Zephaniah 3.14-20, Luke 3.7-18
So, with many other exhortations, John the Baptist proclaimed
the good news to the people…
That’s how Luke ends the Gospel passage we heard tonight, the
account of the preaching of John the Baptist. He proclaimed the good news, he
said.
Well, I don’t know about you, but frankly if that was the
good news, I dread to think what the bad news was. He starts off by calling the
crowd a brood of vipers, goes on to tell them that their long cherished
theology is completely wrong, and finishes off with the glorious prospect of
them being burned with unquenchable fire. Like I said, if that is the good
news…
I doubt whether it sounded any better to the people of John’s
time either. Their society was not so very different from ours, with people
looking for a quick, superficial fix. Today some people will spend a fortune on cosmetic surgery to hold back the signs of
aging, despite the fact that it can’t actually turn the clock back, or snap up
the latest gadgets and gizmos to give themselves the momentary buzz of
acquiring something new and impressive, even if they don’t need it and can’t
actually work out how to use it. Though there might not have been quite the
range of temptations in the first century, that impulse to make things feel
better on the surface rather than dealing with the deeper issues seems to have
been just as strong.
What John says to these crowds gives us a
vivid insight into what is really going on in their lives. There are
tax-collectors who are fiddling the books to line their own pockets. There are
soldiers using brute force to grab what they want. And there are many others
who are just thoughtlessly amassing belongings when those around them remain in
need. Their behaviour reflects their deeper fears – fears that they will be
left unsupported, unloved and alone, but as they grasp at these things they
actually reinforce the very assumptions that have damaged them. Because they know they are selfish, they
assume everyone else is selfish too, and that makes them even less willing to
share, so they have to grasp what they have even more tightly. It is a vicious
circle in which love and trust stand no chance of gaining a foothold.
What ails them is deep rooted, and there are no shortcuts to
its healing, just as there aren’t for us. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” says John.
It’s a rather odd phrase but what it really means is “Bear the kind of fruits
that come from repentance” “do the things that show you have really changed. The word for repentance, metanoia,
literally means a change of mind, of basic attitude to life. Get those basic
attitudes right, says John, and the fears which prompted you to cheat and steal
will lose their grip. If they just assume that belonging to the tribe of
Abraham, their cultural identity, will be enough to make sure all goes well,
they will be disappointed. This is personal. It is about them, each of them, and
each of them must take responsibility for their own lives and decisions.
This Breathing Space service isn’t really part of the Advent
series I have been leading on Thursday nights, looking at depictions of the
Nativity in art, but I thought you might like a painting to go with it anyway,
and this one of John
the Baptist preaching, by Mattia Preti, seemed to fit the bill well. John
is in mid, (and very dramatic) flow, against a stormy looking sky. The crowd
looks up at him in a state of what I would say was considerable alarm. Does it
really have to be this hard? How can they ever hope to make the root and branch
changes in their lives that he is telling them they need. But in the picture,
as in the reading, there is something which points beyond their own resources,
and John’s too. In the picture we see John’s staff, pointing upwards towards
the heavens, but downwards towards a sheep which seems to have strayed into the
picture. The words on John’s banner explain it all, though. Agnus Dei, it says
– the Lamb of God. This sheep is a symbol of Christ, the one who will come with power that John
knows he doesn’t have. “He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”
says John. Those who encountered Jesus, those whose memories Luke bases his
Gospel on, bore witness to this. They had been transformed, healed, accepted, and
turned around, through that experience. It could happen. It did happen. And it
can still happen. That is the promise of this passage.
In the silence tonight, then, let us ponder ourselves, not
the selves we wish we could show to the world, the outer shell, the PR version,
but the truth, the fears and resentments, the bits we have given up on and
think can never be changed. And let us bring them to God to ask for the healing
we truly long for.
Amen
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