What Should We Do?

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Luke 3:7-18

Our reading this week may seem off-putting at first.  Who wants to be called a “brood of vipers”?  But the early followers of Jesus included these fiery judgments by John the baptizer.  And we keep reading them, on purpose.  We keep reading them because we want to keep bringing our lives before the demanding and beautiful kingdom of God announced by Jesus himself.  We keep reading these harsh announcements by a fire-brand prophet because they call us to remember some important things we value.

We value good questions.  We value our differences.  And we value change.

 

So first, we value good questions.

When John the baptizer calls on us to repent, to change our minds and lives, to prepare the way for the arrival of Christ in our midst, the appropriate response is to ask a question.  That’s what the crowds do.  They ask, “What should we do?”

Knowing how to ask the right questions is a real skill in life.  Knowing the difference between good questions and bad questions can make all the difference in relationships, in school, and at work.  Not all questions are good ones.

In your first job interview with a new employer, don’t ask things like . . . “How much vacation do I get?”  Or, “is it a big deal if my lunch breaks run a little long?”  Or, “Would it be possible for me to have a second computer monitor at my work station?  I like to be on Facebook all day.”  Those are bad questions.

There are two primary reasons why we need to learn to ask good questions.  The first is that we’re prone to asking the wrong questions about life, about joy, about serving others, about meaning, significance, sex, power, and money.  But the second reason is that sometimes we get lulled to sleep and don’t ask any questions at all.  We drift passively through life, doing what we’ve seen others do, or doing what we’re told, never raising questions about the best kind of life. 

One of the real challenges of our techno-consumer-entertainment culture is that we are awash in comforts and conveniences.  And often this puts us to sleep.  We stop thinking, stop imagining, stop hoping and dreaming for more.  We settle for a petty and trivial life offered to us by our culture.  And so we need good questions like the question of the crowds in response to John’s preaching, “What should we do?”

I think the real value of Scripture is in the questions it raises.  What I mean is that Scripture isn’t very helpful if you imagine it as a book full of answers.  It’s not an answer book.  We want our kids to appreciate Scripture and take it seriously.  And so we’re tempted say things like Scripture has the answers to life’s questions.  But it doesn’t. 

Take, for example, the work of African- American biblical scholars to take Scripture seriously, even though knowing that it has been used in the past to deny the full humanity and dignity of black people.

“In Scripture we find our predecessors in the faith struggling to hear, to interpret, and to obey God’s Word in the midst of the realities and demands of the times and places in which they lived.  They offer us no ready-made answers for the specifics of the issues and situations we face today.  They do however, offer us the witness of their faith, of their experience of God’s gift and claim, of their commitment to understand the meaning of the gift and claim, and of their endeavor to be responsive to God’s call in the midst of their world” (19).

[Thomas Hoyt, “Interpreting Biblical Scholarship for the Black Church Tradition”]

The people we meet in the Bible are people living at specific times and places, trying to listen for God’s voice and respond in ways that make sense for them.  We can learn from them.  But what we most need to hear are the questions they put at the center of their lives, not their answers.  Their answers probably can’t be just plucked out of their ancient cultures and plugged seamlessly into ours.  And yet, God’s people raise profound and powerful and penetrating questions about life before God.  About joy, desire, humility, courage, and patience.  We value a life that keeps asking questions.

Second, we value our differences.

Did you notice that three different groups respond to John’s preaching?  Yes, they all ask the same question, “What should we do?”  But John responds to their question in a way that is sensitive to the differences and particularities of their lives.  He doesn’t say quite the same thing to the crowds, to the tax-collectors, and to the Roman soldiers.

Now this is wonderful news to us during this Advent season.  Here we are in week three, saying yet again, “God is arriving!  Prepare the way!  Open your hearts!  Repent and ready yourself for God’s fiery and demanding arrival!”  And in the midst of all this excitement, we might wonder whether the good news of Christmas can really honor the specific challenges and situations of our lives.

Let me be honest with you.  One of the real challenges of preaching a sermon every week is that I know that my experience is peculiar and limited.  I experience God in ways that are shaped by the specifics of my life.  I grew up in church, so this life with God has been a gradual unfolding for me.  I don’t have a dramatic conversion experience or pivot point to a brand new faith in Christ like some of you.  I grew up and experienced the world as a middle class person.  I haven’t known extreme poverty or extreme wealth.  I’m white, not black or Hispanic or Asian.  I’m male, and so do not know what it is like to experience life as a woman.  I’m married.  I’ve never been through divorce, or had cancer.  I’ve never been abused.  I liked school and language and am not very good working with my hands.  I’m not musically talented. 

We could go on and on, right?  But my job is to stand before you each week and try to persuade you in a fresh way that organizing our lives around Jesus Christ is the best way to live.  That our deepest satisfaction, joy, and peace comes from placing ourselves in Jesus’ new family.  And so I have to be careful not to imagine that all of you experience God and faith like I do.  But it’s difficult.  (No doubt you’ve all had the experience listening to a sermon and thinking to yourself, “Jared is so locked into his own narrow little experience, that he isn’t very helpful to a person like me.”)

