THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT
Luke 3:1-17
“Hedging Our Spiritual Bets”
In last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, there was a column by a fellow named Vincent Carrol. He is an editor for the Rocky Mountain News. Let me read you the first three paragraphs of his column.
“On Christmas Eve, in line with my custom in recent years, I will arrive at my church in Denver at least 90 minutes before the service. After scouting out an empty pew near the front, I’ll lay down a couple of magazines to reserve space and then retreat outside briefly to phone my family with instructions on where to find me at the appointed hour. Then I’ll return to the pew and spend the next hour or so reading while fending off attempts by other churchgoers to horn in on my turf.
“This ritual is necessary in part because the Mass we attend occurs at an attractive time for families with children. But that is not the only reason for the overflow crowd. Late December is the season of the holiday Christian, that insouciant fellow whose religious practice consists of nine parts nostalgia and one part worship.
“To the many holiday Christians who long ago stopped attending church with any regularity, Christmas ... somehow doesn’t seem complete without dipping a toe into the cultural waters of their youth. They attend Christmas services in part for the same reason that they wear a Christmas tie or hang a wreath on the front door: It’s part of the total holiday experience. But if they no longer practice their faith with much conviction, they still respect its memory. And, after all, it is just possible that a child was born in Bethlehem who changed the world, and it’s never a bad idea to hedge one’s bets."
This column caught my eye as I was thinking about what to say this morning concerning the gospel reading for this third Sunday in Advent. It doesn’t sound very Christmasy, does it? What would you think if you invested the time and the money that these crowds invested, to go hear the preaching of a religious celebrity, and his first words to you were something like what Luke reports -- "You nest of snakes, Who warned you to flee from God’s wrath?"
It’s not hard to imagine what the typical reaction would be. Well, John the Baptist isn’t quite the crank that he appears to be from Luke’s gospel. When we look over at Matthew’s account of John’s ministry, we find out that John’s crankiness on this particular occasion was aimed at a particular group within the crowds who came out to see John in the wilderness. Matthew puts it this way:
When John saw the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of Vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" You see, the Pharisees and the Sadducees had something in common with those holiday Christians that Vincent Carrol was writing about in his newspaper column.
Now, the holiday Christian probably never shows up in Church except on during Christmas, or maybe Easter too, while the Pharisees made a habit of showing up for every religious event possible. Nevertheless, the Pharisees and holiday Christians are alike in this respect — they are both happy to give a salute to traditional religious values, to things like going to Temple, or going to Church, at least during the highest religious festivals. And, they do this because, as Carrol puts it, they are hedging their bets.
Why were these Pharisees hedging their bets, if they were so religious? Their interest in John the Baptist was simply part of a much greater interest among all the Jews of this time for the coming of the Messiah. For hundreds of years, the Old Testament prophets had foretold the day when a Servant of the Lord would come into the world, to redeem Israel out of its troubles, to save it from the oppression of the gentiles. At the time of John’s ministry, Israel definitely had a mountain of troubles, and they were heavily oppressed by Imperial Rome. The Roman province of Judea continually teetered on the brink of rebellion.
And, so, when a figure like John the Baptist appears on the scene, he gets everyone’s attention as we see in this gospel reading. In one sense, everyone at this time is interested in hedging his bets about the future — it doesn’t matter if you’re a Pharisee, a Sadducee, a Jewish commoner, a Jewish tax collector, or a Roman infantryman — at this time and place in history, you can’t afford to ignore someone like John. And, the more people who go to the wilderness to check him out, the more people who haven’t checked him already want to do so. Everyone’s hedging their bets.
But, when they got out there in the desert where John was — they discovered that the stakes were much, much higher than they ever dreamed. Their very souls were on the line.
I think if you were to consult the preaching departments of any seminary in America today, you would never find any of them training preachers to communicate the way John does in today’s gospel. Instead, you will find that a modern preaching syllabus includes instruction on hell-fire and brimstone sermons are exactly what you should NOT preach. If John the Baptist, for example, were to show up in a modern class on preaching and deliver the sermon that he evidently preached on this occasion, I suspect he would get a failing grade. He might even be expelled from school. And, if he were known to preach sermons like this before he was ever accepted to an Episcopal seminary, well I think we all know how he would fare with the diocesan screening committee.
