media feed has blown up this week with John the Baptist memes.  It’s not too surprising.  More of those to whom I am connected are colleagues, pastors in various churches and denominations around the country.  More, of course, are active Christians from around the world.  Since we are transitioning from the look toward Christ’s Second Coming to begin to remember His Incarnation (remember, Advent has a dual focus), it makes sense in light of our readings.  A few folks are mad that we celebrate Mary Sunday but the focus is on John the Baptist—that’s why we lit the gaudete candle.  By the way, it is a rose colored candle and not pink, for those of you who wondered.  And yes, I understand I am not wearing the correct shirt today.  Apparently, Almy does not make pink or Gaudete shirts for men.  I think the reading makes it clear that John’s ministry is one of pointing to someone else.  What’s important about His message is that He’s NOT the important one.  That someone else is Jesus, who becomes Incarnate thanks to the faithful obedience of his mother, Mary.
     Of all those memes and funny cartoons I’ve seen and received, my favorites have been the ones that complain they cannot find cards that begin with “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”  Can you imagine receiving Christmas cards during Advent with that greeting on it?  Can you imagine sending cards with that greeting to you family, friends, and co-workers?  By way of confession, I should probably mention I have longed for such cards, especially since I was called to serve at Church of the Advent.  I know.  It’s not particularly surprising to anyone here except the visitors.  But, to be fair, it is our paternal season.  We are supposed to have an eye looking forward to the Second Coming and an eye looking backward towards God becoming fully human and fully divine.  In sending such cards I would be doing what Advent is meant to cause in each of us, plus maybe scaring some recipients a bit!  See, y’all aren’t the only ones who can rationalize sin.  When I say I am the professional Christian, I mean it!  And now, thanks to your chuckles, the visitors are wondering if they inadvertently strolled into a cult this morning . . .
     When we think of John the Baptist, what do we think of?  Some of us think of the camel hair robe, the big beard, the locusts and wild honey, and the “you brood of vipers!”  Those of us who study the Scriptures might eventually get to the doubts of John during his imprisonment before his beheading, but most of us go to that austere picture and hellfire and damnation preaching when we think of John.  For what it is worth, it plagues my colleagues, too.  Some of us had some passionate discussions about whether John is truly a preacher of the Gospel.  For those who think John is too judgmental, too mean, he clearly is not.  For those of us who pay closer attention to the entirety of Scripture, John clearly is.  And I should be fair to those on the other side and remind us all today that Jesus reminds us that John is the greatest of the Old Testament prophets and that all who come after Jesus, including you and me, rank higher.  So there are clearly some passionate discussions to be had.  The question for us, though, is whether John is mean or whether he is full of grace.  I argued with folks this week that when we focus on the viper and hypocrite proclamations of John, we make the same mistake as those who read Exodus 20:5 but forget that Exodus 20:6 completes the sentence and teaching, or those who read Deuteronomy 7:10 absent the light of 7:9, or even Ephesians 5:22-24 without considering teaching of the next three verses.  And this text, in particular, better illustrates the depth and breadth of the teaching of John the Baptist, and might help us understand why people were drawn to hear him preach.
     There is a tradition in the Church that is seemingly secular in its origins that the job of a preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  What is meant by the statement is that it’s the job of a preacher to remind those suffering of the real and active presence of God’s grace and the truth of His promises even as we give spiritual wedgies to those who are self-righteous or to those who are quick to point out the motes in the eyes of others while missing their own logs.  That’s part of what makes preaching so difficult.  How can I comfort you and make others uncomfortable at the same time?  Or how can I prick your conscience and comfort someone else who sorely needs that at the same time?  The truth is, of course, I cannot.  Only God can really do that.