Anyway, my point isn’t about my preaching.  My point is that Scripture leaves room for different kinds of people to experience God in different ways.  The good news of Jesus Christ isn’t one size fits all.  God delights to live in and around you and in the midst of all your relationships.  And God doesn’t waste any time wishing you were someone else. 

To the crowds, John says, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

To the notoriously greedy and unscrupulous tax collectors, John says, “Don’t collect any more than you are required to.”

And to the powerful outsiders, the non-Jewish Roman soldiers, who didn’t know much about Israel’s stories, hopes, and expectations, John says, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.”

Notice, John preaches in a way that calls for a response.  The response does not have all that much to do with how pious you are, whether you swear or not, how often you pray or go to synagogue.  The response has to do with how you organize your life.  Are you generous?  Are you acting justly and honestly in the work you do?  Are you humble and careful about how you use your power and position?  These are some of the ways we can respond to the good news of God’s fiery arrival in our midst.  But each of us will have to figure out what this looks like in our own, very different, situations.

Finally, we value action and change.

“What should we do?”  To ask this question at all is already a breakthrough.  Simply voicing it is a kind of success, even before you do anything.  Why?  Because the question comes from a place of humility and eager expectation at God’s arrival.  When John stomps his feet, raises his voice, and threatens our unproductive lives with the ax, it would be possible to respond with a sigh or a yawn.  “My parents and grandparents were members of this church”, we might say.  Or, “I’m an insider, I’m on the team, he must be talking to someone else, somebody with real problems.”  Or, “I believe all the right stuff, I pray the prayers, sing the songs, and show up at church, I even made a financial pledge, what MORE could God possibly want from me?”

No, we hear John preaching to us.  And this question has become our question.  What should we do?  We aren’t paralyzed and despairing.  Nor are we angry and defensive.  God is arriving, and we want to be ready.  Jesus Christ is coming now into our midst.  And we want to receive him with the awe and reverence due to one who comes to the threshing floor with a winnowing fork to separate the grain from the chaff.

Now the answer to that question won’t be the same for all of us.  We’re not all the same.  We have different things going on in life.  We have different challenges.  We have different capacities and abilities.  We’re different ages.  Some of us have families and others don’t.  Some of us are beginners on this path and others have been at it a long time.  Luckily, Luke the gospel writer knows that all kinds of different people will hear this story.

We’ll have to be a little imaginative this morning.  For all us, the primary image from John is that we are all trees responsible for bearing fruit, for producing the kind of actions and behaviors that are ways of responding to God’s love.  But what that fruit-bearing life looks like differs depending on your experiences, your age, and your role in life.

Some of you are retired, asking, “What should we do?”  Share what you’ve learned.  Tell your stories.  Stay interested in what’s going on with the world.  Volunteer if you don’t already.  

Some of you are in the middle of your career, asking “What should we do?”  Work hard.  Work with excellence.  Don’t be afraid of promotions, advancement, or taking on new responsibilities.  The money you make is a wonderful asset, which you can share with those in need. 

Some of you are parents, asking, “What should we do?”  Just don’t kill your kids.  No, seriously, just don’t kill them.  That’s one level of success in parenting.  All kids present challenges and painful experiences.  But God is at work in their lives, shaping them, softening them, preparing them for life.  Be the parent. And most of all, model for them what kindness, generosity, curiosity, and joy look like.

Some of you are single, asking, “What should we do?”  I don’t know.  Have you tried famersonly.com?  Just kidding.  Learn to love yourself and be content.  Find people to share your life with.  Get busy doing the things you love, becoming the person you’ve always wanted to become.

Some of you are kids or teenagers, still going to school, asking, “What should we do?”  Try to laugh and dance a lot.  That gets harder the older you get.  Pay attention to the pain in your life and in other kids’ lives.  Be kind.  Take charge of your own learning.  You might want to find out some things that no one seems willing to teach you.  Find someone to imitate, someone you respect.  And it can’t be a celebrity or a rich person.  Rich and famous people are usually really uninteresting.

Some of you aren’t sure whether you believe in the good news, asking, “What should we do?”  You should value your doubts.  You should guard and keep your questions. Your discomfort and your unwillingness to take easy answers – these are holy things, holy places in your life.  They are the places you’re most alive and honest.

I’ll close with Gail Godwin’s novel, The Finishing School, which reminds us to keep ourselves open for newness.  The character Ursula says:

“There are two kinds of people.  One kind you can tell just by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves.  It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it.  Whereas the other kind keeps moving, changing.  With these people, you can never say, ‘X stops here,’ or “Now I know all there is to know about Y.’  That doesn’t mean they’re unstable.  Ah, no, far from it.  They are fluid.  They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young.  In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive.  You must be constantly on your guard against congealing.”  Amen.