Are you Green and Blossoming? Luke 3:7-20

Luke 3:7-20

St. Andrews Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem

December 12, 2015

When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment?  It’s your life that must change not your skin? And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.” Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there---children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it deadwood, it goes on the fire.

     Thus continues our lectionary reading from Luke about John the Baptist this third Sunday in Advent according to Eugene Peterson’s wonderful translation in the Message.

What’s not to love about a guy who gave up a life of priestly privilege to go live in the desert and wear camel skins and eat honey and locusts? What’s not to love about a man not afraid to call religious authorities, puppet rulers, and even the people who to listen out of how they are living their lives, a calling out that not only denounces them but gives them very practical advice on how to change.

     Before we can sing those Christmas carols we all love we must have our Advent dose of this crazy man and his call for repentance. This man, called with the spirit of Elijah, is more than just the guy pointing to the one coming, his cousin Jesus.  Yes cousin, remember that wonderful other Advent story, the one where the elderly Elizabeth and her younger cousin Mary are standing there and the babies---John and Jesus, jump with joy in their wombs in recognition of each other?

     This visitation took place just down the road in Ein Karem, once a thriving Christian village before 1948 now a haven for artists. John is from the priestly elite class whom he now calls a brood of vipers. His message strikes all at their roots with the axe of truth.

God’s axe is laid at the root of the tree of Israel and ready to chop off all that is dead and deadening.  Some have suggested that this root problem is the economy itself that privileges greed and breeds inequity.  Not only does God want to take the axe to this system but he can replace us too for God can even rise up children from stones.

     Now I invite you to pause with me here a moment as we take in these words and imagine them being spoken to us now, here in this time and this place. In this time of daily deadly violence who are the brood of vipers you would like to denounce? Are you one of them? Who are the ones who think it is enough to say we are Abraham’s descendants? Are you one of them? Who are the children of the stone?  Are you one of them?

     John doesn’t care who your daddy is. The only thing that counts is the fruit you produce, the outcome of your actions. You must act in particular visible ways to make a difference. You must move from being complacent about your status to doing something.

Walter Brueggemann in his sermon on this passage reminds us that there is nothing here about moral purity or metaphorical explanations. The Advent message is concrete, real, and doable and concerned about how we treat our neighbor and redistribute the wealth.

     Grace Killian, young Adult Fellow with the United Methodist Church who used to worship with us, put it this way in her Advent reflection on the meaning of John’s instructions, “His instructions reveal an expectation that those with plenty share their abundance and those with power do not use it to exploit those without.  It is a vision of reducing the distance between the haves and the have-nots.

   The list of what you have to do is particular to who you are and what you do or what you have.

If you have two coats, give one away. Muliti-coat people must share with non-coat people. If you have two loaves of bread, do likewise. Share the coats and the goods. Behave fairly; treat people justly. Share what you have and don’t take more than you need.

If you are a tax collector or a person who manages money, do not collect more than the amount prescribed to get extra money for yourself. Know when enough is enough.

If you are a soldier, a keeper of the established order, do not extort money from anyone by false accusation; be content with your wages.

     This is the preparation needed to make the crooked way straight; these are the changes we need to make before we can welcome newness, the coming of God.

     Condemned to be hung as a co-conspirator for Hitler’s assassination, Father Alfred Delp wrote these words about Advent on scraps of paper spirited out by a sympathetic visitor just before he was hung.  Hear how his words echo or intersect with John’s:

     Unless we have been shocked to our depths at ourselves and the things we are capable of as well as the failings of humanity as a whole, we cannot possibility understand the full import of Advent.

     If the whole message of the coming of God, of the day of salvations, of approaching redemption is to seem more than a divinely inspired legend or a bit of poetic fiction, two things must be accepted unreservedly.

      First, that life is both powerless and futile in so far as by itself it has neither purpose or fulfillment…life clearly demands both purpose and fulfillment. Secondly, it must be recognized that it is God’s alliance with humanity, his being on our side, ranging himself with us, that corrects this state of meaningless futility… It follows that life, fundamentally, is a continuous Advent; hunger and thirst and awareness of lack involve movement toward fulfillment.

     “Hunger and thirst and awareness of lack involve movement toward fulfillment.” I love this because this awareness of lack is both about what is missing in ones own life and that of others. Is this not what the Baptist was also preaching, pay attention to your neighbor, what they have or don’t have.

     John unites realism with the possibility of transformation. We let go of injustice, materialism, and inequality to become citizens of a realm of freedom, love, and abundance. This is indeed the good news that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them as Peterson says. Do they give you heart? Do you know where or how to begin your own clearing out process?

     King Herod was not open to John’s message about redistributing the wealth and had him jailed.  He was as threatened by his words as his authority that called into question his imperial rule and power.

     But John’s Advent message cannot be silenced for it lives in us when we accept the call to change the economy, become invested in making the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth. Theologian Nancy Rockwell says this is the economics of hope: “We can meet each other’s needs with our abundance by removing terrors of desperation and hatred among us.”

This kind of repentance of economic change, of removing the terrors of desperation, is the same that Mary sang about while John was in the womb jumping with joy.

      Mary said we should know that this birth of her baby boy would turn our lives upside down and inside out. She asked us to hold our leaders accountable for their actions and inactions---their thoughts and their deeds, their votes of support and their votes against dignity and freedom. She asked us to divest from and boycott their stranglehold of economic, social, and political power. She asked us to feed the hungry by lifting their sieges and shaking off their occupations.

     Like his cousin Jesus, these words from Mother Mary became part of John’s message and ministry. The question is are these words from John and later Mary something we feel called to do or act on? Do they make you anxious and nervous because you love your coats? Do you wish we could just skip this part and get onto the carols we know about angels and shepherds?

     Advent reminds us that the promises have been given and that they will be kept. This is indeed good news is it not church? So keep yourself green in expectation, blossom with love, and then share the fruits in anticipation for the One coming, make yourself into an offering, a gift suitable for a king.