Year C. 3rd Sunday of Advent
Lord of the Lake Lutheran Church
Web page http://lordofthelake.org
By The Rev. Jerry Morrissey, Esq., Pastor
E-mail pastor@southshore.com
Lord Jesus thank you for John’s message that whatever our state in life, we are to live it honestly and fairly, being the best, at whatever we do. Amen.
Title: “Being the best at what we do.”
Luke 3: 10-18
John answers ethical questions from his followers and stresses the superiority of the Messiah’s baptism over his. There was a general revivalist movement afoot in John’s day, a movement, impossible for us to determine just how widespread, away from offering sacrifice in the Temple for sin, (Lev5: 14-6:7) toward ritual washing, baptism, as the preferred ceremony to express repentance. It was not unlike the revivalist movement in the Untied States, still popular today, where crowds are attracted to preachers who conduct their services in tents, auditoriums or convention centers rather than in churches. John preached in the desert, not in the Temple or synagogue. The personal attractiveness of the preacher was and is more important than the conventional, rather impersonal rituals of worship. It was a movement away from established religion toward following reformers, especially Baptists. John was one of many such “Baptists.” As an indication of how influential he was Matthew tells us in 3: 7 that even many Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to play it safe and be baptized, maybe as extra insurance, so that they would be on the right side when the Day of the Lord came according to Luke 3:7 which lumps them together with the “crowds,” however. In verses 7-9 we are given a sample of John’s eschatological preaching. That is preaching that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind. Apparently some thought they could be baptized without the requisite repentance. To which John replied, “Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance.” Others thought that being of the lineage of Abraham gave them an edge. To which John replied that it is one’s life not one’s lineage that will matter. A bad life “will be cut down and thrown into the fire” like a barren tree. His baptism was no mere religious ceremony. It was to be an outward expression of an inward change of heart leading to a change of life.
Verses 10-14 give samples of the ethical teaching of John applied to concrete situations. Verses 15-18 give a sample of his Christological teaching, distinguishing between himself and his baptism and that of the Messiah’s. One would expect John, either a former or present Essene, to require people to leave their former occupations and adopt a more stringent, self discipline and self denial life-style. To prepare for the next world, one should leave the present one as much as possible. To this John says “no.” His message to the three different groups of people is the same underlying one: whatever your state in life, live it honestly and fairly, being the best at it that you can. You do not have to be “a religious person” to be “religious.” It is how you live your life, not how you “style” your life that matters. The three groups – the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers – were all looked down upon by the Pharisees, the religiously-correct people. The crowds were “unwashed,” sloppy in the observance of the Law; the tax collectors were dishonest and traitorous; soldiers were unreligious weapons-bearers and mercenaries. Instead of calling these folks to change their jobs and life-styles, John simply says change your ways and do what you ordinarily do extraordinarily well.
In verse 10 the crowds: To all he said, “Share.” Whether it be food, clothing or any necessity of life, the one with the surplus should give to the one with the need. There is nothing specifically religious about this. This is just good humanism, but it is uncommon, extraordinary humanism. To be acceptable on the day of the Lord one need not live a life of self discipline and self denial, like John. It is a matter of how one lived one’s life, in whatever lifestyle. The besetting sin of all people is to keep for one’s self even what is surplus to one’s real needs and neglect or refuse to share it with the truly needy, as “insurance” against a rainy day. One day God’s wrath will rain down upon the earth and insurance policies or “back ups” will not provide umbrellas against judgment.
In verse 12 tax collectors: To this group, unlikely repenters to be sure and an indication of John’s attractiveness, he said, “Be honest.” When tax collectors bought the right to collect tolls, customs, etc. they had to turn into the Roman authorities a set amount. Anything above that they could keep. So, they extorted a lot and everybody knew it, but could do nothing about it. If someone balked the tax collector would bribe a soldier to come and intimidate, threaten prison, or testify falsely in court. It was not just the Pharisees who hated the taxman, a fellow Jew who worked for Rome! John said for them to keep their jobs, but be honest about it. The besetting sin of people who collect or handle money is to pocket some for self. No more said John.
In verse 14: soldiers: These would be Herod’s soldiers, police. Since Julius Caesar Jews were exempt from military conscription, though some served as mercenaries in the Roman army voluntarily. They were to avoid the common sins of their profession, like intimidation, false arrest and false testimony for profit, and be content with their pay and living conditions. They were to be “uncommon” soldiers, remaining in their profession.
