Advent 3: Luke 3:7-18
Commanding stages across the land, and even a few pulpits, including the chapel at our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) headquarters, the National Prayer Breakfast, and the Willow Creek Association, he laments the global wildfire of AIDS consuming 8,000 lives every day. One person every 10 seconds. Describing the horror of seeing African refugees “queuing up to die, three to a bed,” he delivers a stinging rebuke: “We can get cold fizzy drinks to the farthest reaches of Africa, but we can’t get lifesaving medicines to the people who need it” most? The lead singer of the rock band U2, Bono, confesses: “I don’t have any letters after my name … I don’t even have a name after my name … but I am determined to turn around this supertanker of indifference.”
It has long been the job description of prophets, including John, who came preaching a baptism of repentance. He, too, was intent upon turning around a supertanker of human indifference — indifference to the Living God.
Perhaps the whole thing strikes us as a bit over the top. Calling people a bunch of snakes and haranguing them with hellfire and damnation hardly seems the way to win friends and influence people. I mean, shouldn’t John be thanking these people for coming all the way out to hear him?
It helps to recall that God’s people eagerly anticipated the arrival of a great prophet who would appear just prior to the advent of the Messiah. So while we’re thinking, Nutcase, they’re probably thinking something closer to, What took you so long?
The earlier verses in this chapter provide some clues confirming John is the real deal: The use of the standard biblical formula, The Word of the Lord came to John indicates a prophetic call. Then John appears in the Judean wilderness, the quintessential biblical classroom where spiritual lessons are always learned, urging people to head down to the Jordan River, the place of exodus, to submit to a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” resulting in a deeper deliverance than ever before.
Granted, when they got out there, this business about baptism may have been a bit difficult for the crowd to stomach. After all, the only baptized people Jews knew were Gentile converts, proselytes, non-Jews who wanted to become Jews. To say to God’s chosen, “Go get baptized!” is a bit like saying, “Your Jewishness doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.” John adds, “You can forget about clinging to Abraham’s coattails, it’s clear Scripture doesn’t have a most-favored nation clause.”
Clearly a false sense of spiritual confidence is to be avoided even still. Beware of thinking you’re in good with God because you go to the right church, or have the correct theology, or live in America. The only way to get right with God is to admit that you’re not right with God. The key to being worthy is knowing you’re not. When Luke 3:6 quotes the prophet Isaiah affirming that “All flesh shall see the salvation of God,” surely it means everybody, on the same terms. The baptizer is not only trying to turn around a supertanker of indifference; he also understands we’re all in the same boat.
Then John’s focus switches from roots to fruits: “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” means more than feeling bad, or feeling sorry for sin. It’s more than a change of heart; it’s a change of mind, or a change of direction, resulting in changed lives. So when the crowd is convicted by John’s message and, in what can only be described as every preacher’s dream, they respond with the question, “What then should we do?” the answer comes from everyday life: Simply share. If you’ve got a closet full of clothes, give some away. If you have plenty of food in the pantry, give some to the hungry.
When the IRS agents and CPA’s are convicted, too, and ask, “What then should we do?” it’s back to the basics: Be honest! Quit ripping people off. No more extortion. “Collect only what is required by law.”
It’s the same drill with the soldiers: “What then should we do?” Quit throwing your weight around. No power trips. No more bullying. Be content with what you’ve got.
What then should we do? Pack it up and enter a monastery? Retreat into silence and take a vow of poverty? Go to seminary? Get a Ph.D. in theology? Nope. Just do your job well. The call to repentance is a call to action, to be productive right where you are.
Consider the recent survey indicating that over one-third of respondents spent from a half hour to two hours each week shopping online. At work. During work. No big deal, we say. I work hard, they owe me. Besides, the top executives are living large, while most of us are just getting by. So you shop online at work … or fudge on your time card, or “borrow” the writing pads, or make that personal long distance phone call. But the call to repentance is a call to action, to be productive right where you are.
It is important to note that in the end John’s message is fundamentally hopeful. Even as he admits his own limitations, that he can only baptize with water, that he can only clean people up on the outside — Someone greater is coming, One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit, One who works from the inside out, One who will light a fire within. Help is on the way, John promises. Indeed, for us that promised help has arrived.
Far from leaving us paralyzed by unrelieved doom and gloom, even the last verse — “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” — holds out hope, too, for, as Fred Craddock notes, the purpose of winnowing is not only to burn the chaff, but ultimately to save the wheat.
In the meanwhile, the supertanker of indifference turns slowly. In the few minutes it took to read this article another 30 human beings died of AIDS.
Heidi Husted Armstrong recently completed a term of service as Christian Impact Director at World Vision US, after serving as pastor/head of staff for ten years at Columbia Church in Vancouver, Wash.
