The Rev. Josh Shipman
Gaudete Sunday, Year C, 2015
Luke 3:7-18
Have you ever wanted something—
anything—
so badly, that you just couldn’t
live with out it?
My guess is that a number
of people gathered here
have had this experience.
Let’s go further, though.
Have you ever wanted something—
anything—
so badly, that you just couldn’t
live without it—
BUT once you got whatever it was,
you were greatly disappointed?
It didn’t live up
to your expectations.
Picture it: Denver
Around 2007 or 2008.
It was a Sunday afternoon
and I was in a shopping spirit.
So, naturally,
I end up on Wal-Mart.com—
and there it is.
An easy-to-put-together
and take apart
plastic pool—
about four and a half feet deep
and who knows how many feet in diameter.
I had to have it,
I couldn’t live without it!
Summer was a-coming!
And with one simple click,
and filling out a bit of
financial information,
it was on the way.
Now, ordering a thing is easy.
Setting it up after it arrives
is another story, entirely.
We decided that the pool
should go in some space
in front of our shed—
so Tim went out and got some dirt—
Shall we say he made straight the path?
That he exalted every valley
and made the mountains low?
No. We won’t say that.
He took a piece of wood
and a bunch of dirt,
and filled our holey yard.
And, as it goes with many
of my big projects—
he put the thing together.
But the problems started right away.
First the hoses
wouldn’t connect properly—
so water came spraying out
of the places where they were supposed to connect.
We managed to fix that,
but then the water turned green—
so I bought a toxic mix of chemicals
and managed to turn the water clear
again.
All the while, it was still too cold
to actually get into the pool.
And then the ground started
to settle underneath the pool.
And what was once
a 4 and a half feet deep pool,
developed something like
a 3 and a half foot end
and a 5 or 6 foot deep end.
This development was due, in part,
to the pool leaning dangerously
to the right—
quite capable of flooding the neighbors yard
with thousands of gallons of water,
and washing their dog away.
A dog whose name, ironically,
was Flo.
Don’t worry, though,
before the pool could collapse in on itself,
creating a tsunami—
it somehow sprang a leak
in it’s floor—
So I waded in.
The temperature in Denver at the time,
averaged in the 80s—but that wasn’t enough
to heat the water—which was probably about 40 degrees.
I put my swim trunks on,
got into the frigid, turbid water
and applied a patch.
More leaks developed,
and the pool finally emptied itself
into our yard, and gave up the ghost.
I don’t know who was more deflated:
the pool or me.
(pause)
I wonder how many of the
first-century messiah speculators
felt deflated when they encountered John.
Can you imagine,
what it would be like,
if I began a sermon—you brood of vipers!
OK. Maybe during Lent,
butcertainly not any other time.
And this was a baptismal sermon, no less.
People came to be baptized,
and received an earful.
John was hellfire and brimstone
before it was cool.
Or was he?
Look at the cast of characters:
The crowds—what kind of people
do you think are hanging out in the wilderness?
It’s unlikely that they were affluent city folk.
They were the people on the margins,
looking for a sign of hope.
To them, he says,
Even out of your scarcity,
share abundantly—extra food, extra coats?
Give them away!
Then, there are the tax collectors—
these were people who often
added their own “taxes”
on top of the official Roman tax,
and for that reason were not generally
well liked.
To them, he says,
take what is owed to you and no more.
Don’t cheat people.
Work honestly.
And, finally, the Roman Soldiers—
These were the occupiers
of the Holy Land—
the foreign imperial forces.
He tells them, don’t use
your brute force to extort
money from people.
These are not fire and brimstone answers.
They are very simple
acts of compassion for one’s neighbors.
But how many meals
could I have provided people in need
or how many other charitable purchases
could I have made instead of clicking on
that doomed pool?
How many coats do I own?
(pause)
Sometimes the simple
changes in life
can be some of the hardest.
I wonder how many of
John’s would be baptizands,
like the rich man,
turned away crestfallen?
But I’m not rich.
But I like my “commission.”
But the Roman legions job is to scare people.
The Word of God came
to the Son of Zechariah,
and it showed up in an unexpected place.
But the message,
though it was simple,
was too much.
(pause)
And how many people, I wonder,
had pinned their hopes on John
being the messiah?
They showed up to be baptized,
but they didn’t encounter
some great militaristic leader—
not even a gentle mild, peacemaker—
rather, something closer to a madman,
shouting about vipers and burning trees.
(pause)
So, they sat through the sermon, anyway,
and I’m sure some were baptized,
but then he drops the big bombshell—
“I’m not even the Messiah,” he says.
“Someone is coming after me,
and he’s going to separate
the wheat from the chaff.”
The chaff being burned,
in unquenchable fire.
(pause)
Every year we desire
to see Baby Jesus
in the manger,
and every year,
wehave to deal with this man,
dressed in camels hair,
eating locusts and honey,
And proclaiming the Good News.
That’s actually what Luke’s Gospel says,
So, with many other exhortations
he proclaimed the Good News
to the people.
As one commentator said,
“If this is John’s idea of good news,
I’m not sure I want to hear the bad news.”[1]
(pause)
But we’ve been preconditioned
to read anything involving fire
as—well, let’s just say that place
that none of us wants to go.
But remember that in parts
of our Scriptures,
fireis a helpful tool,
a way of refining something.
I’m sure you’ve heard the lines
from Handel’s Messiah:
But who may abide
the day of his coming,
for his is like a refiner’s fire
and like fullers’ soap.
These things burn
and scour—but the final product
is actually much better
than the original.
Could that be the Good News
that John is proclaiming?
The chaff is part of the wheat.
People don’t say,
“Ha! Take that you wicked chaff!”
when preparing wheat for consumption.
Removing the chaff is just part of the process.
But even that may seem scary
to some of us,
when we are talking about
our walk with God.
We come to God
with all of our baggage:
our egos,
our desires,
our sometimes rampant consumption,
our personality patterns that often imprison us.
And God says,
I’m going to burn all of that away.
And that isn’t going to be
an easy process,
and sometimes it takes
areally long time,
but in the end,
you’ll look a lot more like me:
Radiant.
The Embodiment of Love.
This is Good News.
Rejoice.
[1]