Isaiah 12:2-6; Phil. 4:4-8; Luke 3:7-18
Rev. Laura J. Collins
December 14, 2003
One of the things that I've discovered in many years of preaching Advent sermons is that this is not the time of year one can get away with self-esteem building messages. The scripture presented simply will not abide it. If you want feel-good stuff, you'll have to wait until Christmas. With Advent you get the hard-look-in-the-mirror kind of stuff. Lots of burning away whats not needed.
Take, for example, the difference between John the Baptist and the typical American church when it comes to baptism. Someone shows up here wanting to be baptized, we ooh and ahh and get all happy. People were lining up for John to Baptize them and what does he say? "What a bunch of snakes! Why don't you slither off somewhere else and stop pretending like you really care?"
Can you imagine the reaction if that's how I talked to someone who suggested they might want to be baptized soon?!?
John, however, felt no need to massage egos, smooth ruffled feathers, or affirm people's personal life choices. He was far more likely to wound egos and ruffle feathers. However, as the story proceeds, it is clear that he does not respond to the crowds in some stereotypically condemning way. Maybe he's just trying to do a little crowd-thinning. Maybe he wants to see who's not so easily offended by his first statement that they won't stay to hear some more; to see who's got the guts to follow through on the instincts that brought them out into the desert in the first place.
Those in the crowd who stay do want to know more. After John's initial tirade, they ask him, "Then what should we do?" In his answer mercy mixes with the justice.
Imagine, for a moment, how some righteously indignant liberal Christians might respond if asked by the personally corrupt purveyors of a systemically unjust taxation system how they should prepare to meet Jesus? What if the questioners were mercenary soldiers in an oppressive occupying force?
Those are exactly the people who approached John. Tax collectors and soldiers, both professions well-known at the time for personal corruption and greed; moreover, they carried out the oppressive injustice of a tyrannical occupying government. They are the people who made the oppression possible: the equivalent of the guards in the Nazi concentration camps, if you will.
I imagine that the answer Takoma Park Presbyterian might give these folks would be full of fire and brimstone: Leave the oppressors! Admit your collusion in the injustice of the system! Stand in the village square and renounce your complicity in everything that's wrong with the world! You can't do what you're doing and call yourself a follower of Christ! Turn from your evil ways and be saved!
It sounds pretty prophetic, doesn't it? Has that John the Baptist kind of ring to it.
Except for the fact that John didn't say any of those things. John looked at the crowds, these same people he had just accused of viper-like insincerity, and was filled with compassion.
Do you remember the story where the rich young man comes to Jesus and wants to know how to be a really good Jew? Jesus knows he has to tell him something very hard: to give away his money to the poor. But before he says anything, he looks at the man and loves him. Whenever I read that passage I can see Jesus' face, the gentleness, the compassion, the immense warmth and hope for this devout young man, shining through Jesus's eyes. I can picture how his heart would have been manifest on his face with his love for that young man.
And this is how I see John in this passage. There he is, up on his soap-box, doing his prophetic anger thing, when suddenly he has to look into the faces and eyes of these people in front of him. And all the mercy and compassion and unconditional love of the God who called him into ministry now floods into his heart.
So what does he say? "If you have two coats, give one away. If you're a tax collector, just collect what you've been told to, not a penny more. If you're a soldier, be content with what you're paid and don't extort money from anyone with the force of your position."
Nothing about collusion with injustice or complicity with oppression. Just to do their jobs with as much fairness as they can muster and no greed.
That's the common thread in all three replies: no greed allowed. John certainly isn't letting them off the viper hook completely. Life changes are, after all, a necessary part of the journey of faith. But the call to change is always, always, compassionately embedded in God's absolutely unconditional love. Absolutely unconditional. No conditions. None.
The crowd saw this love in John. They had to, because the next thing that happens in the story is that they begin to believe he's the Messiah. He has to hold them off and convince them that he's really not. He tells them about someone else who's coming. Someone more powerful, more Spirit-filled. We know he' talking about Jesus, right? Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.
So when he gets to this metaphor about the winnowing fork, it' a bit jarring. Last week we got those prophetic words about going through the refiner's fire, which sounded harsh enough. But here comes Jesus with this winnowing fork, ready to throw the chaff into the unquenchable fire. Sounds pretty pitch-forky and scary, doesn't it?
Well, let's think about this metaphor for a minute. The image is of a farmer, someone who has painstakingly tilled the ground and after long, hard, dedicated months, gathered in the harvest. So get the little devil images out of your head and think grain farmer here. Before John Deere accessories.
What is the farmer doing now with his carefully tended, much desired crop? Separating the wheat from the chaff. OK, let's break this right down: what's wheat? Food, right? And how will the farmer most likely use the wheat? By making it into flour to be baked into break or into cereal - bulghur, couscous - to be cooked into a staple part of the diet. Either way, the farmer needs to get the wheat into edible form, because that's why he grew it. The point of the wheat is to feed people. It's purpose is nourishment, not indigestion.
So, in order for the farmer to bring the crop into its intended form, he needs to separate out the inedible stuff, the chaff, the stuff that just gets in the way. That junk needs to be burned away, because you certainly don't want to take up any storage space for the parts you don't need.
Get it? This is not the evil Jesus coming with a pitchfork separating out the Christian Wheat people from the Evil Chaff people. We're all wheat! Tax collectors, soldiers, all of us! And this is the loving farmer God coming to help us all reach our intended purpose: to nourish the world. The same God who has planted and tended and watered and weeded us. Now this God is coming to harvest us and prepare us for our best use yet! And to do that, our useless parts need to be removed.
This is good news! Gospel tidings. Something to be glad about, not something to dread.
Of course, we still need the prophets. The Johns who don't mind calling us snakes if the skin fits. Those who will remind us that even in the compassion of unconditional love, greed can't be tolerated. It's chaff. It keeps us from being usable; it gives the world indigestion. It's got to go. And no need to stick it in a silo for later, just in case. It's useless. Burn it up and be rid of it. Get back down to the core, the seed, the center of who we are. Strip away the protective husks.
John told the people: "Bear fruit worthy of repentance ..." And so, today's reading concludes, "with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people."
It is good news! Thanks be to God!
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