2021-12-13
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text
Scripture: LUKE 3:7-18
Probably fifteen years ago, Judy Bagley-Bonner and I were leading a program together downstairs in Fellowship Hall. At one point, in the midst of a light-hearted give-and-take, Judy said something—I have no idea what—and I said to her—with the edit function on my mouth clearly not working—“Judy, you ignorant slut!” Half the room died laughing, the other half looked absolutely mortified. The half that laughed remembered an old Saturday Night Live skit in which Dan Aykroyd, in playing a commentator on a news show, would snap at his colleague, Jane Curtin, when he had had enough: “Jane, you ignorant slut!” And when I said that, I did so with the mistaken impression that the cultural reference would be immediately obvious to everyone there. Not so, as it turned out! The half that didn’t know the reference were immensely forgiving, though, as was Judy, who roared laughing, and we were able to go on.
That said, this morning may be my one and only chance to say to you, with scripture as my warrant, “Oh, Federated, you brood of vipers!” There! I got it off my chest! I got to tell you what I really think!
Except, of course, that that’s not what I really think. It’s so far from what I think of you that even saying the words feels wrenchingly wrong. As I read and say those words, though, I have to wonder what in the world John the Baptist was thinking when he spouted that epithet to the crowds that came out to see him in the wilderness. Surely he knew some of them. Or he knew people like them. Indeed, I’m inclined to think these are people he really should have been nice to. They were the seekers, after all. They were the ones who had left their homes for the day and made the journey, on foot, to see what this odd man was all about. They cared enough to explore, to want to know more, to get closer to God, for heaven’s sake! What in the world gets into John that he totally blasts them: “You brood of vipers!” (Luke 3:7). Perhaps the least marketable church growth line in history: come join us, you vipers!
Some time ago, I had a conversation with a Federated member that frankly surprised me. He told me he had a kind of love-hate relationship with the church and with Christian faith. When I asked him why, he talked about how closed-minded it can be, how pinched and narrow and legalistic and dogmatic and punitive it can be.
And while I understood what he was saying, and could even see why he was saying it, inside I virtually wept with what I can only say was a mixture of sorrow and anger and regret. Where had the church gone so wrong, I mourned, that this dear man thinks this is what Federated is about? My anger seethed, though not to him, when I reflected on what seem the intolerant and misguided and sedated ways of so much of the contemporary church. And my regret reared its head when I thought: what am I doing, and not doing, as a preacher, that a regular and thoughtful member of the church thinks this is what Federated is about?
So this morning, as we pay attention to that strange and off-putting scripture passage we heard earlier, allow me to try to set some of the record straight. And let’s begin with a word about the way in which we read a passage of scripture such as this. While the Bible has numerous luminous passages that stop us in our tracks with their beauty and reassurance, it also has passages like this that make us scratch our heads or seethe. What are we supposed to do when John addresses us as a “brood of vipers”; when he alarms us with talk of “the wrath to come;” when he threatens us with the dire warning that “every tree . . . that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (3:7-9)? This is hellfire and brimstone preaching. Who here doesn’t want to run away as fast as we can! No wonder that Federated member questions what the church is about. This is appalling stuff!
Until we recognize that something else is going on here. It may be tempting—and there are too many corners of the church that take this tack—to see these words as literal, to assume that John is condemning us as awful specimens of human life who are just as likely to be discarded by God. It may be tempting to hear these words that way. But it’s not what John is doing. He’s not literally eviscerating his contemporaries, or us.
Here’s what John is doing: he’s using incredibly vivid metaphor to convey to these searching people that the pilgrimage they’re on is the most important thing in all the world. It’s as if he’s screaming at them: this matters more than anything else in your life. Your relationship with God is at the heart of everything. So do not ignore it. Don’t sideline it. Don’t put it on some figurative back burner, imagining you’ll bring it out in an emergency, when a crisis suddenly forces you to your knees.
Despite the way it might first appear, John isn’t saying, “you’re worthless,” or “you’re going to be punished” or “your life hangs by a thread.” He is saying, though, that there is nothing more crucial than maintaining the umbilical connection you have with God, and that there is nothing more vital than the way you live your life. And if he has to talk about vipers and wrath and withering fire in order to get his message across, then that’s what he’s going to do.
