3d Sunday of Advent
Dec. 15, 1985
Luke
3: 10-18
Assumption,
San Leandro, Calif.
A
man had just put down a new sidewalk. He
looked out the window and saw some kids marking up his wet cement. He stormed out and yelled some very rude
things at them. A neighbor heard him and
asked, “Don’t you like children?” “In
general, yes,” he answered, “but not in the concrete.”[1]
This
Sunday preachers have a certain temptation to avoid the gospel and to take a
good look at Philippians. Philippians
offers us some beautiful generalities: “Rejoice! Let everyone see how unselfish
you are. Don’t be anxious. Pray gratefully for what you need” (Phil.
4:4-6).
But
if we want to get concrete, e.g., about not being selfish, maybe we should join
the crowds in asking John the Baptist, “What should we do?” (Luke 3:10).
 |
| The Preaching of John the Baptist (Peter Brueghel the Elder) |
Last
Sunday we heard John preaching a baptism of repentance and announcing that the
Lord is on the way. All mankind shall
see salvation (Luke 3:3-6). In the
verses that we skip between last week and this week, he warns us to repent in
our actions, not just in our minds: for
the God who comes to save comes to take care of evildoers, too!
So
the crowds want to know what they should do.
How does one go about repenting in order to prepare a way for the Lord?
The question is obviously of interest to us—not only in Advent season, but all
our lives; for we’re always looking for his coming.
You
must have noticed that John doesn’t mince words. “Let the man (or woman) who has 2 coats give
to him who has none. The man who has
food should do the same” (3:11). That’s
a pretty concrete application of Paul’s “Everyone should see how unselfish you
are” (Phil. 4:5).
And
John told the tax collectors not to exact more than they were entitled to—excessive
taxation was one of the greatest injustices of the time, and many a tax
collector was stuffing his own pockets. Again,
John’s answer is pretty concrete, and it goes beyond unselfishness to basic
justice. Likewise his advice to
soldiers.
Brothers
and sisters, what are we to do? Are our
hearts disturbed when we hear John’s words about abundant possessions? When we read or hear about the hungry, the
homeless, the unemployed, and the disaster-stricken, do we look at our own
loaded freezers, our crammed closets, our luxury cars, our electronic toys and
electric gadgets, our cosmetics and cigarettes and season tickets? Maybe we ought to. Maybe, in conjunction with John’s preaching,
we ought to read Jesus’ parable about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16.
“Exact
nothing over and above your fixed amount” (3:13). If we have a business—a paper route, a
grocery, a corporation—do our prices allow a reasonable profit after expenses? Are the employees paid a decent wage, with
benefits, enough to support their families? Are surplus goods given to charity or just
dumped? Does the business respect the
environment in which we all have to live? Do we—as individuals and as businesses—pay our fair share of taxes, or by
dodging them do we commit injustice against everyone else, who are thereby
forced to pay more to make up for people like us?
“Do
not bully anyone. Denounce no one
falsely. Be content with your pay”
(3:14). These may not be temptation for
soldiers so much anymore, at least not in our culture. But they can apply to public officials, to
police officers and security guards, to claims investigators and reporters, top
union leaders, to clergy, in fact to virtually everyone who holds a job or
exercises authority or shoots the breeze with his or her friends.
For
Christ is coming. He is coming to judge:
i.e., to save the oppressed, the
down-and-outers, and the repentant; but to take down the oppressors, the
couldn’t-care-lessers, and the proud (cf. Luke 1:51-53). John uses a homey, farm boy image: “His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his
threshing floor and gather his wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will
burn with unquenchable fire” (3:17).
In
the primitive agriculture of hilly, rocky, 1st-century Palestine, farmers
didn’t harvest with huge combines that we’ve seen, at least in pictures. They reaped the standing grain with sickles
and brought the sheaves to a threshing floor.
On this open stone floor, the grain was trodden by oxen and a drag until
the bran and straw had been separated from the wheat kernels. Then the whole mess was winnowed by being
tossed repeatedly into the air; the evening breeze or peasants wielding fans
would blow away the lightweight bran, while the heavier kernels would keep
falling back to the floor. Finally the
grain was passed through sieves to remove dirt and other particles. (Don’t ever let anyone tell you the good old
days weren’t hard work!)
John’s
image shows that the Messiah will separate the wheat from the chaff, to save
the wheat and gather it into his barns and to get rid of the chaff. Judgment is a punishment for those who won’t
listen, vindication—salvation—for those who repent.
“What
should we do?” The choice is ours.
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