Today, the third Sunday in Advent, is called Gaudete
Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for
“Rejoice!”, and is the first word in our reading from Paul’s letter to the
Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord
always; again I will say, rejoice!” So
today’s theme is joy. Our Old Testament
reading from Zephaniah sets a joyful tone:
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel! Rejoice
and exult with all your heart, O
daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has
turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.” Our reading from Isaiah continues the
theme: “With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation.” I
already spoke about the joy in our first
New Testament reading, after which this Sunday is named.
And then there’s that other reading, the Gospel reading for
the day. As much as we’d prefer at this
time of year to be with Santa Claus, instead we’re out in the desert, for the second
Sunday in a row, with John the Baptist.
And John is preaching, and sounding anything but joyful as he addresses
the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?” Our four Scripture readings today reminded
me of the old Sesame Street rhyme: One of these readings is not like the
others, One of these readings just doesn't belong, Can you tell which reading
is not like the others By the time I finish my song? Or you could think of the first three
Scripture readings as a kind of joyful conversation, and the words of John the
Baptist as being like your car alarm going off outside: Whonk! Whonk! Whonk! You can’t just ignore the car alarm and
continue your joyful conversation; indeed, unless you break away from your
conversation, go outside, and turn off the car alarm, you’ll be having some very
unpleasant conversations with your neighbors.
And so the words of John the Baptist in our Gospel reading are like honking
car alarm, as much as we prefer the other readings, we need to attend to John’s
words – or at least that’s how it is for me.
Each of the four gospels tells us something about John the
Baptist, but there are interesting differences in what each Gospel tells. In all four Gospels, John speaks of preparing
the way for one to come who is more powerful than he. Matthew’s gospel contains much of the same
preaching as Luke’s gospel, but in Matthew’s gospel, John only calls the
Pharisees and Sadducees vipers. In
Luke’s gospel, John calls the whole crowd a bunch of snakes. He then tells them to bear fruit worthy of
repentance, that their status as children of Abraham, their nationality, would
not save them. He told them that they
were like trees with axes laying on the ground underneath; if they did not bear
good fruit, they would be cut down and burned.
Only in Luke’s gospel does the crowd talk back to John,
saying, “What do you want us to do?” John responds to the questions from the peanut
gallery, and his answers are….not crazy, and not crazy difficult either: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone
who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” It may be hard for us to imagine living in a
world where you have one coat that you not only wear to protect from the cold,
but that also serves as your blanket at night, hard for us to imagine a world
in which two coats would be considered a luxury, but that’s the world John and
Jesus lived in. Some tax collectors asked John what they
should do, and John told them not to scam the public, but only to collect what
was due. Some soldiers asked what they
should do – these would have been local mercenaries cooperating with the Roman
occupation of Judea. And John told them
not to shake down the public by extortion or false accusations, and to be
content with their pay. And that’s the
extent of what John asks: share what you
have, and if you are in a position of authority, don’t abuse your power. And then John goes on to talk about the
coming one who is more powerful than he, who will baptize, not with water, but
with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John
tells the crowd that the one to come will gather the good wheat into his
granary, but the chaff will be burned. Fire, fire, unquenchable fire is at the heart
of John’s message. Even though Jesus had
been among John’s followers and was baptized by John, Jesus was much gentler, much
more gracious, though he could also be harsh when he had to be. There was such a contrast between John’s
expectations, his message of “turn or burn”, and the grace-filled ministry of
Jesus that later on in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels, John the Baptist started
to have second thoughts, and after his arrest, he sent his disciples to ask of
Jesus, “Are you the one we’re waiting for, or should we look for someone else.” Jesus responded by telling John’s emissaries
to tell John about all he was doing: ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and
heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.
And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’
We are disciples of Jesus, not of John the Baptist. To us, John’s words sound harsh and
threatening to the point of being unhinged.
And yet I think there are things that John’s words can teach us.
First of all John spoke of the need to bear fruits of
repentance, and told the crowds that their status as Jews, as children of
Abraham, would not save them.
