“Repent and Rejoice” – Sermon on Dec 9, 2012
December 9, 2012
Scripture:
Luke 3:7-18
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. 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. 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.” And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 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. His 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.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
Sermon: Repent and Rejoice
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Oh I’m so excited about this passage. It is so rich, so much to ponder, so many connections to make to other scripture, to our lives, to Jesus. Oh our cups runneth over. In chapter 1 Luke introduces the reader to John, John the Baptist, cousin or some relation of Jesus, who has been called even before his birth, perhaps even before his conception, to be a Holy man, one who would bring many to God, one who will “make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” And John is fulfilling this call, getting the people ready before Jesus fulfills his call. Luke doesn’t describe John, but you may recall the image Matthew paints of him, wearing camel’s hair coat and leather belt and dining on locusts and wild honey. And here he is out in the wilderness. And people are following him out there, leaving the big city of Jerusalem to hear what this wild man has to say. All kinds of people! We have the Temple folk, people confident in who they are as God’s chosen people. We have tax collectors and soldiers. This is quite a mix. And John takes his mission seriously. He knows he has a lot of work to do to get all of God’s people ready for the Messiah. He wastes no time with niceties. He is fiery in his opening – calling the people snakes, prophesying a wrath to come. Talking about axes and chopping trees to be thrown into the fire.
And he gets to them, really gets to them. At least some of them, lots of them, even, as it is crowds that beseech him, “What then should we do?” I love this. People take his words into their own hearts, do their own inventory. So often when there are fiery preachers talking about chopped trees and burning fire, people look around to take the inventory of other people. Well that one better shape up or right into the fire! They might wonder, what then, should my partner, child, neighbor, boss, employee, etc, do? They are too often confident that they are already doing what needs to be done. Like those with Abraham as an ancestor, they feel confident already that they are not in the pathway of any wrath to come. But the crowds gathered to hear John don’t do that. If they started out that way, John quickly and forcefully lets them know such illusions won’t hold up. Your ancestry, your lineage, your name mean nothing in terms of being prepared for the Messiah to come. He tells them, if you are truly prepared, if you have repented, your lives will show it. You will bear fruit worthy of repentence.
Now repentence does not mean to feel sorry. It does not mean to regret something or to feel guilty or to sit in sackcloth and ashes. It is not about doing penance, or making amends. To repent means to turn, to change your ways, to go in another direction. So if you have been lying or stealing or cheating, you don’t need to go around saying what a terrible person you are. You don’t get to decide you are not worthy of grace and forgiveness and love. According to John you don’t necessarily even have to confess or apologize or make amends, though those things might all help you in your turning. But you do need to turn from that way of living. You need to turn from dishonesty to honesty, from cheating to fidelity, from hoarding to sharing. And you may not do it perfectly all the time, you may stumble in your efforts, but you have to have turned in a new direction and head down a different path.
In our bible study this week we talked about how wonderfully practical and even manageable John’s instructions are. The tax collectors were not well thought of in those times, even less well thought of than they are now. Their job was to collect taxes for Rome, and anything extra they wanted to charge they could keep. So there was lots of room for exploitation in the work. John didn’t say, “Tax collecting is a dirty business and you should just get out of it.” No, he told them to take no more than the amount prescribed. Likewise the soldiers mentioned were Roman soldiers, who had the task of keeping the Jews in line, obedient, quiet. John doesn’t tell them there’s no way they are going to avoid God’s wrath just because of who they are and their collusion with the oppression of God’s people. No, he gives them hope also. Don’t extort, don’t look to take from these people.
John talks about chopping down trees and throwing them into the fire, but his advice seems more like pruning. No whole tree, no whole person will be consumed by the fire, but parts of all of us will be – the greedy parts, the self-centered parts, the dishonest parts. And don’t we want to get rid of those parts? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have those things taken from us and burned in the fire – all those things that separate us from God? Our fears, our judgment of others, our addictions and compulsions, all those things we do that we wish we didn’t, that we wish we hadn’t. Or all the fear and self-doubt that keeps us from doing the things we long do to, from showing the love we long to show? Wouldn’t it be great to subject ourselves to that winnowing fork knowing that is our personal chaff that will be burned off. Wouldn’t it be great to know that we, our whole persons, are not all chaff? John did indeed proclaim the good news to the people. No wonder they questioned in their hearts whether he might be the Messiah.
