Advent 3
Luke 3:7-18
When I am home, chances are the television is going to be tuned to one particular station. Unless Ali is in the mood to watch the Disney Channel, I will have another station on in the background in the morning as I am preparing to go over to the church, or it will be on during the noon hour as lunch is being ready, and this channel will most likely be on in the evening as I wind down for the night. That station is the Fox News Channel, which I have learned to fall in love with. I suppose what I really enjoy about it is summed up in their slogan, “Fair & Balanced Journalism.” In other words, it isn’t far left in their coverage like most network news, and it isn’t far right-wing like the Rush Limbaugh radio show, but the Fox News Channel strives to be right in the middle. They try to tell you both sides of the issue. That’s why they call themselves “Fair & Balanced.” No show sums up that attitude better than a program that comes on at 9:00 p.m. every weekday evening, Hannity and Colmes. Shaun Hannity is a conservative, Alan Colmes is a liberal, and though they often disagree, they find a way to co-exist on the same hour-long show night after night.
In a way, our Christian lives ought to imitate the Fox News Channel. As we study the words of St. John the Baptist, preparing us for the birth of Christ, we are ready for that coming when we have a fair and balanced faith. Be fair and balanced by 1. Being Liberal in Your Living and 2. Being Conservative in Your Confidence.
Part I
Some of you have probably heard the joke, “how many Wisconsin Synod Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb?” And the answer: 11! One to actually change the light bulb, and the other ten to stand around and talk about how much better the old one was before the change. And isn’t there some truth to that? Our “new” hymnal has been out for 10 years already, but didn’t it take us a while to get used to it? And sometimes you still hear voices that say we should go back to the old one. That’s just one example of how we can be “conservative” in our thinking. I’m sure we could all think of others. Being conservative isn’t necessarily bad. Conservative means something like, “being resistant to change,” or to put it positively, “keeping things the way they are.” And as far as doctrine goes, we need to be conservative. We can’t just go and change it to mean anything we feel like. And because we are conservative in doctrine, that spills over into our practices and traditions as well. Generally we like to keep things the way they are. Generally, we’d rather not change if we don’t have to.
John the Baptist was the opposite of a conservative. He was a liberal. He wasn’t liberal in the sense that he was an animal rights activist or that he took to the streets as an anti-war demonstrator. John was a spiritual liberal, not a political one. And he wasn’t spiritually liberal in the sense that he tried to explain away miracles or that he doubted the authenticity of the Bible. So how are we saying that John the Baptist was a liberal?
Well, if conservatives like to keep things the way they are, then liberals like change. They don’t want to keep things status quo. Liberals want to shake things up! Have you ever come out of church thinking, “well, it was a nice message and all, I learned some things that I didn’t know before…but how did the Word that I heard today apply to my life?” John gives his listeners some very specific and very clear instructions having to do with change. Listen to John’s change-charged words in our text, “‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.” Some tax collectors who were used to ripping people off were told to change, “Don’t collect anymore than you are required to.” Some soldiers had used their brute muscle to intimidate common people, much like a school bully that steals lunch money, and John told them to change, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.”
And why change? What was wrong about continuing to live the way they were? There’s a song going around these days, a tune that encourages kids to change, with these words, “you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why: Santa Clause is coming to town. He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.” That’s a make-believe character. John preached about a real being who knows when you are sleeping or awake, a real being who knows when you are good and when you are bad, and a real being who is definitely coming to town: the Messiah. Change was necessary, and quick. John said, “the ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
When you looked at Part 1 of this sermon in the bulletin, maybe you were a little confused about what it means to be “Liberal in your Living.” At first it sounds like we can live any old way we want. That would be free. That would be liberal. But John is talking about a different kind of liberal thinking. You see, we are born into this world pretty self-centered. We feel that everything and everyone exists to serve us. And that’s where the change needs to occur! That’s where we need to be liberal-minded. What John the Baptist is telling us today is not to get comfortable in lives of sin. He’s saying that we cannot have a conservative view on sin, as if we don’t really need to make any changes. Instead, where sin is concerned, we need to be liberal. We need to be willing to make changes. The one hurdle that we face is sometimes we feel that change is for people in big sins, and we downplay the need for drastic change in our own life. And then another difficulty is that even if we recognize the need for change, we doubt our ability to make permanent positive changes.
