FINDINGS IV By Harry T. Cook

Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook 

12/10/12 

The twin themes of Advent are audible in the three readings for this coming Sunday -- the first from Zephaniah and Philippians the admonition to "rejoice." In Zephaniah to "rejoice and exult" and from Paul's utterances, "Again I will say Rejoice." The second is sounded in the gospel passage from Luke chapter 3, which consists mostly in grim warnings put on the lips of John the Baptist. After warnings of the wrath to come, the axe lying at the root, the fire awaiting the pruned branches and later more fire, this time "unquenchable," Luke with a straight face or with tongue in cheek, brings the passage to an end by saying, "So with many other exhortations, he (the Baptist) proclaimed the good news to the people."  Good news?
 
The American culture does not care for "good news" such as the Baptist is depicted as bringing. Grown-soft Americans are not interested in the idea of giving away the other coat to one who has none, as the hair-shirt preacher counseled. They are interested in getting what they want when they want it. The only truly "good news" by contemporary standards is the Baptist's admonition to the tax collectors: "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation." In other words, "Back off, tax man, and let my people go." Americans love to hear that. To them, taxes are a latter-day plague like unto the locusts and rivers of blood that are said to have characterized pre-exodus Egypt.
 
However: "rejoice" and then do it again. But, as we are "a brood of vipers" and know it, we might be more inclined to "flee from the wrath to come." The better advice is to "bear fruit worthy of repentance," i.e. to seek and accept a change of mind, this time getting it right.

Luke is by and large a poet and philosopher of optimism, good humor and grace. But in the passage at hand in this proper, the evangelist shows a side seldom seen elsewhere in the gospel. Having, in vv. 1-6 depicted the Baptist inviting people to "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins," Luke, having also gotten the audience's attention, puts these words of the Baptist's lips: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
 
The image is something like this: with his wind instrument one plays a fetching melody over the hole leading to the serpents' nest. Out they slither, beguiled by the tune, whereupon some one ignites a fire. The vipers, panicked, writhe in retreat. Bait and switch. -- Is that what the Baptist was doing? Did he subject those whom he summoned for penance to a withering harangue? Did he scorn his Jewish hearers' credentials as "sons of Abraham?" Was he saying (rather, did Luke intend for him to say) that no prior identity could avail in defense of "the wrath to come," save "fruits worthy of repentance?" Was Luke making the Baptist say in his way what James (he of the pseudonymous epistle) said in his? "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?"(James 2:14)
 
Luke depicts the fearful crowds pleading with John, saying, "What then shall we do?" The answer might not have been what a crowd of religiously inclined people would expect: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." (This admonition, by the by, speaks volumes about the economic demographic of nascent Christianity.) It is not for nothing that Luke, in the matchless infancy fiction of the gospel's second chapter, features shepherds amongst the first visitors to the Child of Bethlehem -- they of the lowest economic and social stratum, probably tenders rather than owners of the flocks.
 
More "fruits worthy (or, properly, resultant) of repentance" include instructions to "tax collectors," i.e. those contracted by the occupation government to collect miscellaneous customs and usage fees, not to demand more than was actually due -- that being bad enough as it was. Do not abuse the legal process, however onerous, to the neighbor's disadvantage. To the "soldiers" (most likely freelance mercenaries) Luke's John is made to say, "Do not extort money by threats or false accusations."
 
Where we read in English "false accusations," the Greek reads συκοφαντησητε "sukophantaysatye." That is the root of our word "sycophant," which means one who curries favor with authority by informing on others. The word comes from two Greek words: συκ "suk," which means "fig," and ϕανταζω "phantadzoh," meaning "to show." The smuggling of figs -- delicacies in some parts of the ancient Mideast -- past the customs agents (see above) was a punishable offense. In order to curry favor with his boss, a mercenary might attempt to "show the figs" being smuggled in by a poor man trying to make enough money to feed his family - not a false accusation, but a mean one.
 
For Luke, justice was not the letter but the spirit of the law. Figs smuggled in by a clever and enterprising peasant may beat the system and feed his family. Don't turn him in. It goes to the issue of a person with two coats giving one of them away, and fee collectors collecting only the legal amount -- all of which may frustrate the insatiable beast of capitalism, but it is one way to bring down the mighty from their thrones while exalting the humble and meek (see Luke 1:52).
 
From v. 15 to v. 18, Luke has John disabuse those who want to embrace him as messiah: "One who is more powerful than I is coming" (3:16). The statement came in response to the people's questions about whether or not John himself might be the one. Interesting that the only reference to Jesus in the passage is this oblique one -- if it is a reference to him.
 
