For Sunday, December 13, 2015 – Luke 3:7-18
The one called John the Baptist, a prophet shaped by wilderness, educated outside the religious and political systems, begins to announce God’s new order and invite people into it. He has the feeling that many who come to be baptized by him are seeking self-preservation more than self-surrender. I wonder if he might sense the same about us. Do we run to God as a protector and shield due to the messes we have gotten into, or are we truly motivated by the desire to walk a new way? Do we want mostly to enjoy the sweet fruit God provides, our birthright as children of God, or are we willing to join God’s program already in progress and bear some fruit ourselves?
John says it is an urgent matter, this fruit-bearing question, that every tree not bearing good fruit is about to be cut down and thrown into the fire. “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees,” he says dramatically. Who would want to be cut down as long as there is the possibility of being and doing that for which God planted us in the first place? Might we even yet become the people God intends? Who wants to ride the coat tails of religious ancestry when we can join a movement to blaze new trails instead?
And so they ask him, “What then should we do?” Another good question to ponder in this particular waiting, hoping season. In the currents of this moment, this ragged-edged, fearful, fevered moment, what should we do? John does not wax poetic, swinging some pretty metaphors in their direction. He suggests specific actions for their various situations: give away your surplus clothes, share your food, give people the money that belongs to them, keep no more money than what belongs to you. Don’t threaten people or falsely accuse anyone.
These are ideas we can really use. They are keys with the potential to unlock whatever prison we might be trapped in. Put your life where your mouth is, John says. Be who you say you want to be by doing what you say you want to be doing. John is laying a clear path for all of us who have wanted to change but have not known how. By getting specific in our outward actions, we carve out space within for God’s way to be born.