Now we don’t have John the Baptist here this morning giving each of us specific and personal ways to change. He gave the tax collectors and soldiers a tailor-made plan for change. But what if you have a different job? What if you are a student? What if you are retired? What change do you need to make? John told his audience to basically treat people well. Share. Don’t rip off others. Don’t intimidate others. Don’t view other people as problems that you have to deal with. Instead, transform your thinking. Look at others as people whom God sends for you to help. When you show your love to them, you are actually showing your love to God.
Or let’s boil down this change into something very simple: self. We need to change from being ego-centric people, thinking the world revolves around us, to be Christo-centric individuals, having our lives revolve around Jesus and his will. Think of the Solar System. The Sun is the greater power, the Earth is the lesser, and so the Earth revolves around the Sun. In the same way, our lives revolve around the Son, because he’s greater, he’s wiser. And it’s only a fool who tells God, “I want you to revolve around me!” Let’s be Liberal in our living by changing that attitude.
Part II
But to have a fair and balanced faith, we need a solid foundation. Yes, we need to change, but what’s the pattern? What’s the motivation? Where is the power to make lasting changes?
John answered that question as well. “One more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And here we see the conservative side of John. This prophet who looked like he was from California, who had long hair, wore funny clothes and munched on organic grasshoppers wasn’t introducing a new, wacky religion. Where his faith lay, and where he wanted all his listeners to place their confidence, was in the ancient, unchangeable God.
John’s Lord was the same God who promised fallen man in the Garden of Eden that he himself would provide a Savior for their sins. His confidence was in something conservative: the Lord, who doesn’t change. We people change, don’t we? Pull out your high school yearbook, and you’ll notice you’ve changed since then. Some of the changes are good: you are probably thankful that your hairstyle is changed and you aren’t wearing the same type of clothes as you did back then. Some are negative changes: maybe back then you actually had hair as opposed to now…and for sure each of us had more years to live than we do now. The rule of human beings is that we change. God doesn’t. He is a constant. He is conservative. And what a comfort it is knowing that the Lord is so predictable! His rules stay the same. His love stays the same. And his plan to save Adam and Eve and all their descendants stayed the same.
We have a lot of the fiery words that John preached. The first picture in my mind of John is of a Law-preacher. But he also proclaimed the love of our consistent Lord. “And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.” Even though we don’t have many of John’s Gospel sermon, the good news was central to his preaching…even when he talks about Judgment Day. When we think of Judgment, many times we view that word in a law sense. And when John uses this sentence to talk of God’s judgment, it does sound like something of a scary thing: His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor ad to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. It’s probably been a while since any of us used a winnowing fork. It was kind of like a pitchfork. And on a windy day, you would take the newly-harvested grain, grab a shovel full, and toss it into the air. The wind would carry away the worthless straw, and the heavier bits of grain would fall straight down. This story is a picture of the Judgment. Right now, Christians and unbelievers are all mixed together in the same world. But on the last day, there will be a separation. The bad news is that there are people who are that chaff that will be burned in the fires of hell as a result of their unbelief. But the good news, the Gospel, is that God isn’t planning on burning everyone up. In fact, the last thing our loving Lord wants to do is sentence anyone to hell. All along it was his plan to save people from their sins…and you are one of those bits of precious grain that the Lord wants to hold onto for all eternity!
In the first part of our sermon, we talked about what must change: our sinful lives. You are liberal in your living when you to shift your life away from the selfish side of the scale and more towards the godly side. And now we have the other side of the coin: what must not change. The Word cannot change. Our simple Christmas joy in knowing that Christ died for our sins, won us heaven, and empowers us to live godly lives…that happiness and excitement cannot change. You see, we can’t be looking for something more spectacular, something that seems to motivate us better. The Gospel seems weak to many, and so they preach heavy doses of God’s law to get results. And get results they do…but for the wrong reason. The Law can only motivate out of guilt and terror and shame. The Law is a great pattern for us to follow, but by itself it is a poor motivator. The fair and balanced faith is one that recognizes the need for change, but realizes that Christ has brought about the biggest change possible: he has changed our status from hell-bound to heaven-bound. Don’t change that! Be conservative in your confidence…trusting in the age-old plan of the God of the ages.
Conclusion
So is change good or bad? I guess it depends on what we are talking about. If we take a negative thing and change it into a positive, then change is good! If we start with a good thing, and mess around with it and alter it, then change is bad. In the Advent Season, we are preparing for Christ’s coming by making changes in our lives. May these be positive changes…that move from the selfish to the self-less. May these be permanent changes, that last long after December 25th. You can make permanent positive changes when you are consistently plugged into the Word of God. One message that I saw on a church sign once really sums up this morning’s balance of change: “We don’t change the Word, but the Word changes us.” Amen.
sdg
