Bad News to Good News

 Advent 3, 12-12-21  Luke 3:7-18

 

So this is the good news, huh?

You know I don’t choose these readings, right?

They were chosen by a series of committees

and most mainline protestant and Catholic

churches use these readings.

So many people are celebrating this Advent

by being called Brood of Vipers by John the Baptist.

So welcome, Brood of Vipers!

 

You know there are restaurants

whose whole thing is having the waiters and waitresses

insult the customers, Like at Harold’s Diner.

Apparently there is a market for this kind of thing since there are

more than one of these places.

John the Baptist could have worked

at one of these restaurants.

 

Because by the looks of it, people seemed to like being

insulted by John the Baptist.

The restaurants do it in the name of fun and a good time.

But it’s hard to tell where John is coming from. He asks them:

“Why did you come out here?”

“What are you looking at me for?”

Then he calls them a “Brood of vipers”

Children of snakes in other words.

He isn’t nice, or polite, he doesn’t  nurture them

or make them feel good.

And yet they come to him.

They seem fascinated by him.

They still want to be baptized by him.

 

Maybe John seems like

the answer they’ve been waiting for.

The new life they had imagined.

The change that they had hoped for a long time.

was coming to the world.

 

He tells them to repent. To change.

Not to rest on their laurels.

Not to simply rely on their heritage and birth-right

but to conduct their lives in a different and better way.

He told them to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

Don’t just say that you love God,

make your life show that you love God’s ways.

 

So they asked him “What exactly do we do?”

“How do we do that”,

“what kind of things are you talking about?”

 

After hearing last week about the mountains

being laid low and the valleys raised and

and the crooked roads made straight

We might think that John the Baptists’

advice to them  would be pretty dramatic.

It might seem like he would tell them to leave their homes

and live in the wilderness, and eat locusts and wild honey

like John the Baptist did. But that was just John’s thing apparently.

 

John tells them this is the way to change the mountains:

(And he sounds not as wild as he did in the beginning)

“If you have two coats, share one with someone who has none.

If you have any extra food, share that too.”

 

He’s not telling them leave their lives and

go into the wilderness,

but to go back to their cities and villages

and their families and the people they know

and treat them with kindness.

Make sure that other people are taken care of.

Don’t just think about their own well-being.

 

For tax collectors he tells them:

“Collect no more than what you’re supposed to collect.”

 

Tax collectors were apparently pretty

notorious for being unethical.

It was so bad that people were upset when

Jesus even ate with them – and

tax collector and sinner are almost synonymous

in the new testament.

 

But John didn’t tell them to leave tax collecting,

he just tells them to do it morally and ethically.

To be an example to other tax collectors.

This might be pretty radical for a tax collector.

 

And soldiers apparently used their authority

to take advantage of other people.

But John the Baptist doesn’t tell them to

get out of the military, just do it without

extorting other people.

To be satisfied with what they were paid.

 

To prepare the way for the one who would baptize us

with the Holy Spirit and fire,

John didn’t tell everyone to drop everything

and go into the wilderness to meditate

or for everyone to join monastery and being a hermit.

or even to quit what they were doing and go to seminary.

 

To prepare for the kingdom of God,

John doesn’t suggest leaving our world

in order to bear the fruits worthy of repentance.

He sends us back into our world,

to do what we’re doing,

but to do it in a different way.

To change the world from inside our worlds.

Here’s one example of that.

 

Most people wouldn’t put sports stars on

a list of people who are building the Kingdom.

I am not a big sports fan, and

I have never watched a whole basketball game,

but I know who Lebron James is. SLIDE

He was born in Akron, Oh. Apparently he’s pretty good,

and he has gotten paid handsomely for it.

 

But I am impressed with how much he gives back to the

community that he came from. SLIDE

He was born in Akron to a young, single mother

and he knows his life could have gone in a very different

direction if he didn’t have adults who cared for him.

 

So in response, he gives his money and his effort to help children in Akron, 

and other places, to have a better future.

He has given millions to  the Boys and Girls Club,

he has given millions to the Children’s Defense Fund,

And he started the Lebron James Family Foundation,

that has done so much for Akron.

He started the “I Promise” School for underprivileged children

and the “I Promise” program which helps young people

all over Akron. He’s started housing for at risk kids,

And he’s opening this crazily ambitious SLIDE

Why is Pr. June talking about Lebron James?!

community center in Akron called House Three Thirty

that is a resource center and a hub for job training and experience, 

financial education. Really impressive.

 

Now he has extreme wealth and a grand platform

to work from, and he has used it well.

He didn’t need to leave basketball, he’s still playing,

he’s still making an incredible amount of money.

And I don’t know what his religious beliefs are,

but he is bearing good fruit for the kingdom of God.

And what an example for other players

and sports stars and celebrities to aspire to.

 
 

Preparing the way for Jesus in the future means

acting like we know Jesus did in the past.

Jesus didn’t retreat from the world, he was a part of it.

And like Jesus, we are asked to do what we do with a care

for all people, especially those who don’t have what we have.

And like Jesus, we act this way consistently

no matter what the world throws at us.

 

Even when others are extorting and stealing

we respond with honesty and integrity.

Even when the world is filled with terror and fear,

we respond with welcome and peace.

Even when everyone is keeping everything for themselves

and watching out for number one,

we act with compassion and share what we have.

 

These aren’t passive things.

These actions can be radical.

They interrupt the way things are.

They affect other people.

They can inspire, and they can  even outrage.

 

But this is how we live out our baptism

We change the world from the inside,

starting with our inside –  our minds and our hearts.

 

This is how John and Jesus will change the world.

He tells us to go back to our own lives and

let God’s grace and Christ’s love come out of us.

This is how bad news becomes Good News,

And how Broods of Vipers become Children of God.