Sunday, December 12, 2021

Brood of Vipers? It's Not Too Late to Change: a Sermon for Third Advent at Christ the King


What a strange set of readings for this Sunday! There's such hope and joy coming from Zephaniah. Then there was Paul's Letter to the Philippians, a church he actually liked, which starts with "Rejoice! Again rejoice!" 

And then John the Baptizer is screaming insults at people coming to be baptized. 

This was possibly the last sermon I am going to be preaching to the congregations of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Valdosta. I have enjoyed preaching there because the congregation is more likely to spontaneously respond to what I'm saying...not something that is typical of most congregations in the Episcopal Church. But then again, CtK is not your typical Episcopal Church. They were, until 1988, an Assembly of God congregation. 

I put my theater skills to work in this sermon, which shocked the 10am congregation. They weren't expecting someone to scream at them "You brood of vipers! Who told you to flee the wrath that is to come?!" 

But then...I don't think "the crowd" was ready for John's smackdown either!

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Prayer: God, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing;

Let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightening,

Illumines the darkness in which we walk.

Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed.

And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness,

and exclaim… in wonder… how filled with awe is this place…and we did not know it. Amen.—Shabbat Evening 1, Mishkan T’filah, 53.


I wish I could claim the words of this prayer as my own…but truthfully I lifted them from the prayer book at my wife’s Jewish temple. We were at the Friday evening Shabbat service for the sixth night of Hanukkah. Everyone had been invited to bring their menorahs from home and set them up on tables at the front of the sanctuary to light for the service. During a moment of silent prayer and reflection, my eyes landed on these words…which seemed so perfect in that candle-lit space. They work well with our own season of Advent…where we are constantly being reminded to look for the light of God’s presence in our world which is often full darkness.

And speaking of one noticing the light in the darkness…we have John the Baptizer in the wilderness. Now…last week…was John One-point-oh. His was the voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way…make the crooked paths straight. And perhaps we didn’t quite get it the last time…so this week…on “Stir up Sunday” it’s John Two-point-oh. He’s not just crying out somewhere off at the county line anymore. Now he’s all up in the faces of the crowd:

“You brood of vipers!! Who warned you to the flee from the wrath that is to come?!!”

Well, OK, then!

I wouldn’t recommend “brood of vipers” as a Christmas card greeting. No wonder Hallmark doesn’t have a niche market for Advent cards!

The choice of words is strong. And insulting, really. Vipers have these really long venomous fangs and had the reputation for eating their way out of their mother’s body…thus killing their own mama.

In Luke…we hear that John is slinging these words at “the crowd”; in Matthew’s version of this same moment, it’s the Sadducees, scribes, and Pharisees. These are the groups that our hippie hero prophet John, who’s out there in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey, has tried to escape. He’s on the outskirts of town to get away from what he thinks of as a corrupt religion and has become the leader of another group of Jews…the Essenes…in what he believes is a purer religion that’ll get back to being in right relationship with God.

There’s this word…”brood.” One commentator I read noted that the word “brood”—and what word that is “brood”—is not the actual pit of vipers itself but the offspring of these snakes. So this “brood of vipers” represents, for John, generations of dull and corrupted Judiasm.

Add to this the presence of the tax collectors: now THERE’S a particularly hated group, right?

Nobody likes the I-R-S…and in those days…the I-R-S was really hated because they were Jews hired by the Roman Empire to collect the taxes from their fellow Jews. They were seen as traitors. And it didn’t help that there were many who would engage in fraud, overcharging the taxed and pocketing the change.

Oh, and then who else is in this crowd but the soldiers! They were kind of like “Herod’s henchmen” who would bully and shake down the Jewish citizens.

So all kinds of representations of Empire and Classism and Brutality…everything that is the polar opposite of John…they’ve all come out into the wilderness…seeking John’s baptism in the River Jordan. You can imagine how thrilled he was to see them!

After John gives this brood of vipers a tongue lashing…they look at him, blinking, and say, “What then should we do?”

“Well,” John says, putting his hands on his hips…

Soldiers: don’t extort or threaten people.

Tax Collectors: only get the money actually owed.

Jewish leaders: You know what the code says: You have two coats: give one to the person who has none.

To put it another way: “You need to get yourself right! You need to take a good look at yourself and realize that there are things you’re doing, behaviors you’ve had, that have been harmful to your fellow human. Get yourself right with God…now! Because the Light is coming…capital “L” light…is coming.”

And we know that’s true even today.

Each week…one more candle gets lit on the Advent wreath…to remind us that even in the midst of days that are growing darker earlier…during times where we might feel down, depressed or overwrought…the Light is coming and getting brighter and brighter. And, as difficult as it can be to hear that accusation—‘brood of vipers’—we need to hear John’s message behind those words.

Because we are the crowd, too.

Just like that crowd at the Jordan…we are products of the society in which we live that has allowed for disparities of wealth and divisions among people to grow. We may not be actively participating in causing harm to others, but we often benefit from the way our society is structured that keeps some on the margins…out of sight and out of mind.

I think about what happened with all the shutdowns that came with the pandemic. Suddenly, we learned that “essential workers” were not just nurses and doctors in the hospitals; it was their janitorial staff.

Essential workers were stocking shelves and checking out people at the cash registers in grocery stores.

They were… and are… farmworkers and the meat packers in neighboring communities, helping to keep the supply chain of food going so that there would be something in the grocery stores and restaurants (another set of “essential workers”).

While some of us stayed at home, others simply could not.

Let’s not even get started on the disruption to education. Some school children could get on the internet and attend classes remotely; many others didn’t have a stable enough connection. Some classes could switch over to remote learning; others were far more challenging…and to the point where some teachers put away their planners for the last time and took early retirement.

As long as we’re comfortable and undisturbed by the gaps that exist in our community, and as long as we sit idly by when we hear phrases such as some place being in the “good part of town,” we run the risk of being just like that clueless crowd out in the wilderness, looking dumbstruck as John gives them what for.

And that’s why we need John…and we need Advent.

We need to get that push… that shake up… to take a look at ourselves and what’s around us.

Last week…we prepared the way for the Light’s return. Now John is saying…get rid of the behaviors and let go of those things which are holding us back.

When the light illumines a place and reveals what has been hiding in the darkness…don’t look away.

Address it.

Deal with it.

The answer to “What should we do?”

Be ready because “the way things have always been” is coming to an end and a new thing is about to happen.

And let the church say, “Amen.”

 

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