In verse 15 whether John might be the Messiah: John’s message and popularity raised the question whether he was the expected Messiah, the inaugurator of the New Age which he preached was imminent. He answered that there was no comparison between him and his water baptism and the Messiah and his Spirit and fire baptism. He was preparing them to meet him. A renewed life of repentance was the best way to come out of the ordeal spiritually on fire but “unharmed by fire.”
In verses 16 I am not worthy: In comparing what he was doing with what the Messiah would do John states that his baptism is merely of water, meaning that people can repent, but that is as far as it goes. To have the Spirit of God requires something from God’s side that no human can do. The Messiah can give that; John cannot. Now, Christian Baptism will involve water, but much more. It will have the effect of fire, which purifies, separating the alloys from the real metal. It will have the effect of Spirit, empowering not just good works but great ones. The term “Holy Spirit” was known in the OT and in Jewish thought. So was the association of Spirit with fire to indicate both judgment and refinement, condemnation for the unrepentant and refinement for the repentant. It could go either way depending on the person. John himself claims a personal unworthiness to perform even the task of slave when it came to the Messiah. He himself was that repentant. No popular excessive flattery was going to confuse him as to where he stood in relation to the Messiah.
In verse 17 his winnowing fan: Using a metaphor from harvesting where a fork-like shovel tosses grain into the wind so that the light chaff would blow away, leaving the heavier kernels to fall to the ground and be gathered, John says the Messiah will separate the good from the bad. The bad will be burnt bad. He uses the metaphor of a big fire, perhaps, the one on the outskirts of town – the garbage dump, called “Gehenna,” which burned incessantly, to make his point.
In verse 18 he preached the good news: “Good news” was a technical term for what Jesus and his followers preached. It is attributed to John, who does not attribute it to himself, even though he does not preach the kingdom as such. He is its harbinger, but he was not the Messiah. The message was not his own. He was an imperfect and inferior facsimile of the real thing. In this way all Christians can identify with John as they are called to do the same thing in preparing for the Second or Final Coming of the Messiah. Christians “exhort” fellow Christians and non-Christians “in many other ways” than preaching sermons, performing religious rites or living a desert life-style.
Only Luke gives us any indication of the moral teaching of the Baptist. It is really teaching that non-Christians could accept whether they became Christina or not. And if we Christians are examples of that teaching we can be attractive as moral inspirations to the unbaptized It is really about being a good person, really an uncommonly good person. There was nothing “common” about the John the Baptist.
A person who gives away his/her excess material goods is not a common person. We are naturally inclined to think and feel like the squirrel, squirreling away our nuts for winter, as many as possible “just in case” Of course, the squirrel more often than not forgets where the cache of cashews is stored and frequently starves to death nonetheless. We are like that, too. We stuff our attics, cellars and garages with all kinds of stuff and forget it is there. John gives all humans, Christian, Jewish and pagan alike, good advice when he recommends sharing what we do need and giving away what we donot. But there’s more to it than good advice. He is speaking of the effect living our lives in the light of our impending deaths can have on each moment we are still alive. In that light, material things do not lose their worth as such, only their exaggerated worth. We need material things, like food and clothing in order to live. To deny that or deprive ourselves of that would be downright foolish. The point is that so does everybody else! To deny them our surplus in the conceit that we might need it someday is to imply that we need material goods more than someone else. Or, to put it in the Baptist’s categories of thought, it is to imply that we are more worthy than others. The idea that anything in this universe is really and truly “ours,” that we really “own” anything, is to imply that we are on the level of the Creator. Pushed to its limit, possessiveness is a form of idolatry. Sharing is both good Christianity and good humanity.
We are all naturally inclined to exempt money- how we earn it, how we spend it, how we horde it- from our spiritual relationship with God. Money is, of course, a material good, and would come under the first piece of advice that the Baptist gave to the crowds. However, the tax collectors were obviously involved with money as a profession. John really gives them the same advice he gave to the crowds, but it is worth noting that money and how we relate to it is not usually something we talk to God about, unless, of course, we think we do not have enough of it. How often do we say to God, “I have too much money, Lord, what do you want me to do with it?” Even husbands and wives are tempted to be dishonest with each other regarding money- how much they have and how much they spend or spent and on what. We are tempted to hide and horde money for that rainy day, “just in case.” Well, that rainy day, the day of the Lord, the day of our death, will come and come soon, but, like other material goods, money will not be needed or will not help. The “golden parachute” will be found to be full of holes. Judgment will not be about how much we have, but about how much we have given away.
