Luke 3:1-20
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.
Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ. Amen. We read these words about John the Baptist, or words similar to them just about every year during this time in Advent, and every time I read them, I am struck by how hardcore he
is. Right. What does he say? He goes, You brood of vipers,
Merry Christmas, who fleeed you from the wrath, who told you to flee from the wrath to come. Right? It goes. It's perfect. Right next to the tree, we've got the candles. The garland is up. The banners beautiful. It just makes you want to sing. It's the most wonderful time of the year. You Earth, right? Yeah, His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Welcome to Advent. That's one of the things that makes our pre Christmas celebration different from the rest of the world, is that during this time, we focus on repentance, on discipline, on the words that John says to prepare the way of the Lord sometimes means to look at the harshness of God's law, to drive us to repentance so the gospel can be open. And I look at the words of John and what he says, how he speaks. And even though I'm used to it, it still shocks me every year and today, I actually kind of want to think a little big picture about what John is doing, rather than looking particularly at all the different things he says, you know, the words of judgment, calling, people, snakes, all of these things. I want to ask. What is John doing, actually? Perhaps the better question is, what kind of church do we want, considering the way John approached ministry, what kind of church do you want? One of the models for church has always reflected the way cultures work, if you look back into the the Roman Empire, they structured their church around the Roman imperial system. And so you went from the patriarchs, and it was very hierarchical, and you had like priests who were in charge, and they told you everything. What about us? I think, in America, we are an economic people. We're a commercial nation, which means that our churches often are tempted by thinking about ourselves as a shop like Target or WalMart, your local laundromat, your local car dealer, we sometimes think about ourselves primarily in the numbers, The people in the pews, the money coming in. We think about ourselves as if we are almost selling spiritual services. And I want to think about comparing that to what a church is supposed to and ask that very simple question, what kind of church do you want? Do you want it us to be a shop, or do you want us to be a congregation with the Ministry of the gospel? Now, before I dive into that, I'm not asking this because I want to say that you guys think we should be a shock. I know that's not true. We're here just simply reflecting on this question, because it is often pretty tempting to go in that direction, because, well, sometimes it's easier and sometimes you. It means not offending it. So let's ask that question, do we want to be a shop or a church? The difference in them comes down to a number of different things. The message of a church that is a shop selling spiritual services would be very different from the message that John the Baptist said. Can you imagine him, the Prophet in his camel skin? He's got his sack lunch filled like a little honey and some grasshoppers. And he comes into the marketing meeting. He's sitting down with the PR guys, and he says, Okay, guys, here's what I want to say. Let's let's test this. You brood of vipers and the PR guys go, you know, John, we love you. You're amazing. You've got this powerful message. But nobody likes that. Can't you be more positive? Like the rest of the world really just wants to hear something joyful this time of year. Isn't that what a a shop would do when they send out their message? Like even the Christmas season isn't really about celebrating Christmas, if you're a target, it's about selling stuff. The Christmas sale, 25% off Black Friday. Get your gifts now. And when a church approaches this similarly, the message becomes about attracting clients and not about the spiritual welfare of the people who hear it. We soften it. We we take God's law and we make it manageable, doable. We would never speak about things like judgment or the Devil or the work he does, it would be about becoming better people, about something that you can do to make your life good and right before God, we're not a shock though. We want to be like John the Baptist. Why is John so harsh? Why does John come down with the full power of God's law? Because that's the only way to get to the gospel without i a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities. That's what the old one said, right or pulled that one up, most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature, sinful and unclean. Without that, you don't get to the message of the gospel, the beauty of the forgiveness of sin, without hearing that I am a sinner in need of God's grace, you don't get the power of God. You get something less, someone who's selling something to you, hoping that you will come in the door, make our attendance numbers go up, and put your offering in the offering plate. The difference between a church and a shop is also different in our relationship, not just to the message, but to you who are sitting in the seats. If we see ourselves primarily as selling something. You are all customers, clients that we have to please. Now you might like that right? If you say the customer is always right, that's what they do out in the world, that would mean that we just do what is necessary to please you. And I know you, many of you know that I run a photography business on the side, just a little something to make sure I can keep buying my own gear right. And whenever a client is upset, I do whatever I can to make them happy. I refund money. I take extra photos. No big deal because I want them to come back. But that's not what a church does. You see, I only give photos if they pay me, right? That's how business works. We only care if you have something to give me, so then I give you something. Is that how you want the church to work with you? Do you want the church to primarily be concerned about your money and your volunteering? And your attendance numbers, and not about your soul, not about your life. You see, we're not like that. You are not clients. You are the body of Christ. And if a fingernail gets bruised, we care if some a part of us gets sick, we care, not just because your attendance numbers,
