Sunday Dec 13th, thoughts going in

Well, as I said last week, Advent 3 is a continuation of Advent 2. The lectionary spreads the apocalyptic prophet John the Baptist over two Sundays. Last Sunday he was introduced--along with the concept that after long centuries of silence, the "Word of God came" among His people. This Sunday the emphasis is more on the specifics of John's message.

Right off the bat there's an interesting textual variant between Luke's account of John's preaching and Matthew's. Luke says in 3:7 "So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come ?" Whereas, Matthew reserves the name-calling for only the Pharisees & Sadducees coming out for baptism (being evidently unconcerned with the slight oddity that Sadducees would wander *away* from Jerusalem & the Temple, Mt. 3:7). As most scholars date the writing of Matthew before that of Luke and see in Luke an intentional 'tinkering' or 'corrective,' one wonders why Luke would broaden the invective to include EVERYONE.

Some thoughts come to mind, but in the end (as always) it's mere speculation. Of course it goes without saying that the earlier the writing, the closer we get to the Jewish revolt of 66-73AD. Students of this era know that this was no "peasant's revolt." It began as a result of a series of missteps among the Jewish Ruling class (see Martin Goodman: "The Ruling Class of Judea"). Matthew, as an earlier writing, *may* have been trying to highlight a negative portrayal of the ruling class, in essence saying: 'not only can these guys not be trusted to successfully guide the country through revolt against Rome, but if you look back, even the prophet John the Baptist called them a brood of vipers.' Whereas, by the time Luke came along (likely in the 80s) all of the dust had settled. Perhaps this was Luke's way of simply being more 'egalitarian,' pointing out that ALL in the crowd were of equal need of repentance. Before we leave the topic, however, one last item of 'ownership' needs to be mentioned. It is a sad irony that we can detect very early on in the life of the church a certain anti-Semitic sentiment. It doesn't take long for the consciousness of the Church to *forget* that Jerusalem *had* been the mother church, and that the first believers were Torah-observant Jews. By the time Ignatius of Antioch comes on the scene the idea of a Torah-observant Jewish believer in Jesus seems almost repugnant to him (cf his letter to the Magnesians). One *hopes* that Luke's egalitarian treatment of all Jews in this text is not part of that early developing anti-Semitic sentiment.

In Luke 3:8, John says: "Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father,' for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. It has been mentioned by some that a "stone" or "stones" is metaphorical for Gentiles in Rabbinic thought. Hence, maybe John is pointing to the Gentiles in the crowd & saying: "these 'stones' could be children of God.....so don't brag about your ancestry from Abraham.'" Hmmmmmmmmm. Maybe. But we don't have a lot of evidence that John was steeped in Rabbinic thought. It might be safer to simply assume that stones means stones.

We find an interesting sentence in vs 14 "Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we do ?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages."

Some commentators wish to make these soldiers Roman troops. If so, I suppose that would at least put *some* Gentiles in the crowd for the 'stone' metaphor to work. It seems safer, however, to assume that the troops are Herodian and of some Jewish extraction. We need to remember that when John lands in hot water, he doesn't find himself before a Roman court, he's imprisoned by Herod.

The passage ends by saying:
15 Now while the people were in a state of expectation and all were wondering in their hearts about John, as to whether he was the Christ, 16 John answered and said to them all, "As for me, I baptize you with water ; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals ; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 "His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn ; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." 18 So with many other exhortations he preached the gospel to the people.

Vs 18 is one of those great "Lutheran-killers" in the new testament. By which I mean, the Lutheran hermeneutical tradition wants always to see a nice clean dichotomy between LAW and GOSPEL. Law = God's demands on us (that we, at best, can only marginally meet), whereas Gospel = God's loving gifts for & toward us. And I have to admit that this method works pretty good most of the time. Occasionally, however, it falls flat. Luke 3:18 is a pretty good example of that. John the Baptist gives a boatload of fiery exhortations and Luke calls that THE GOSPEL.

So, what's going on here?
It seems to me that Luke is portraying a prophet who's trying to stir an apathetic people to ACTION. He calls them ALL a brood of vipers, not just their leaders. His question "who warned you to flee the coming wrath" seems redundant. HE WARNED THEM.....by just his presence drawing their attention, if nothing else. And concerning his ritual immersion, all of them would be familiar with rites of immersion (for instance, before ascending to the Temple), but this rite seems to come closer to the idea of 'proselyte baptism,' the ritual cleansing that happens when a Gentile converts to Judaism. He's asking Jews to behave like Gentile converts--in essence, to start all over again in NEW RELATIONSHIP with their God. His ethical teachings about 'whoever has 2 coats should share with those who have none' have a two-fold meaning: (1) you share with those closest to you; your family; your community. John wants those being baptized to see themselves in communal terms. But also (2) there is journey symbolism at work. If you're headed out on a journey, you'll just be weighed down if you're trying to pack along a lot of un-needed extra items. Best to share with those who don't have enough, that way all will be able to journey in a state of preparedness. The journey is metaphorical.....in that it is a journey of *faith*.....but John and Jesus were not gnostics. It's also a journey in the literal sense of *renewal*. In the Christ event, the very thing that John is trying to prep his listeners for (and us), God is all about renewing the brokenness of his creation PERSONALLY.....first and foremost through the redemption brought by Christ on the cross, but then literally & physically through the good works of His Church.

cheers,

TM