I am curious about the crowds in today’s Gospel reading. Why did people stream out into the wilderness to be yelled at? To be branded a “brood of vipers,” and to be threatened with the axe, the winnowing fork, and the fire? I love the way pastor and writer Debie Thomas describes John. She calls him “the bearded killjoy of Christmas.”[1] And yet. It seems there was something in these folks that needed John’s preaching, that craved his baptism. Somehow they did find good news of great joy in John’s words of warning and judgement.
Because, receiving John’s harangue, they didn’t get offended; they didn’t cower, fight or run away. Instead, they asked a question: “What, then, should we do?” Debie Thomas muses further,
That’s not necessarily a question people ask when things are going well. It’s the question we ask when we’ve come to the ends of ourselves. When the received wisdom has failed, when our cherished defenses are down, when our lives are splitting at the seams. It’s what we ask when we’re weary, bored, disillusioned, or desperate.[2]
What then should we do? This question seems very timely, doesn’t it? During this year’s advent season, it doesn’t feel to me much like we are anticipating a joyous birth. Instead, I feel as if we await the results of a biopsy that will tell us just how fatal the disease is. In coming months and years, will our loved ones be safe? Who will be deported or jailed? Whose rights will be violated? How will those bent on hatred and violence be emboldened? What about the climate? Health care? Our justice system? The basic functions of government? Given the reality of these unsettling times, what then should we do? How can we get ready for the coming of God-with-us?
Our daughter Alice and I recently finished reading the new novel by Lois Lowry: Tree, Table, Book. The story was perfect for us because the main character, Sophie, is 11, and Alice is also 11. Surprisingly, Sophie finds her best friend—as she puts it, her “friend of the heart”—not in another kid her age, but in her next-door neighbor, eighty-eight-year-old Sophie Gershowitz. Unfortunately, the elder Sophie is experiencing the early stages of dementia. Her son is planning to have her move to an assisted living facility in the big city where he lives. The younger Sophie is devastated at the thought of losing her friend, and sets out to prove that the elder Sophie is capable of staying in her own home. Sophie borrows the Merck diagnostic manual from her friend Ralphie, the son of a pediatrician (as she does whenever medical issues worry her), and she follows its instructions to test Sophie’s memory.
Despite repeated tries, the elder Sophie cannot pass Test #2. She can’t remember three words for three minutes. So Sophie takes a different approach. She asks her friend to tell stories about the words tree, table, and book hoping it will help her recall them. The stories Sophie shares with her young friend unearth her long-buried experiences as the child of a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied Poland.
“My darling girl,” the [elder Sophie] said, “I have never told anyone these stories. For all these many years my mouth has not been able to make the words. Not even to Max. Or Aaron.” [her sons] Then she said, abruptly, “I don’t remember the three words.” “Tree,” I told her. “Table. Book.” She sighed. “Yes. And you have them now, with their stories. Keep them close. Hold on to them tightly for me. Don’t forget them.” (pp. 146–47)
What then should we do? It’s a very practical question. And surprisingly, despite all his over-the-top rhetoric, John gave the crowd some very down-to-earth answers. “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” It’s notable that in his instructions to the tax collectors and soldiers—two groups whose job it was to enforce the will of a cruel and greedy empire—John did not seek to provoke a revolution. He did not urge these men to leave their posts. He simply instructed them to refuse to participate in the exploitation and abuse that was rampant among their ranks. “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
In other words, heroics are not required to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. We need only ask ourselves: what is the next right step for me to take? In what way is it within my capacity, here and now, to align myself with God’s energy, God’s intention? Repentance, the reorientation of our lives that this moment demands, is to be found in simple, everyday acts—distributing life’s necessities with equity, using power with integrity, working for the best possible outcome amid the larger systems that constrain us.
At the end of Tree, Table, Book, 11-year-old Sophie reflects on her yearning to set things right in the world. Listening to her dad, a real estate agent, talk about how the empty house next door needs work, she muses,
I began to fantasize that I could be a fixer-upper of the world. Not just slapping on new paint, but rebuilding the foundations of things. . . . I could go back to where terrible mistakes were made, and I would find the flaws, fix them, make things solid and right.
Sophie imagines that she would fix the hard parts of Sophie Gershowitz’s life. She’d fix aging itself so that older people “would be strong and healthy and their brains would work.” She would fix grownups who didn’t take the time to understand Oliver, a neighbor kid who was a bit different.
It’s exhausting to think about. There is so very much to fix. And I know, of course, that a lot of it isn’t fixable. I understand that. But I can try. I’ll start small. (pp. 188–190)
Sophie cannot fix dementia and she cannot prevent her best friend from moving away. And yet she offers a beautiful and powerful gift of love and connection when she becomes the elder Sophie’s memory, holding and keeping the sacred stories of her life.
I think John the Baptist yells at us not to condemn us but to provoke us to be the agents of divine love and justice we are made to be. John seeks to awaken us to truths about our lives we often willfully avoid knowing—that sometimes we do behave like a brood of vipers or like a fruit tree that no longer bears fruit; and sometimes, we lose our focus amid all the chaff that needs clearing away. John calls upon us to look at this hard stuff, to acknowledge the ways our conduct contributes to the distress of the world and worsens our own hopeless feelings. The fact is, the crowd that gathered around John, clamoring for his baptism, was not at all on the same page—economically, religiously, or politically. John’s dialogue with the hated tax collectors and soldiers makes the diversity of this gathering real. Likely the crowd was a mixture of Gentiles and Jews, and included Jews who collaborated with the Romans to exploit their own neighbors. In meeting all these people where they were at, John leaned into the promise of the prophet Isaiah he had just proclaimed, that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
I take heart in the possibility that the simple, everyday acts of repentance John prescribes can contribute to revolutionary change. When we set in motion small ripples of healing and wholeness, our energy is joined to divine momentum, and we become part of God’s deeper, broader efforts to repair the world. The cutting, winnowing, and burning are not images of violent destruction. They are ways of describing the process of repentance—a deep change of heart, a fruitful reorientation of behavior. The fire of Jesus’ baptism is the same fire that sparked the birth of the church on Pentecost. Transformation can be difficult, painful, and even frightening. And, yet through the movement of the holy spirit, our efforts and God’s join together to birth new realities, to bring joy and freedom to us and to the world. I think that process of transformation is what Julian had in mind when she said “All shall be well.” So friends, what is the next right step for you to take? In what way is it within your capacity, here and now, to align yourself with God’s energy, God’s intention? How are you called toward simple, everyday acts of repentance? Amen.
[1] https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2030-what-then-should-we-do
[2] Ibid.