because Jesus died for you, and we are bound together in Christ's Body and Blood, and we love you because of him, and you love each other because of him. You're not clients. We are members, one of another. And I think the greatest way that I see this in action is when I interact with homebound members. You know that's part of the work that the church does, right? People who can't get out pastors go out and visit them, and we bring them holy communion, and you will net you will not guess the number of times people are shocked when I tell them that's what I do. Most people don't have pastors that do that. I had no idea. I thought that was just what we did. It's not how it works out there. That's because we care. We in the Lutheran church, this is just what we do, because we care about the people, even if their bank account is love, even if they're sad and depressed at home, we care. And so when you can't come to church, church comes to you, and even our own members say, Pastor, I know you're so busy. And then I tell them, This is literally what you pay me for, right? You don't want to be a client. You want to be part of the body. And the last thing that makes us different is the way we see the role of Pastor. If we are a shop like a target, the pastor would be the shopkeeper, the one who's in charge of making sure that we are selling spiritual servants, services to the clients. Keep the customers happy, make sure they get what they expect and will always come here, so that they will continue to put their money in the offering plate, so that we can boost attendance and church numbers. But most importantly, would also mean that a pastor would have focused most of his time on the high value clients, right? Because you want to get the most bang for your buck, you want to make sure that the people who are contributing the most spend the most time. Here are the ones who get the most love and care. You also would give less time to lower value clients. And I even feel uncomfortable saying that out loud, right? That feels weird to me, because that's we all know. That's not how the body of Christ should work. And it also means that when something's going wrong, a shopkeeper wouldn't say anything about if someone is hurt, tempted, going astray, the shopkeeper would not follow John's example and bring it up. See, what does John do when, when he has people come to Him, when the soldiers ask, What should we do? You're perfect, just the way you are. No. He says, Don't extort anyone. When the tax collectors come, they say, What should we do? He says, give me that money you extorted. No, of course not. Don't extort money. Because he's called to bring the guidance of God's word to him. We don't have a shopkeeper. We call our pastors pastor, which means Shepherd, right? We have a flock with a shepherd, and the pastor is the shepherd underneath the one good shepherd, Christ our Savior and the shepherd metaphor makes me think about Psalm 23 right? We talk about it goes, The Lord is my shepherd. And in Psalm. 23 there's this really neat passage. It goes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort right? A couple of years ago, an African pastor came to a conference, and he brought the rod, and the staff that they use when they're shepherding the rod was this big, bulbous club. It was, it was huge. It was like a this big, and it had a big, giant thing on there, and it was rounded into a point. And he said, the rod, that's what we use when the lion comes for the sheep. It was that point, big, heavy, whack. Sometimes pastors do that when a member, sad or hurt, guilty alone, we use the power of the gospel to defeat Satan's word. We bring them Christ to comfort them with the power of the resurrection when they've lost a loved one. We bring the forgiveness of sins when their heart is broken and they need help. But then he also held up the other one, and this was a little a little reed with a hook on the end, and he said, we use this when a sheep starts to wander off. Was just a little hook. Wasn't going to hurt somebody. You just tap em on the side if they're going off the path of righteousness, and if they're really far away, you kind of grab em with that hook thing and pull em back because the shepherd cares about the sheep, wants to make sure they're safe. And sometimes it means defending them from the attacks of Satan, and sometimes it means defending them from themselves with with God's word. And I think that's what we all want. With a pastor, it's not someone who will think of you as a resource to be extracted,
but someone who is a shepherd, a guy who cares.
And I'll tell you, it's a lot easier to be a shopkeeper. You get to do? You get to tell people what they want to hear. You get to offer them whatever they need. You don't offer them the things they don't like. It's a lot easier on a pastor's heart, but it's not what's best. You see John the Baptist didn't go out to be a shopkeeper. He didn't go out to tell people what they wanted to hear. He called them a brood of vipers. He called them to repentance. And the amazing thing about this is that in the end, Luke says that it is the good news of God, because it's what led them to repentance and the baptism of the forgiveness of sins. I think this is also what we want in our church, to hear the fullness of God's law so that we can get to the gospel, not someone who sees you as a client or a congregation that sees you as an offering plate, but someone who cares about your eternal welfare and your destination in Jesus' name. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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