     If I preached about your miserable sins day in and day out, week in and week out, how drawn would you be to come to church?  If I spent all my time pointing out the sins of those in the pews, how long do you think it would be before they began to empty?  To be sure, some would come to smugly hear me pick on others in the congregation, but once I got around to their smugness and their sins, the moral outrage would likely cause even them to depart the pews and the parish.  Any disagreement?  Good.  You all are pretty good students of human psychology.  Now, if my preaching was like that, how many of you would spend hours getting to church to hear it?  It’s ok, I wouldn’t want to hear it either.  I point this out because human nature is human nature.  If John was only judging folks, who would bother to make the trek to hear him preach?  It might be fun for a few minutes to hear him slam the Temple leaders, but once he got around to our sins, most of us would have wondered why we bothered to come out in the first place.  Folks flocked to hear John preach.  They walked hours, both to where he was and back to their homes, to hear him preach.  Clearly, there was more to his preaching that caused them to want to hear it.  Even the Temple leaders, who will later conspire to put Jesus to death, sent folks to hear what he was preaching.  There is no record that they were at all threatened by him like they were Jesus.  Why?
     On the one hand, John afflicts the comfortable.  He addresses them as dangerous snakes, snakes whose bites hurt and kill.  He even goes so far as to remind them that their birth right, in the end, will do them no good when the Judge comes.  And what happens?  Those there want to know what will save them?  So, what saves them?
     Repentance.  It is hard for us to understand the cultural shift, the corporate understanding of God’s people, articulated by John.  We, particularly we Christians, are immersed, pun intended, in the idea of baptism.  Even folks who do not know much about Christianity know about baptism.  John’s audience, though, understood the rite of purification that were done in mikvehs (mikve’ot).  Famously, we focus on the mikveh and women.  Part of the myth that God and His people in the Old Testament were misogynistic arises from the practice that women had to be cleansed before their marriage, after their menstrual cycle, and after child birth.  That’s perhaps our most famous modern understanding of the mikveh.  In truth, the mikveh was, and still is in some place, used for a number of rites of purification.  Think of it not unlike our Christian discussions of sprinkling and immersion and everything in between among our varied denominations.  Some Jews required prospective grooms, like their intended brides, to be purified.  Some, male and female, were immersed in mikvehs on the eve of yom kippur or on the eve of the Sabbath.  Nearly every teaching within Judaism required that converts to the faith be cleansed in a mikveh.  The Jews understood, and many still do, the immersion to provide ritual purity.
     Repentance, though, was a different animal.  In the days of John, how did one atone for one’s sins?  That’s right, sacrifice.  If I was a priest in the Temple and you needed to atone for sins, you would bring your appropriate sacrifice.  I would prepare and hold the animal still for you and then instruct you where to strike to kill your animal.  It would be my job to butcher the animal for you, and offer the burnt offerings to God.  But it was your job to take the meat not offered to God back out into the world, offering your sacrifice to others as a fulfilment of the Shemah and a sharing in the joy you had at being atoned.  People could be scrupulously righteous under the law in those days.  When Scripture describes individuals as righteous, it’s not propaganda or false.  Paul, for example, sacrificed when he sinned, when he was a zealot under the law.
     John’s teaching that one could be baptized into repentance was unheard of in those days.  To get “right with God” meant one had to offer blood, the blood of a specified animal to be exact.  Yet John was teaching and preaching that God accepted repentance, that what God truly wanted was penitent hearts.  For those struggling to make ends meet, this was amazing news.  How can I be made righteous in God’s eyes and not have to go through the hoops of the Temple?  Make no mistake, what the Temple leaders taught was supposed to be grounded in the torah.  But they, like the Church leaders of today, were also sinners.  They added to God’s teaching.  Often, they made the worship of God a burden for the people rather than the release and joy which He meant—a practice for which Jesus will strongly criticize them during His earthly ministry.
