Sermon for December 15th, 2024

Luke 3:7-18

7John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

10And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" 11In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Prepare the Way: Looking Around

Can you imagine getting a Christmas card from John the Baptist? "Merry Christmas, you brood of vipers!" But the best line in this passage comes at the very end, where John has just said that the Messiah is coming with a pitchfork in his hands to separate the wheat from the chaff, and "the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Then Luke, without skipping a beat, says, "So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people."

I promise, there really is good news in this passage, but first: A blind man walked into a store one day, he picked up his dog, and started swinging it around by the tail. Seeing this, a concerned employee asked if there was anything he could help the man with. "No thanks," said the blind man, "I'm just looking around."

FPC: Today's sermon is titled "Looking Around." Last Sunday, we talked about "looking back" and how advent is a time for reflection on our heritage and our past. The Sunday before that, we talked about "looking forward," and how Advent is a season of hope and optimism for the future God is calling us into. And so today, we come to the present, or "looking around." What is God doing right here and now?

FCC: Today's sermon is titled "Looking Around." Last time I was here, we talked about "looking forward" and how Advent is a season of hope and optimism for the future that God is calling us into. Today, we'll talk about the future, the past, and the present--what God is doing right here and now all around us.

Today's scripture passage divides nicely into three segments: The first one is verses 7-9, and here John the Baptist references the past--starting with calling his audience a "brood of vipers." Brood means offspring, so he isn't insulting them nearly as much as he's insulting their parents, their ancestors. He's saying, don't put too much stock in your family history, because it isn't that great anyhow! Then in verse 8, he's saying that even the few good ancestors you did have (namely Abraham) won't cut it for you--if you aren't doing something worthwhile now. Roots (in verse 9) are ok, but if you have great roots and still can't produce any fruit, your great roots might as well be chopped up with an axe.

That's a difficult message for us to hear as individuals and as a church: All our achievements and our long, distinguished past mean absolutely nothing and are not even worth saving or remembering IF we are not using them to produce something good, something worthwhile today. Or to put it differently, we don't remember the past for the sake of remembering the past, or out of nostalgia, longing, or idle reminiscence. We remember the past because just as roots feed a tree, supplying it with nourishment, so too our past feeds our present, supplying us with wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Roots serve the tree and its fruit, no the other way around. The past serves the present, not the other way around.

The next segment is verses 10-14, but we're actually going to skip that and come back to it in a moment. First let's look at the final section, verses 15-17. This is the FUTURE oriented section. "As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

When John preaches this message, the Jewish people have been waiting eagerly for a Messiah for well over 400 years. With the Roman occupation, much of their past has been taken away from them. Much of their present is based in oppression. So they dwell in the future, hoping, anticipating, expecting a Savior--is it John the Baptist? Is he the one? John says no, but he does something else, too. On one level he reassures their hope in the future: Yes, the Messiah is coming. But before you get too excited about that, know that the Messiah will also bring judgment. He will use his pitchfork to separate the wheat from the chaff. Your future might be safe in the barn with the wheat...but it also might be roasting in the fire with the chaff.

The good news is that judgment is God's alone, and we have no control over it, even those spend a lot of time dwelling there. You might remember me saying a couple of weeks ago that we can't predict the future; we can only prepare for it. But here's the funny thing about preparing for the future: The only place you can do that... is in the present.

And that brings us finally to the middle segment, verses 10-14. Sandwiched between the past and the future, you can probably guess what these verses are about. It's here that John's audience, having heard his message, ask a very practical, very present-oriented question: What shall we do? Not "What did our ancestors do to deserve this in the past?" and not "What will the Messiah do when he comes to save us in the future" but rather "What do we do? Here and now in the present?" Three different types of people ask the same question, and I love the simplicity and the consistency of John's answer.

To the crowd he says, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." To the tax collectors, he says, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." To the Roman Soldiers he says, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." Despite how crazy John the Baptist seems, he's actually being reasonable here. Contrast this with Jesus: When people ask HIM this same question, (what should I do) he usually tells them, "Sell everything, give it to the poor, leave behind your whole family, and follow me." John just tells them, "be content with what you have, don't take more than your fair share, and if you have extra, share it with someone who has less."

So. What should we do here and now, in the present, in Advent? We look around at the people who are sharing space with us in this world. We look around, and we show a little love.

1st Corinthians 13:13 famously says that "now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." Of these three virtues, hope is the future oriented one, the one that is forever looking forward in anticipation. Faith is forever looking back to the past--our faith is a story and a heritage which we inherit from our parents, grandparents, and all the saints who have gone before us. But love--love is the present-oriented virtue, forever looking around for those whose need is right now. And love--just like the present--is indeed what that holds the other virtues together.

The past and the future both serve the present, and are meaningless without it. In the same way, faith and hope serve love. Our faith (our past, our heritage) means nothing and isn't worth keeping if it doesn't produce love. And if we aren't showing love to everyone around us, then our future (and the second coming of Christ) will be cause for fear and not hope.

I want to end with a story--you may have heard this one before, but I think it perfectly illustrates the point:

A man was praying one day, and asked the Lord to explain to him the difference between heaven and hell. The Lord said to the man, "Come, and I will show you hell." They entered a room where a group of hungry, starving people sat around a huge pot of mouth-watering food. Each person held a spoon with a handle long enough to reach the bottom of the pot. But the spoon handles were also longer than their arms, so they could look at the food, but couldn't reach any of it into their mouths. The suffering was terrible.

After awhile, the Lord said to the man, "Come, now I will show you heaven." Together, they entered another room. It was very similar to the first - the same pot of food, a similar group of people, and the same long-handled spoons. But here, everyone was happy and well-fed.

"I don't understand," said the man. "Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything is pretty much the same?" The Lord smiled, and said "It's simple: In the other room they look at the food, they look at their spoons, and they despair. But here they look around at each other, and they use their spoons to feed each other."

People of First Christian/Presbyterian Church: May you find the time this Advent season to look back, to look forward, but most importantly to look around and see the face of Christ in every neighbor, every stranger, and in every opportunity to help your fellow human beings.