The evangelists had trouble with the reality of John the Baptist. He was well enough known that Flavius Josephus devoted a passage of his Antiquities to him (Book 18, Chapter 5, verse 2). Josephus wrote of John in relation to the destruction of Herod's army, that perhaps it "came from God . . . as a punishment of what he (Herod) did against John that was called Baptist." Josephus said John was "a good man" who preached virtue and that Herod feared him for his power over people's imaginations.
 
If that sounds a lot like what the gospels say was the establishment's later reaction to Jesus, consider the admittedly offbeat possibilities that a) Jesus and John might have been the same person, or b) that at one time John and Jesus (or someone like him) may have competed for the same following. In any event, the early church soon made the choice, and that choice is everywhere seen in the canonical gospels. Luke, in particular, takes pains to put the figure of the Baptist into the great messianic scheme focused on the character or personage of Jesus. It has been suggested by some in the New Testament scholarship community that Luke 1: 8-80 was originally an infancy narrative not of Jesus but of John -- a narrative Luke may have adopted whole cloth and made it a prelude to his own infancy narrative celebrating Jesus' birth (Luke 2: 1-20). In any event, the justice ethic of Luke 3: 11-14, there attributed to the Baptist, sounds like what Jesus is reported to have taught later in the gospel.

What is "good news," anyway? That depends on who is waiting for it and, upon learning it, will or will not think it good. It is not good news to hear that one's lineage ("we have Abraham for our father") avails nothing and may be, after all, a liability. It is not good news to hear that one must change his mind about things (repent) and think in other ways, as in making a habit of sharing half of everything with another ("Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none"). It sounds as if the law of diminishing returns is in force.
 
The same people who heard all that, Luke says, were "filled with expectation" about the messiah, and perhaps wondered if it would be their misfortune to have to welcome their recent scold as the one. "Be careful what you wish for," is how we would put it in our idiomatic way.
 
It seems to be a deep-seated human predisposition to look for deliverance and a deliverer. Yet every deliverance comes at a price, and every deliverer with demands. Adolf Hitler vowed to deliver a bankrupted nation but demanded blind loyalty and the death of European Jewry in return. A president vowed to deliver us from the burden of government by erasing tax obligations. The price was a government that could do less and less of what it was conceived in the first place to do, begetting an era of rank personal greed that brought us uncomfortably close to a catastrophic collapse of the banking system.
 
The political question the people (of "We the People") ask is the same question Luke says the Baptist's hearers asked: "What should we do?" The answer is not "Kiss up to the one who claims to be the deliverer." The answer is not "Follow him anywhere because he promises everything." The answer is not "Join the Party." The answer is: give away that other coat; give away half your food; don't cheat others; don't be a sycophant.
 
How can it be that simple? But how can it be so hard? It is simple because the messiah Luke had in mind was just and eminently human, meaning that treating the other as one wishes to be treated is the entire manifesto. It is hard because it requires not so much the courage, not to be something but the courage to do something. It's not who you are ("children of Abraham," for instance), it's what you do. And what you do makes you what you are.
 
That's the news as good as we'll ever get it.

The Rev. Eileen Ray, Melbourne, Australia:

As you point out in your Findings for Advent I, in the southern hemisphere focusing on the coming of the light in Advent seems weird at this time of the year, as we are about to enter summer. In Australia, we have eucalypt (or gum) trees that prepare themselves for the summer wild fire season by shedding their bark. By shedding their bark, these trees will enable themselves to survive the very hot fires, if any should come their way. If the bark was to remain on the tree, it would cause deeper burns to the tree, as there would be more material around the trunk which would burn easily, causing the fire to hang around longer on each tree. Instead, the wildfire will burn the bark on the ground around the tree and pass through as quickly as it can, thus ensuring the inmost parts of the tree survive. Hidden in the tree trunks or large branches are lignitubers, special growths that burst forth into bud shortly after a wildfire occurs, thus ensuring that the tree will not only survive but flourish. Newly burnt black tree trunks with masses of new green leaves are a feature about six weeks after a fire, being a sign of new life, that normal times will return. Shedding bark also has its risks, because it means that each tree is open to insect attack. When we look at the natural world, we can see a preparation for summer happening around us. It is not a time without risk. Whenever I think about preparing for Advent, I think of our trees and the story they have to tell us of becoming open and vulnerable being the way to survive, rather than holding on to what we know.