A Sermon for III
Advent All Saints’ Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC December 16,
2012 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector
Today we light the
pink candle in the Advent Wreath, and it symbolizes Joy. The past two
weeks we have looked at the disciples of Hope and Love and next week
we will light the candle for peace, but for us today we resonate in
Psalm 30:5: “For God's anger endureth but a moment; in God's
favour is life: weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the
morning.”
I spent part of
Friday night weeping as I held a grandmother and grandfather in my
arms last night as we prayed to make sense of the horror which had
visited their family. Their granddaughter had been one of those 20
children slaughtered and there are no easy bromides that we can cart
out to cover it all up as some part of God's plan. This beautiful
child had been here in Southern Shores and with all of her energy she
had run the Turkey Trot and laughed. Her grandfather laughed about
how much energy she had and then cried because he would never see
that energy again in this life from her. For them and for all of us
it will be a long night before joy cometh in the morning.
“Joy cometh in the
morning”, but how do we reconcile that promise with the Gospel
lesson where John the Baptizer blasts out, “You brood of vipers,
who warned you of the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of
repentance.” I like the way that Eugene Peterson translates this
verse - “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing
slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on
your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your
life that must change, not your skin.”
What is a viper? A
Viper is a snake that, in order to stay alive, takes advantage of
smaller creatures but lives in fear of things bigger than itself and
will strike out to protect what it thinks it needs to have. They are
sneaky, vicious, and merciless and like to crawl under rocks to be
cool, lie out to bake in the sun to get warm, and their only joy is
when they are destroying somebody else. Underneath, their life is
dominated by fear, and the only option for someone in fear is “fight
or flight”. I am sure that none of you know anybody like that. I am
sure John is probably talking about other people and not us.
Except I have more
than a sneaky suspicious that, if we dig deep enough, we can discover
some snakeskins among us. Years ago when I was teaching in a college
in Virginia, I would go back each summer to our place in Boone where,
for grocery money, I would act in an outdoor drama. The summer before
I went to seminary, they gave me the part of the villain, the British
( I gave him a Scottish accent), Col. Mackenzie. I was so mean and
vicious that, every night during the climatic reenactment of the
Revolutionary War battle of Kings Mountain, when it looked like I was
going to kill the young heartthrob hero in a sword fight but at the
last second I got killed by that sweet young man, the audience would
cheer. Yet, there was more. At the acme of the cheer, in my final
ounce of venom, I would shoot the young man in the back as he ran
back in victory to oh-so-virtuous Dr. Geoffery Stuart, his loving
father. I had played Dr. Stuart for several years, which was a much
bigger part, but I sure enjoyed playing the villain, the viper, the
snake in the grass.
When I played snakes
in the grass, I did some healing of my soul. I knew what it was like
to be a viper because in my life there were instances where I have
been a viper. I had found all sorts of “good” reasons to justify
myself, but now I had to get beyond the excuses. Coming to grips with
my own “viperness”, I had to dig deeper for the roots, and I
found, like the viper, I was ruled by fear, limiting my choices to
fight or flight. But once I stopped trying to minimize my behavior as
a way of distancing myself from responsibility for my actions, I had
to accept that it was part of my shadow self, and once I really
claimed my own shadow I could decide that I did not want to continue
being trapped into destructive behavior – behavior that was
destructive to myself and others. When I claimed my shadow, I could
see there were other options for me to take. The Greek word for “Take
another option” in the Gospel lesson is “metanoia” which can
be, and is, translated as “repent”.
This is the
situation that the people who come to John on the banks of the Jordan
face. They are sick and tired of running away from themselves by
acting like vipers. John calls them what they act like and gives them
the insight to find another option. “And the crowds asked him,
"What then should we do?" Look at the three options that
John addresses:
There are those who
are so ruled by fear that they are never going to have enough, so
they clutch on to what they have because they are so afraid, but
their fear tells them there is never enough. Luke remembers “In
reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with
anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." It
is only when you give, will you free yourself from fear. Figure how
much you will give off the top as a way of being freed from your
stuff controlling you, rather than you controlling your stuff. Misery
is replaced by joy, or as the Psalmist says: “weeping may endure
for a night but joy cometh in the morning.”
“Even tax
collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher,
what should we do?"” Tax collectors were agents of the Roman
occupying forces and as such they were resented by the people. They
were given quotas by the Romans, and the Romans did not care how they
got the money. The tax collectors’ fears were that they were
alienating themselves from their own people, so, trapped by the
“fight or flight” mentality, they gouged the people so that might
create strongholds of privilege for themselves. They felt trapped
into being vipers. John said to them, "Collect no more than the
amount prescribed for you." The option was to do their jobs
honestly and fairly because if they refused to do the job entirely,
the Romans would only bring in someone else who would gouge the
people. There is a joy when you can face yourself in doing an
unpleasant job with integrity - “weeping may endure for a night but
joy cometh in the morning.”
“Soldiers also
asked him, "And we, what should we do?"” Soldiers were
strangers far from home and outnumbered by the civilian population
which trapped them into fear, so, finding themselves unable to desert
and flee, they turned into vipers and bullied the civilians. Bullies
find they are strangers to themselves, and do things they find hard
to live with. John says to them, "Do not extort money from
anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your
wages." It is only when you allow yourself to be vulnerable that
you have the option of feeling anything besides fear. Choosing the
option of vulnerability, “weeping may endure for a night but joy
cometh in the morning.”
Isaiah
sings of the choice we make in the Canticle we sang this morning:
“Surely, it is God who saves me; * I will trust in him and not be
afraid.” Joy
is a choice we make each day. Real Joy does not come from having more
stuff, from being islands of privilege, or from having control over
people. Joy comes from trusting in a power greater than ourselves to
free us from the tyranny of the fear of not having enough, the fear
of isolation, or the fear of fear. “Weeping may endure for a night
but joy cometh in the morning.”
That is the good
news for us vipers.
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