No, John wasn’t the Messaih. He was the Baptist. He dunked people in the river. Now we Christians understand baptism in relation to joining the fold of Christians. For Jews, dunking in water, or bathing, of course had a different meaning. The Torah prescribed bathing in water as a solution for personal contamination. So if a Jewish person became unclean say, through contact with a person with skin disease, or with a menstruating woman, or a carcass of some kind, they would take a miqvah bath. It was not only a good hygienic practice, it was a means of becoming clean or pure before God and the community as well. It wasn’t a means of absolution of sin, but a ritual related to more physical contamination.
Once in awhile, a Gentile would want to become Jewish. The first step in this conversion process was the miqvah bath. It was assumed that Gentiles would have been in contact with all kinds of unclean things since they hadn’t been following the Law of Moses. So before anything else, they had to get cleaned up. But the miqvah bath had nothing to do with the symbolic washing away of sin. If people transgressed the law in their behavior – if they willfully lied or cheated or stole, the miqvah bath did not do any good – until John started to define it that way. John offered baptism, a dunk that cleansed not only physical impurities, but that freed one from impurities of the heart and soul. It was a ritual that he framed as symbolizing repentence – a willingness to turn to a new way of living. It was a ritual that “forgave” in the sense of releasing from indebtedness. And John offered this not only to Jews, not only to people who wanted to be Jews, but to everyone, everyone willing to turn to a new way of living, whether Temple leader, tax collector or even Roman soldier. So people flock to John, they follow him out to the wilderness. They seek cleansing and he gives it. They seek advice and he gives it. But when they wonder if he is the Messiah, he will not take on that role. He knows he cannot. He knows that he has been called not to be the Messiah, but to prepare the people for the Messiah.
He tells them, “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. He is more powerful than I; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” It’s like John is a coach. He’s preparing the people for a race, yes, but a not only that. He’s preparing them for the regular season games, or as if he is a high school coach getting the players ready for the college coach or the professional coach. The coach helps develop training habits and attitudes that will equip them to learn from those who can bring out even more from them. The high school coach gets the best she or he can from the player who is at a beginner level, but knows the player can only improve by connecting at the next level.
John tells the people, if you have two coats, share one. But Jesus tells people, if someone takes your coat, give him your shirt as well. John tells people to share their food with the hungry, to share from their abundance, and Jesus tells people to give to everyone who asks, and don’t look to get anything back. Jesus at one point describes John as the best human being there is, but then says that he is, however, less than the least person of God’s kindom. John’s advice is a big improvement over how many people then and now have lived, but it doesn’t come close to the way we are capable of living with the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. John is practical, attentive to the need to survive in the human economy. He represents fairness and justice. But Jesus, well Jesus is wildly impractical, prescribing lavish generosity, lavish mercy, extensive inclusion. He tells people, “do not worry about what you will eat or drink or wear. God knows what you need. You already have it. You don’t have to worry about it. Don’t try to hoard or plan. Be part of God’s economy of abundance.”
I need to share the words of Rev. Cannon Gray Temple, a retired Episcopal priest who preached on this. He says: “What accounts for that difference (between John and Jesus)? I think the difference lies in what John named as being baptized or soaked in the Holy Spirit, a soaking Jesus was able to induce and that John was not. John could soak you in water and you’d come up clean. Jesus, as John predicted, can soak you in the very life, the very breath of God, and you come up transformed. Try to imagine how your life would feel if you got soaked in a vat of God’s own substance, like you were a bolt of cloth being dyed God-colored. How economically poor would you feel? Lord have mercy! You’d come up feeling richer than any amount you could ever spend. How scared would you feel of other people? When you’re filled with the life of God, Superman would be timid in comparison with you. How stingy would you want to be? Gracious, you’d feel like you’d burst open unless you could give to other people. How bitter would you feel at those who harmed you? Come on! The offense would feel ludicrous in the light of God’s forgiveness. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he seems not to mean real estate. He’s describing the effective rule of God in human life.” Powerful stuff, isn’t it?
– Not a slur on John. John had a clear purpose and call. Knew that he would decrease so Jesus could increase.
– Can we see ourselves that way? Not as less than, not limited, but willing to decrease so that Jesus can increase in our hearts and minds and souls?vWherever we are, we are – whether on the field learning the rules for the first time, training with John in justice, fairness and mercy, or eager to head up to the big leagues, handing ourselves over fully to Jesus, we are loved, we are on the team and will never be cut, only invited to live more abundantly.
