Reformation

You’ve just heard the Gospel reading, but let me give you a thumbnail version again. John said to the people who had come to him to be baptized: "You brood of vipers! Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be thrown into the fire. One more powerful than I is coming. His winnowing fork is in his hand; the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Thus John proclaimed the good news to the people.

Good news? Calling the people a brood of vipers and threatening them with unquenchable fire is good news? Luke certainly thought so. The Greek word for "good news" that Luke uses in this sentence is the same word the angels use when they proclaim the coming of "glad tidings of great joy" to the shepherds. In fact, Luke deliberately phrases the two sentences the same. Both John the Baptist and the Christmas angels from heaven proclaim the same good news to the people. They both bring tidings of great joy.

I’ll admit that if I were trying to bring tidings of great joy into the hearts of people, I would not start off by calling them a brood of vipers. But if we look at the substance, the overall meaning, of John’s words they do, indeed, contain great hope and potential joy. He uses the images of pruning and winnowing. Remember that the purpose of pruning a bush or a tree is to promote life and growth. And winnowing grain is the process that produces the kernel that gives us bread to nourish our bodies and souls. Just think of the consequences if we lived in a world where pruning and winnowing were unknown or impossible. In that world un-winnowed amber waves of grain would be no more use to us than grass, and un-pruned fruit or olive trees would be overgrown, sterile, lifeless and unproductive.

Pruning and winnowing are good news indeed. They are life-giving processes. For us human beings the analogous life-giving process is repentance. That is the good news that John the Baptist proclaims, and that is proclaimed over and over again throughout Luke’s gospel. Repentance. Our repentance and God’s forgiveness are the process by which we are given new growth, enrichment, spiritual nourishment, fruitfulness and new life. Winnowing, pruning, repentance. Without them we would have little good news in our lives, in our world. With them we have great hope, great promise. So John’s words—harsh as they sound—are, indeed, good tidings of great joy for all people.

We might think of all of these processes—repentance and forgiveness in particular—as processes of reformation. Reformation. What John the Baptizer proclaims during Advent is the opportunity for reformation. Personal re-formation. A time, a way for us to be re-formed. As we consider this opportunity that is before us for reformation it might be helpful first to think about what it is not. Reformation is not revolution, nor is it recycling. Both of those processes discard, cast away, the old as no longer having any value. The ultimate goals of recycling and revolution are good; both are creative processes. But they are achieved by discarding the old. We are not something to be discarded or thrown away as valueless. Even our broken, messed up, sinful human souls are not discarded by God or condemned as no longer having use or value. The whole point of Jesus’ incarnation, the whole point of our repentance and God’s offer of forgiveness, is to affirm our ultimate value. We are worthy of reformation.  We are worthy of reformation, and God’s greatest desire is to re-form us. Reformation holds up and proclaims the holy potential of us all. Through reformation, God makes that holy potential real within us. Reformation takes what we are then mends, heals, reinvigorates, cleanses, enriches, frees, saves. Repent and God’s forgiveness will re-form you. That is John’s Good News.

So we are to repent. That’s a call all of us have heard before. Every Sunday, in fact. I am not a great fan of the "old" prayer book, except for nostalgia’s sake, but I will say the call to repentance was less muted in that book. Some of you will remember these words: "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life… draw near with faith and make your humble confession to Almighty God…" Repent.

That old call to repentance reminds us that repentance goes hand-in-hand with leading a new life. Repentance is more than just words, more than just desire. For repentance to lead to re-formation we have to act, we have to be involved in the process. Luke’s gospel also makes this clear. What are we to do? the people ask John. Our actions are necessary to make this process of personal reformation work.

John has some very practical suggestions for the people gathered around him. First, he tells them to share. To share what they have with others. And for the soldiers and tax collectors he has more specific directions. He tells them to act with fairness and justice as they perform their duties.

If we winnow these words of John’s with the eye of Biblical interpretation, even though they were written many years ago, we will find much in them that speaks of the process of repentance and reformation in our own lives and our own times. First we may note that it is a process of reformation that John recommends. Reformation, not revolution. Somewhat surprisingly he does not tell the soldiers or the tax collectors to give up their professions, their livelihoods. Many early Christians felt that those professions in particular were absolutely incompatible with Christianity. But John doesn’t ask them to throw away what they are. He instructs them to do what they do as Christians. If you are a tax collector, be a Christian tax collector. Whatever your calling in life, re-form that calling and do it as a Christian, with integrity, compassion and faith.

Secondly, it’s significant to note that all of John’s instructions involve how we behave towards others. Repentance and personal reformation are not individual, internal processes. They are inextricably linked to our life in community. The path to personal reformation involves conscious participation in communal reformation. By choosing to act and give to improve the lives of others, we are participating in our own renewal. Those were John’s words on the banks of the Jordan thousands of years ago. They are words we need to remember today as well.

Scholars of Biblical interpretation note one more interesting feature of John’s commands. John’s words are individually targeted… to the solders… to the tax collectors. Today "targeting a message" is a practice we attribute to politicians and advertisers, but John the Baptist did it first. He tailored his remarks specifically to each different group. And he called them to repent very specifically in the areas of their lives where they faced the greatest temptation. Imagine a tax collector in the first century, in a position with the authority to collect money. Extortion was evidently a common practice and used by many to line their personal pockets. Everybody did it. Imagine the temptation. John focuses his wild God-filled eyes on the tax collectors and says, "Repent. Do not collect more money than is due." Imagine a soldier in those days. His position in society, his personal armor, his political status, gave him immense physical power over others. Many undoubtedly succumbed to the temptation to abuse that power. John turns to the soldiers around him and says, "Do not abuse your power. Do not use your power to threaten those you are supposed to protect. Be satisfied with what is rightly yours." John targets his call for repentance at the point of each individual’s most powerful temptation. It occurs to me that if John the Baptist stood in our midst today, one group he might turn his piercing eyes on is professional sports figures. The temptation for abuse must be almost overwhelming. Repent. Turn away from temptation, John would say. "Do not artificially or chemically enhance your physical performance. Do not presume upon the position society bestows upon you to abuse God's gifts within you."

None of us are tax collectors. None of us are professional caliber athletes. The point is that whoever we are, we face our own particular, powerful temptations. Repentance means turning away from our temptations. Not some generic temptations.  Not someone else’s temptations.  Ours. If the wild, visionary eyes of John the Baptist were to turn on you, what would he see? In the daily course of your lives where are you most tempted? Most tempted to abuse the image of God within yourself, most tempted to ignore or discount the face of Christ in others, most tempted to kill the Spirit’s creativity around you? Face your own temptations and repent.

Repent. And with God’s forgiveness, you will be reformed. One is coming, John says, who has the power and the desire to reform all of humanity. One is coming who will restore us to holiness and unity with God. Who will reform our errors and bring us truth. Who will transform our sins into righteousness. One is coming who will re-form our brokenness our failures and even our deaths into new life. He is coming.

John’s message is very, very good news indeed. Repent and be reformed.

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