     Those who have truly studied the Scriptures understand that what makes us righteous is faith.  Abraham believes and the Lord credits Him with righteousness.  Though David sins a lot, he always repents and returns to the Lord.  In the end, God’s people are those who trust in Him and in His promises, regardless of their ethnic heritage or their sex.  John is simply calling us all back to the basics just before the true man of faith, Jesus of Nazareth, enters the picture.  In the end, it will be His faith in the Father and His blood which saves us.  It will be His wounds that heal us and His blood that reconciles us to God.  We call the outward sign of that inward faith and trust in God baptism.  Baptism is our modern version of that baptism of repentance.  We die to selves and seek to do God’s will.  God, by virtue of Christ’s faith in Him and our trust in Him, assures us of salvation and eternal life.  I have glossed over a lot, but I think I connected enough dots that you should begin to see John’s ministry a bit differently than the caricature offered by so many.  Good.  I see some nods.  If you want the non-cliff-notes version, feel free to grab me after church or during the week.  I love connecting the dots.
     Back to this baptism of repentance.  The fear of the people is not unlike our own.  John instructs them to bear fruits worthy of repentance, and they wonder exactly what that is.  How much is enough fruit?  Did I focus on the right fruit?  We often ask the same question during our end of life reflections.  I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked if I thought the dying person did enough, either by the one dying or loved ones.  It is my job, it is the job of every single priest, a la John the Baptist, to say “of course not, but Jesus did!”  Then I remind saints of their life’s work and callings, much as Jesus will remind John during the season of his own doubts.  What saves us is Jesus’ faith and our trust in His offer and His promises.  As a Church, we have long since abandoned work righteousness, right?  Yet individually, that is where we all go in our Gethsemane moments.  We hear the whispers; we hear the voice that expresses doubt.  And like Adam and Eve before us, we begin to trust that voice rather than the promises of God.
     Like you all now, John’s audience wanted answers.  What is repentance fruit for me?  The crowds ask, and what does John say?  Those with more should share with those who lack.  It sounds like a teaching rooted in the Shema we studied last summer.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself!  Is your neighbor hungry?  Feed them!  Is your neighbor cold and do you have an extra coat laying around?  Give it to them!  Does your neighbor need a ride to the doctor and no car?  Drive them!  Is your neighbor lonely?  Spend some time with them!  I could go on and on.  If you notice a lack and have the means yourself, meet it!
     The tax collectors, of course, realize that they are not well liked by their neighbors, a conditioned well-earned by many.  I have shared repeatedly how tax collectors were a modern version of ISIS supporters who could make us pay them whatever they desired—that’s how much the tax collectors were valued in their day.  They conspired with the invaders that occupied Israel and got rich for doing it!  They hear John’s teaching and ask “What about us?”.  John’s Gospel, loving neighbor as themselves, is so well recognized that Luke begins his introduction of the tax collectors with an “even.”  It’s Luke’s way of saying “John’s preaching was so good the traitors even asked how they could repent.”
     Think modern politicians, if you need an up to date example.  My cynicism toward the overwhelming majority of politicians is well known.  In many ways they are like the tax collectors of John’s and Jesus’ day.  Did they think they were helping keep the peace and order?  Of course.  Did some really think they were doing good for the country—better me to be collecting taxes than a Gentile dog?  Most likely.  Did they get so rich from their work they were effectively cut off from their neighbors?  Yes.  If that makes you uncomfortable because you like politicians, then think of politicians from the opposing party.  What kind of preaching would it take for a Trump supporter or Hillary supporter to find God?  Ouch!  That one too close to home?  Maybe I’m afflicting the comfortably self-righteous this moment . . . What would it take?  They recognize God’s voice in John’s teaching.  So they ask what must our fruit look like.  John tells them to do the job they have been given to do.  Collect the taxes for which the Romans contracted with you to collect, but take no more.  Embezzling and extortion have no place in repentance!
     Luke then shares that even the soldiers come to John, after the tax collectors, to inquire of him what they should do.  We don’t pay much attention to this today, but most of the soldiers would have been shipped in from other provinces in the Roman Empire.  Where possible, emperors preferred that the soldiers be from an ethnic group that hated those where they served.  Why?  How likely would Jewish soldiers be to force their brother and sister Jews to pay their taxes or keep the peace?  Other kings in the Ancient Near East learned the hard way that soldiers’ loyalty was not always to the king.  If they served among their family and friends and countrymen, their loyalties were not absolute.  But if they served among those whom they hated among those who hated them, ah, then, there was no need to worry about rebellion or insurrection.