Soldiers, people with weapons, people with civil or religious authority are not the only ones who can abuse their power. We are all tempted to do so. It is the uncommon person who does not take advantage of another person’s disadvantage. Our competitive society almost ingrains in us the sense that winning, coming out first or on top, is the highest ideal we could or should strive for. People measure their self worth in terms of how many times they topped another- in an argument, in a game, in their personal salary, in the cost of their home or car, etc. And who is content with his/her salary? Discontent with one’s wages arises from a fear that one does not have or make enough money in order to buy enough material goods to come out on top of one’s neighbors and family members. It is all related and interrelated. Our besetting sins and vices, though varied and seemingly separate on the surface, are really offshoots of the same basic attitude underneath. We need to repent, not of this or that sin, but of the underlying attitude that causes all of them. We need to accept God as God, the only God, and renounce our self-possessiveness, self-centeredness, and self-destructiveness.
Share what you have, aware that you do not own it anyway.
When someone shares with you from what they have, do not take more than you really need, leaving the excess for others.
Yearning for more than we need leads to stealing ,or scheming to steal, from others who have what we want.
Only a divine power, no human effort, can raise us to the level of true humanity.
On judgment day the way we lived our life will matter, not the style we lived it in.
Religious vs. Lay: Many people foolishly think that people who live a religious lifestyle will automatically go to heaven and are even now automatically closer to God than those who live a more secular lifestyle. They think that hermits are holier than everybody else, that cloistered monks and nuns come next, then religious priests, brothers and sisters, older people, especially widows and widowers, and finally married people, followed by lifetime unmarrieds. However, a closer look at the hermit reveals that from a spiritual point of view he or she has an easier time living what the Baptist is teaching in our present text and certainly what Christ teaches in the gospels. If one is a hermit and has nothing to speak of anyway, there is neither any substance to share or opportunity to share it. If one lives alone there is no one around to share anything with. If there are no people in one’s live there is hardly an opportunity, let alone a temptation to think or say an unkind thought or word. If one has no money, there is no problem with either how to accumulate it or spend it. If one has no salary one can hardly be dissatisfied with a paycheck that never comes. Really, the order of “holier than thou” should be reversed! Actually, the notion of any “pecking order” at all is ridiculous, though it remains pervasive in the popular mind. If the truth be told, there is probably no group of people who are more challenged by Christian moral teaching than married couples, especially married with growing children. It is a constant, relentless, never a day off, challenge. They are the folks with the least amount of free time to be able to sit still long enough and get alone long enough to think things through, to get their bearings and to reform their attitudes and behaviors. Before they know it the day is over and they have had barely enough time to breathe, let alone think. Yet, of all the groups to make excuses for not reforming ,of course, there are individual exceptions, they are the least likely and the least numerous. While it is what Neil Diamond sings in one of his least known songs, namely, that “pride is the chief cause in the decline in the number of husbands and wives,” it is conversely true that where we find a good marriage we find an excess, if that is really possible, of humility, humanity and humor. Humility means that we accept God as God and ourselves as fallible. Does anyone know a happily reasonably happy, not ecstatically happy married person who is proud like a Pharisee? In general, the most truly religious and spiritual persons are more likely to be found among the ranks of the happily married than among any other group. The Baptist, Jesus, Paul and others are exceptions and exceptional. However just because one is a celibate, like all of the above mentioned, does not guarantee exceptional holiness, any more than being married consigns one to a lower degree of sanctity. Both John and Jesus preached the same standards of sanctity to the laity as they did to the clergy or the “religious” of their day. If sanctity is related to the degree and intensity of challenges and temptations overcome, then it seems that married folks with growing children have far more to contend with than any other groups, though there are individual exceptions. All the more reason for them to be doubly heartened by the message of Jesus and John, that neither they nor the rest of us need do it, indeed can do it, on our own power. Our power, like John’s is like water; Jesus’ power is like fire and Spirit, always more than adequate to do the job. Lean on him rather than on ourselves, and we will get the support we need, no matter how desperately, to live authentically amidst temptations to cave in and give in, and to be prepared to be judged not so much on what we have accomplished or achieved or acquired or accumulated, not on how much we let God rule our lives without interference from us. Amen.
