The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, the 3rd Chapter
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
You brood of vipers! It feels good to say that, or at least think it really loudly, doesn’t it? It feels good to size that other joker up and see their snake-like, slithering, poison-filled, sneakiness and at least sneer knowingly. And these days there’s an extra large brood of snake-like, slithering sneakiness out there to call out for sure, right?! You brood of vipers! Yup, it feels good! And from up here, high above the lawn, it’s easy to see all those snakes in the grass, filled with poison, slithering through life. And from up here it’s easy to point at them and scream, “You brood of vipers!” so the whole world knows who they are!
It’s great to do that… to point out the snakes of the world… It’s great to do that… right up to the very moment, out of the corner of your eye, you just happen to catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and maybe for the first time ever, begin to wonder… “Could it be that this whole time, I’ve been the pot calling the kettle black... or the rattlesnake calling the copperhead a viper?”
There are basically two human reactions to trying to come to terms with the idea that you are in fact, part of that brood of vipers. The first reaction is how the Sadducees and the Pharisees reacted, which can be summed up with the intricate, deep and theologically complex phrase of, “NUH UH!” Nuh uh, I am NOT a snake in the grass! Nuh uh, my family has been church members for generations! I can’t be part of the brood! Nuh uh, I follow every bit of doctrine and know Scripture backwards and forwards! I can’t be part of the brood! That’s one possible reaction.
The other reaction to seeing your snake-like reflection in the mirror is to do like the people from Jerusalem and Judea all did and promise, promise, PROMISE to stop acting like snakes. To stop slithering. To stop flicking out your tongue and to certainly, absolutely, positively stop opening your mouth and letting venom spew out!
Of those two options, John the Baptist was a much bigger fan of folks promising and trying… really and truly trying… to NOT act like a brood of vipers when they went back to their lives in Jerusalem and Judea. But as big a fan of repentance as John the Baptist was, he still KNEW, that even doing that… even trying really, really, REALLY hard to not act so snake like, it was nothing more than a temporary fix.
John knew that you and I are like a mixed orchard of good and bad trees... that we're not like individual trees. There aren’t some of us who are completely fruitless and others who deliver a bumper crop each and every season. John knew that you and I are each more like our own little orchards. Each one of us have trees in our orchard that make only rotten apples but we also all have other trees that rain down good fruit all the time. John knew that about people and so he asked them to pay attention… to get to know themselves more deeply... to feed the parts that bore good fruits and not stir up the parts of themselves that spewed venom. But John ALSO knew that doing that… giving more of our time and energy to the good parts of ourselves… even doing that very, very well couldn’t change our nature. Only the One who was coming with an ax could change the mix of trees in our individual orchards.
John KNEW, that you and I… we’re all Saints and Sinners… all of us with both types of trees in our orchards… all of us with our saintliness and our sin, impossibly wrapped up around one another like the chaff is impossibly wrapped around the grain. On our own, John knew that we could try… and we really and truly ought to try… but on our own we would never be able to change the makeup of our human nature… we would never be able to clear the dead wood from the orchards of our lives… we would never be able to separate the wheat of our saintliness from the chaff of our sin. We could try… and John was adamant that we DO try… but alone we would always be part of that brood of vipers.
John the Baptist KNEW that eventually, even with the most sincere and heart rending repentance… eventually our snake-like qualities would get out. John the Baptist KNEW that you and I simply WANTING to not be part of that brood of vipers wasn’t enough to change us at our core. To be changed at our core required more than just our own will-power. To be changed in our nature we needed One more powerful than even John the Baptist... and John the Baptist was powerful, being fueled on a diet of bugs and honey after all. But even THAT wasn't powerful enough. To change THAT deeply we needed One who’s sandals John was not worthy to even carry. To be transformed from a brood of vipers into the Children of God we were created to be, we needed the One who would Baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire!
The Good News that John was proclaiming was THAT One was coming! The Good News for you and I, is THAT One has COME! His name is Jesus and with power beyond you and me and with even more power than the bug-fueled John the Baptist, God in Christ has washed the dead wood out of the orchards of our lives in the waters of Baptism. Through Jesus's death and resurrection, God in Christ has separated the wheat from the chaff of our lives and feeds us now with the bread of life right there at that Table. And each and every single day, God in Christ continually transforms us from a brood of vipers into Children of God! Thanks be to God!
May we, as transformed orchards, winnowed grain, and children of God, take the fruits that we've been given and share them generously with the world. Amen.
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