Worship

Sermon Archive

Sunday December 13, 2009
11:00 am - Saint Thomas Church
Preacher: Fr Mead

Luke 3:7-18
Philippians 4:4-9

Good News for a Brood of Vipers

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

We get a double dose of John the Baptist every Advent, on the second and third Sundays of the season. This is fitting, because John is the herald of the Messiah. He was also Jesus’ cousin: their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, were kin. Saint Luke, whose Gospel we shall read for most of the upcoming Church Year, provides this information, writing with his signature elegance and historical mastery. Luke must have enjoyed the juxtaposition in his passage today – which begins with John calling the multitude that came out to be baptized by him a “brood of vipers,” and then finishes with the Evangelist’s conclusion that with his exhortations John “preached good news to the people.”

But it was good news. John the Baptist told the people how to avoid “the wrath to come.” The axe of God’s judgment was even then being laid to the root of the trees. “Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” What does he mean? He means that good credentials, good family, good church background, these are not enough for the “tree” to escape burning: Do not say, I am a child of Abraham; or, I am a cradle Episcopalian; or even, I am baptized and confirmed and a parishioner at Saint Thomas. It is the fruit of the tree, what it produces, today, that matters. In the words of the Book of Common Prayer, good works “…spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.”¹ Faith without works is dead.²

That being the case, what is to be done? Everyone, says the prophet, is to be generous by giving alms, by looking out for the needy. If you have two coats, give one to the person who is cold. The same goes for food and the hungry. Or volunteer your time or give money to a charity, perhaps a soup kitchen, like ours on Saturdays at Saint Thomas, or the big one every weekday at Holy Apostles Church in Chelsea. “If any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and truth.”³ There are many ways to give alms; the point is to give them, one way or another. Our money, including our wits, skill and strength to make money, comes from God. If one of God’s children, a brother or sister in the flesh, is hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or sick, or in prison or hurting in some way, I can, as it were, “share my extra coat.” For there, but for the grace of God, go I.

The stern prophet turns out to be gentle when it comes to specific groups of people, including or especially those who were not so respectable in his society’s eyes. For example, tax collectors, who were despised by the Jews for garnering money for their hated Roman overlords, were not told to give up their livelihoods; but rather, to collect no more than what was appointed them. John was not disputing the authority of the State, Rome, to collect its taxes. Someone had to do it. John was warning those who did do it not to gouge and steal under the cover of the State.

By the same token, John, who was an ascetic figure and who lived in the wilderness, withdrawn from both Jewish and Roman society, nevertheless did not tell soldiers to stop being soldiers. Just as with the tax collectors, the soldiers were performing a job which was, under God’s providence, to keep peace and order and to defend against attacks against the Pax Romana. However, that job (and its attendant power) was not a license to steal, to intimidate, or to brutalize. And the soldiers were to be content with their wages. Job security they had; but soldiering is a service to society, not an excuse to be mercenary or abusive.

Thus John the Baptist proves to be a sober, clear-eyed prophet of justice and righteousness in the social order. Despite his reputation, he is no wild man or extremist; not even a political revolutionary. In fact John the Baptist points away from himself entirely. He baptizes with water for repentance – as a preparation for the One who is coming, mightier than John, “the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 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.”

The Messiah’s fire is nothing other than the direct, personal influence of God himself, the Holy Spirit: God whom Christ said is Love. The Messiah’s fire is what came down at Pentecost, tongues of spiritual fire lighting upon Jesus’ disciples. To those who repent and love the appearing of Christ, this fire convicts, converts and consecrates, healing and strengthening the more deeply it is received, warming and energizing the soul. On the other hand, this same fire (which saves the repentant sinner) burns up the chaff of sin; and it burns unquenchably on a hard and impenetrable heart.

So John the Baptist, the herald of Christ, says to do good works that befit repentance: to clothe and feed and give alms to the poor; and to perform our jobs with honesty and justice. But let us conclude with just a bit more: the very beautiful guidance we heard from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, guidance on how to prepare for the coming of the Lord. Writing from prison, near the end of his life as he approaches execution by the Emperor Nero, the Apostle says to rejoice in the Lord always; to rejoice in whatever spot we find ourselves. In prosperity, in adversity, in sickness, in health, in life or at the hour of death, we are rejoice and to be thankful. We are to live and move in prayer, and to think on whatever is true, honorable, pure, lovely, excellent, and worthy of praise; and we are to do or to support and nurture these good things. Thereby we will have the peace of God which passes understanding. This Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, Latin for “rejoice,” as in today’s Epistle and in the Mass text for today that begins with that word: Gaudete! Rejoice! How fitting! For as we hearken to John the Baptist’s cry, to God’s wake-up call, we find not only that we have avoided the wrath of God’s judgment. We also receive the Glad Tidings of the Kingdom of Christ, a Kingdom we are bidden to enter.*

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

___________________________
¹Articles of Religion, XII, BCP 1928, p. 605; BCP 1979, p. 870.
²James 2:18-26
³I John 3:17-18
*My thoughts about Philippians 4:4-9 here are deeply influenced by John Neiswanger, former Vestryman and Warden of Saint Thomas, as he has undergone a four-year ordeal with cancer and as he has faced death. His spirit has inspired all who are privileged to know him. I dedicate this sermon to Brother John.