Sunday, December 16, 2018

Homily for 3d Sunday of Advent

Homily for the
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.


     [1] From Gerald Kennedy, The Preacher and the New English Bible (NY, 1972), p. 102.

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