A Reflection and Poem for III
Advent Trinity Episcopal Church, Chocowinity, NC
December 16,
2018 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant and Preacher
Brood of Vipers
Have you ever though how you might
react if someone called you a part of a “brood of vipers”as John
the Baptizer starts off his rant in the Gospel lesson for today. Lets
just chalk if up to his having a bad day. But, maybe there is
something to it.
One definition of brood is offspring,
children, but I do not consider my parents to be vipers. There were
four of us children who were raised well by my parents. If they had
lived both of them would have turned 100 this year. There is not a
day that goes by that I don't think of them and thank them and thank
God for them. Yes, they made a mess of mistakes, but they wanted the
best for us. They loved us and taught us much about being a parent.
Today is the 16th of December, my older brother Paul's
birthday, and this would have been his 73 birthday. Paul died more
than a couple of decades ago and he made a lot of mistakes. but he
and his children he loved and his grandchildren he never knew are not
vipers.
Another definition of “brood” is
sharing an incubation, like eggs in a nest and I think this is where
John was heading. Vipers, snakes leave you alone unless you startle
them or if you get in their way. The people the Baptizer was
addressing were living in a community in turmoil which incubated the
people living within, incubated to be like snakes, vipers and strike
out at anyone of whom they had fear. The country they lived in was
occupied by the Roman Empire who ruled by fear. There was deep
division in the country with those who wanted to accept the present
political regime and those who hated every moment living under
tyranny. There were brutal arrogant soldiers of the occupiers and
their corrupt tax collectors exploiting the people. There were those
who were getting rich off the policies, grabbing every advantage and
taking anything not nailed down and others being ground into deeper
poverty. It was a place of deep hate, suspicion and fear. There was
distrust of people of other heritage like Samaritans, Egyptians and
Romans, or immigrants competing for jobs and resources, or who were
different like Lepers, or part of an opposing political or cultic
sect like Sadducees, Pharisees, Herodians, or Zealots. Over to the
east there was a constant threat of the Parthian Empire that was
ready to swoop in if the Roman Empire showed any weakness.
John is baptizing people who want to
live a new life which doesn't have to be viper-like. John is
preparing a way for Jesus who will gather a community around him that
will no longer live in fear. How many times the community is told not
to be afraid. The Angel Gabriel tells Mary “Don't be afraid”, and
brings her news of great joy. The angels appear to the shepherds
abiding in the fields and tell them to put off their fear and go in
joy to Bethlehem. Jesus tells his followers not to be afraid during
his life when they are fearful of so many things. He repeats the same
message after he had died and was raised again to bring a new life of
rejoicing, sending them into all the world to urge a new way of
living.
The Apostle Paul was incubated as a
viper in that same Roman Empire and spent the first part of his life
in fear of those who were different, and as he saw the Jesus movement
he knew he had to strike at them. He slithered after them until the
love of Jesus caused him to shed his skin and as he says “the
scales fell off his eyes” and he was able to see the world in a
different way. In his letter for today he says:
“Rejoice in the
Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known
to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.”
I was raised in the 50's, the America
that would like to believe was “Happy Days”. But there were
plenty of vipers in that paradise. There was a fear of people who
were different. I lived in the suburbs and there were very few black
people there because we whites feared that would ruin our property
values. When I would go into the city we would be aware of the
different wards of the city for they had different communities of
immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and black and hispanic
areas; suburban WASP kids like me had to be careful.
School was a place for fear with
different fearful cliques, crowds of which you either belonged or
despised. When we played sports with teams from different schools,
we shouted insults with the best of them. We knew we had to do well
in school in order to get in to the right college or get the right
job.
The economy produced fear for this was
the beginning of the Rust Belt Phenomena, as more of the companies
that had we had grown up with were packing up and moving; like IBM
who moved down to the south, or Link Aviation which sold out to
Hughes, or outsourcing to foreign countries like Ansco who got sold
out to Hong Kong,. There was the time when Endicott Johnson Shoes
brought in new management whose fear drove it into the ground until
it shut down with 20,000, at the high point, jobs vanishing, the same
year I graduated from college.
We had fear mongers who spread stories
about what would happen if the other political party would take over.
We had a fear of the Soviet Empire and every couple of weeks we would
do an exercise of climbing under our desks for safety when the
Nuclear Attack would come. We had people warning us about Un-American
or Communist threats.
Our entertainment on television was
nonstop detective and western tales that usually had differences
resolved by gun fights and proving manhood by killing. Being boys we
tried to avoid being seen in any way that could be interpreted as
unmanly, so there could be no crying, no pity, no softness, no
backing down. We had rules like “make fun of people who wore Yellow
on Thursday” and “disparage anyone who we suspected of not being
what we considered manly enough and how we would beat them up if they
were around”. The closets were full for a good reason. That was 60
years ago and how much of that fear has really changed?
I loved the place in which I grew up
but, God help me, I am not lost in nostalgia for it. We were
incubating each other to be vipers. Many of the vipers are still
around and I have more than a few moments when I slither in thought
word or deed. I was fortunate in that part of my understanding is
that being a part of a church and being baptized meant I was being
called by God to live differently. I was reminded often that
following Jesus was not just the giving assent to a religious
doctrine but it is a challenge to love, live with, and honor people;
fellow images of God, my brothers and sisters from different wombs
and DNA. People were not objects of competition but subjects due
respect. Some of those brothers and sisters would mess up, just as I
would mess up, and I was to pray for them to be forgiven as I prayed
for myself to be forgiven.
These are promises my parents made when
I was baptized, and I made in my confirmation, and I made for my
daughter in her baptism and I made to support those hundreds of
children and adults making that decision over the seventy plus years
I have been going to church. That is the whole purpose of a church;
to bear witness in a community about not having to be vipers out of
fear but to be outward and visible signs of a new kind of living in
joy without fear. We count on each other to help make a difference as
the prophet Micah reminds us “to do justice, love mercy and walk
humbly with our God.”
This afternoon, your Deacon, Stephen,
will make those same kinds of promises of a committed life all of you
made when you were baptized when he is ordained as an Episcopal
Priest. You and I will make a promise to pray for him and support
him in the vows that he makes. He will mess up and he will have viper
moments more than once as I have for my more than 35 years of
ordained ministry. I have been blessed by people who were honest with
me and thought my soul was worth praying for and calling me to
account. That will be your job as a community of faith to love him
and hold each other to account whenever the viper come slithering
back inside us as a result of our fear.
This is the 3rd Sunday of
Advent where the third candle of the wreath is lit to remind us about
joy, which is a choice we can make to stay away from the power of
fear. Again listen to Paul's letter:
“Rejoice in the
Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known
to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in
everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.”
Brood
of Vipers
Inside
when in fear I incubate a Viper's brood,
I'll
fantasize on whom and what I'll give hurt,
or
perhaps withholding love or the extra shirt
waiting
if and until I'm getting the right mood.
The
Baptizer said love isn't a passing feeling
of a
response to good inner vibes or attraction,
rather
it's the will's decision to put into action
the
promises made to bring about soul healing.
Love
decides not to follow fearful incubating
but to
step out, somewhat foolishly, but brisk
before
fear of being vulnerable stops the risk
of
changing our lives and new world creating.
We have
made promises both strong and deep;
do
justice, love mercy and in God walks keep.
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