John is not, though, threatening eternal damnation. How could he possibly be doing that when the core of the story about Jesus is the dawn of God’s tender mercy breaking from on high (Luke 1:78)? How cold he possibly be threatening destruction when the angel assures the shepherds they needn’t fear (2:10)? How could he possibly be relegating these crowds to hell when the heart of the good news in Luke’s gospel is the absurdly gracious story of the son who wastes his father’s inheritance and cannot make it on his own and sheepishly returns to his father, only to be greeted by a parent whose love simply cannot be squelched, and who comes running toward his son to hug him and kiss him and tell him how thrilled he is to see this long-lost prodigal return (15:11-32)? In the context of the story Luke tells, these words and images of John aren’t intended to undermine that story of grace. They’re not trying to tell the crowds that God’s affection for them is totally contingent on their being perfect, error-free, faultless people. No, no, no! What John is trying to do is tell them simply that their lives have ultimate significance, that they shouldn’t waste those lives away in careless, cruel, misguided days, but that it’s crucial that they make the most of the fragile and limited time they have on this beautiful, stunning, magnificent planet. Because it’s all fleeting. It could be gone tomorrow. And no, you and I don’t need to toe the line with God to avoid some hellish punishment. You and I have the sublime opportunity to live our lives with a holy center that freights everything with a kind of shimmering splendor.
And part of the way we live our lives to the fullest is by doing the simple things John mentions when people ask him what exactly it is they need to do. What does he tell these seekers? He says share what you have with those who have little. He says don’t be greedy. He says don’t harass or blackmail (The Message) each other (3:10-14). If you want to live a life of integrity and wholeness, in other words, take care of each other, be honest, honor each other as manifestations of God. It’s that simple. But John uses this inflammatory language of vipers and wrath and fire because the people he’s talking to—and that includes us—seem oblivious to the urgency of the moment. Because we seem not to listen, John seems to scream at us. Not to scare us, but to awaken us.
The heart of the good news of God, though, is not that screaming, despite the fact that numerous churches would like you and me to think so. John screams, he uses this wildly provocative language, for one simple reason: he wants us to know the deep and unutterably rich joy of life in God. This is a joy that knows, in our marrow, that “all shall be well” (Julian of Norwich). It’s a joy that basks in the glittering love of God. And it’s a joy that lives itself out in our care and attention to those for whom life is broken and incomplete. It’s a joy that lives itself out in our teeming generosity to each other and to those beyond our walls.
The other day, my wife Mary ran across this line of Father James Martin: “Sin is a failure to bother to love” (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bothering-to-love-one-pri_b_478984). Such an arresting line. When the gospels castigate sin, said Martin, what they’re finding reprehensible is not bothering to love. Someone we know is irritating us, so we don’t bother to love them. It feels as though a refugee finding asylum in this country is stealing resources from us, so we don’t bother to love them. The food bank or the mission society or maybe even our Christmas Eve offering recipient, A Place 4 Me, solicits money, and we get exasperated with the requests, so we don’t bother to love them.
Next Sunday, we’ll address love more fully. Today, though, is about joy. And I suspect what John the Baptist is yelling and waving his arms about is the wild and gorgeous conviction that joy isn’t about things or baubles or presents. It’s not the same as happiness, which is a much more fleeting and superficial feeling. Joy is about the inconceivable truth that we are loved just precisely as we are. And it’s about the radiant and unsurpassed conviction that every moment of life matters. And it’s about the stunning reality that the best and most fulfilling life for each one of us is inextricably tied to the best and most fulfilling life of every other person on the planet, and indeed of the planet itself. Joy is about cherishing each other. It’s about basking in the singing and storytelling of our children. It’s about the remarkable work being done with young adults by A Place 4 Me.
Joy is what we were meant for. Does John go a little overboard in trying to tell us that? Maybe. But if you have to make a point hyperbolically, this is the point to make. God loves you. Don’t you ever forget it. Don’t you ever forget it. That is your deepest joy. And living out that love is what spreads that joy. So let’s be about God’s holy and joyful work. John would be proud. I don’t think he’d call us vipers. I think he’d call us saints.