Apparently many in the crowd thought that their status as Jews would
save them, that their ticket to eternal life was already punched. And we in the church can get into a similar
mindset: I was baptized. I was confirmed. I’m a member of this or that church. Now,
all of these things have meaning.
Baptism is one of the sacraments of the church, and confirmation, or
joining a church, all represent milestones along one’s spiritual journey. But in this life, we can never get into the
mindset of thinking that we’ve arrived, that our ticket to heaven is punched –
because the second we start thinking like that, we become complacent; we are
tempted to stay where we are and stop growing in the faith. We get into the mindset of “what’s the
absolute least that will get me into heaven” instead of “what’s the absolute
most that God can do in my life to make me more Christ-like.”
John told his listeners that their status as Jews would not
save them from the judgment to come. Nor
did John say anything about offering sacrifices or burning incense, actions
which make an outward impression but do little or nothing to transform who we
are inside. Instead, he called his
listeners to behave like people who had sincerely repented, had sincerely
turned away from sin. And then he got
down to cases: share what you have with
those who have none, and if you are blessed with authority or position in
society, don’t abuse your power.
As Protestants, these words may sound like
works-righteousness, trying to work your way into heaven, and turning our backs
on God’s grace. But that’s the wrong
mindset for understanding John’s words.
Remember that Jesus also called on people to make major changes in their
lives, and condemned those who cried, “Lord, Lord”, but didn’t do what he
commanded (Luke 6:46). Here’s one way to
think about John’s words: Jesus taught
about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, saying that it was with us
or even within us. And kingdoms,
countries, governments, have laws, customs, codes of conduct. Citizens of Rome were expected to follow
Roman laws and Roman customs and Roman codes of conduct, to live as Romans –
just as American citizens are expected to follow American law, American
customs, American codes of conduct. But
Jesus told his disciples, and tells us, that our primary allegiance is not as
citizens of Rome or citizens of America, but as citizens of the kingdom of
God. And the kingdom of God has laws,
customs, codes of conduct – sharing and self-giving love among them. In the kingdom of heaven, love is the law of
the land.
For Jesus, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven,
eternal life, is not pie in the sky by and by when we die, but something we
experience now, in this life – or else something we don’t experience. As we
live by the values of the kingdom of God – as we share, as we show self-giving
love to our neighbors, to strangers, even to enemies, our lives are
transformed, we are transformed. It’s
not earning our way into eternal life through our behavior, not about paying a
toll so that we can cross a toll bridge into heaven, but about being
transformed so that we can live in the light of God’s loving presence. We know from nature that some species, including humans, thrive on light and need
light in order to live – and other species, such as fish and other creatures at
the lowest depths of the sea, and species that dwell in caves, need to live
almost entirely in darkness and are damaged by exposure to more than the
tiniest flicker of light. And it’s like
that spiritually as well – what for some may be a warm glow may for others be a
blinding unquenchable fire, which is why in John’s gospel (John 12:36) Jesus called
his followers children of the light, and Paul’s (I Thess 5:5) and John’s (I
John 1:5-7) letters spoke of children of the light and children of
darkness. And so John and Jesus called on their
followers to live into the values of the kingdom of God right here, right now,
every day. I John 3:1-2 has these
words: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called
children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will
be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we
will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
These words of I John 3 leave us with two questions that are
at the heart of human existence: Who are
we? What are we becoming? British Christian writer C. S. Lewis said
that every person, including each of you and me too, over the course of our
lives through the choices we make is being transformed, is becoming – becoming
a being that will be radiant in eternal splendor, or a creature so horrible we
could hardly conceive of it in our worst nightmares.[1] Much of this transformation comes through how
we respond to the pain we suffer or inflict on others, the burdens we bear or
lay on the shoulders of others. God
calls on us, invites us, implores us, begs us even, to allow ourselves by the
power of the Risen Christ to be transformed into beings who can live in God’s
presence forever.
John the Baptist called his listeners a brood of vipers and
demanded change in their lives – and Luke counted this as good news. May John’s words demanding transformation be
good news to us as well. May we be open
to God’s transforming work in our lives, that we may be agents of
transformation in the lives of others. Amen.
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