John could comfort himself, however, with this —Jesus seems to have mimicked his older cousin John whenever Jesus ran across the same kinds of people — the religious establishment who are cozy and comfortable in their religiosity. Matthew chapter 23 records Jesus’ longest denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees in the gospels. I encourage you to read it later this afternoon. It will only take you a couple of minutes at the most. Over and over, Jesus denounces the religious establishment of his day with these words "Woe to you Pharisees and Scribes, Hypocrites!" And at the end of a string of these denunciations, Jesus borrows a line which John the Baptist used in the wilderness —You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?" Looks like Jesus would have failed that preaching class too.
Fortunately, John and Jesus didn’t need to enroll in a preaching class before they ministered to the people. Their credential wasn’t something written on a piece of paper. It was a character quality woven deeply into their souls — a willingness, a fearlessness to speak the truth, especially to those desperately needing to hear it, whether they welcomed it or not.
And here’s an amazing thing — or at least, it would be amazing to the homiletics departments of modern seminaries. The people, by and large, did welcome John’s message. To be sure, the hypocrites among them did not welcome it. John literally lost his head, for criticizing Herod’s incestuous marriage to his brother’s wife; and the Pharisees eventually succeeded in getting Jesus crucified. But, the gospel shows us that a great many people heeded John’s warnings.
The crowds asked him, "What then shall we do?" And he answered them, "Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise." John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John tells us that forgiveness shows itself in gratitude, and gratitude’s most elementary expression is generosity. If you are truly forgiven, John says, the behavior that is worthy of forgiveness is generosity.
It is interesting that the tax collectors were in the crowd too. They were among the most despised and feared of the Jews. They were collaborators with the Romans in extracting money from all the other citizens of Judea. And, Luke records that they addressed John as "Teacher." They not only heard his message, they received it as students, as disciples. John’s instruction to them was similar to his earlier instruction to the crowds at large. Don’t be greedy, don’t collect more than you must.
And, the soldiers are probably the most interesting of all, for they are not even Jews. They are the strength of the Roman power. To them, John said, "Do not abuse your power for personal profit. Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation. Be content with your wages."
I think that if John the Baptist were here in this pulpit this morning, he would be preaching a sermon very similar to what he was preaching out there in the wilderness. I don’t see any of the Episcopal religious establishment here this morning, particularly those who administer the affairs of our Church on the national level. So, if John were here, perhaps his message would lack some of the fireworks we see in the gospel. John’s primary purpose, however, was not to hurl thunderbolts at hypocrites. It was to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah. And, if John were here today, that would still be his purpose at this season of the year. As Father Hill explained last week, each Christmas season does two things — it remembers the first time the Son of God came into the world, and it looks forward to the Second time the Son of God will come into the World.
That’s why John the Baptist appears in the lectionary during Advent. That’s why we read about John’s preaching during our run-up to Christmas. Jesus is coming back, and we who are called by his name need to hear and comply with the message that John preached at the first Advent.
One of my favorite Christmas hymns is found as hymn number 57 or 58 in our hymnal. The lyrics were composed by Charles Wesley. One of the stanzas which did not make it into our current hymnal, unfortunately, goes like this:
Ev’ry island, sea, and mountain,
Heav’n and earth, shall flee away;
All who hate him must, confounded,
Hear the trump proclaim the day;
Come to judgment! Come to judgment!
Come to judgment, come away!
It is not just those who hate him who will heed that call. All of us will heed it. Some who come to judgment will be confounded. The rest will be jubilant. But whether we look forward to that time or not, it is an appointment we shall all of us keep, for Jesus is coming again.
Are we ready for Jesus to return? Are we here this morning to hedge our bets? Or are we here to prepare our hearts for the return of the Lord?
If Jesus were to appear suddenly with that winnowing fork John mentions, if he were to sift us all like wheat, would you wind up in the pile of grain, or in the pile of chaff? How do you know which it would be? John told us 2000 years ago how we could know, and Luke preserved that teaching for us in the gospel appointed for today.
God grant that our hearts should prove as receptive as those of the tax gatherers and Roman soldiers who heard John’s preaching and repented of their sins, and may God’s Spirit stir up in us all such good works worthy of repentance as our heavenly Father has prepared for us, that we should walk in them.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