     Whatever province these soldiers came from, they had to be seen as the mighty arm of the oppressor.  They were viewed as Gentile dogs with swords and spears for teeth, armor for tough hides, and a large pack.  They hear John’s message and they ask how they can bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Think yet again.  Gentiles want to be part of God’s people!  Does John tell them go away?  No.  He tells them to be content with their pay, do not participate in extortion.  Pretty simple, no?
     In fact, all of John’s instruction is pretty simple and full of good news.  Hopefully, as I have described it, you have heard your own questions and John’s answer to your questions through the Holy Spirit.  This pericope, which begins with that famous address of vipers and the promise of judgment, with a bit more sprinkling in of judgment for good measure, spells out for us our mission, individually, in the world out there.  So often, folks come in to ask or argue about whether God can use them to spread His Gospel.  Again and again I remind people that God can do whatever he wants.  Gloriously, and admittedly confusingly at times, He has chosen us to be His ambassadors and heralds.  He has chosen normal folks like you and me to be the ones to preach about His Incarnation and Second Coming.  How do we do that?  By living a life dedicated to Him?
     What does that look like?  Look around you.  It’s as individual as the saint sitting next to you or behind you or in front of you in the pew.  How do doctors glorify God in their lives?  By being the best doctors they be to the glory of God!  They treat those who come before them and seek physical healing for their patients to the best of their abilities.  There are no shortcut, no sloughing.  God gave His best and so they give their best, day in and day out, confident their Lord wants them to bring health in their patients and the world.
     How about lawyers?  They are kind of the modern day tax collectors, right?  How do lawyers glorify God?  By being the best lawyers they can be to the glory of God!  Our system of justice is highly dependent upon the effort and expertise of lawyers.  Cynically, we often say that there is justice for those who have money and those who are poor.  Why?  Because the folks with money get the best effort from the best lawyers.  Christian lawyers should be giving their best effort whether defending a traffic ticket or an innocent murderer or anyone in between.  And even if a Christian lawyer is assigned a client because of our system, they give their best effort because that’s the adversarial justice system that governs us.  Christian lawyers don’t overbill (that’s stealing).  But Christian lawyers do their work knowing their work glorifies God’s love of justice.
     What about teachers?  God wants you to give your best as He is knowledge and Truth!
     What about accountants?  The same!  God is a God of order, not chaos.  Accountants keep businesses aware of financial resources, the government properly funded, and people paid!  The workman deserves His wages, so God loves even accountants.
     The truth is, as taught by John the Baptist today, is that everyone is called to serve God where they are planted, that includes locations and occupations and ethnicities and whatever other distinction we like to make.  We can serve God whether we are black or white, play sports or instruments, like to play computer games or board games, whether we are well educated or just street smart – there is no limit to His ability to use us for His purposes and Kingdom!  None!  Our work may be very different, but we are each called to live our lives glorifying God.  We may go about our life, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, repeating what others call drudgery.  But we know, we absolutely know, God uses us in ways we cannot begin to understand or expect.  The best sermon that folks hear is never from this pulpit, especially this pulpit; rather, the best sermon they hear is in the way God’s people live their lives.  When we live as if He is running short on resources or healing or compassion or courage or whatever virtue He values and extols, we preach a false Gospel and dishonor Him.  But when we engage our life’s work to Him in His glory, then brothers and sisters, we are John the Baptists in the lives of others, pointing them to the Redeemer, the Judge, the One who came to save them, and the One who died for them that they might live for all eternity with Him.  And the wonder of that kind of offer, that kind of love, brothers and sister, is the kind of wonder that will cause others to seek you out so that they might find Him, just as folks and tax collectors and even soldiers and even the vipers sought John, that they could meet Jesus!

In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†

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