“And the crowds asked him, ‘What, then, should we do?’” (Luke 3:11)

          I went to two parties last week, and at least three more are on tap for the week to come. A tree has been procured for our living room, and a wreath for the door. We have foraged through boxes containing ornaments and decorations of Christmases past. Christmas music or Muzak is piped into stores; the Salvation Army folk are ringing their bells while begging us to fill their kettles. Christmas “specials” are being aired on TV, and there will be movies with Christmas themes. My favorite is the new film with Alvin and his fellow chipmunks, which is being billed not as a sequel or prequel but a squeakquel! “It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas” indeed!

          Until we come to church. At the church door we are greeted not by a corpulent man in a red suit and a white fluffy beard but a scrawny man in camel’s hair (not the Brooks Brothers variety) and a long scraggly beard. No “Ho! Ho! Ho!” from John the Baptist. He greets the people with the charming greeting “You brood of vipers!” And in case you forgot what a viper is, my dictionary defines it as “a venomous snake characterized by hollow venom-conducting fangs in the upper jaw.” And just for the record, a brood of vipers hatches from viper-eggs after six weeks, producing about twenty 8-inch little vipers. Not a pretty picture! And to make matters worse, the people John was talking to was not just any crowd; they were a congregation of people who had come to be baptized. And what is more, they had left Jerusalem, and journeyed a great distance into the wilderness to hear the Prophet. It was as if all of us made a trek to Butler! Maybe, on hearing John’s greeting, “You brood of vipers!” they were so shocked, they just responded, “And also with you.”

          John calls them a brood of vipers because he suspects that some have come, not out of repentance, but idle curiosity, or they have come for the benefits of baptism without examining their hearts. Reminds me of the invitation to communion in the old Prayer Book, which really laid it on us: “Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith, and take this holy sacrament to your comfort…” Yes, if we are honest, there are times when we come to church with less than pure motives.

          And then there’s the question of pedigree. John tells the people: “Forget about getting into heaven by claiming Abraham as your father,” in other words, your Jewish ancestry. “God,” he says, “can raise up sons of Abraham from mere stones.” Yes, sometimes, parishioners are wont to equate their importance with how many generations of Episcopalians they can identity on their family tree, or by which rector they had been baptized!

          So having being upbraided, and threatened in no uncertain terms (“the axe is laid to the root of the tree”) the people ask in desperation: “What, then, shall we do?” What is this repentance stuff about, after all? It’s a word that makes us nervous, isn’t it? Although we come across it in the baptismal service and in our confessions, it doesn’t fall easily from our lips. We associate the word, perhaps, with street-corner preachers (not unlike John the Baptist) holding a big placard that reads “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” There is something off-putting about that word, unseemly, perhaps. Maybe it would help to know that the Greek word translated as “repentance” is metanoia. It means, literally, a turning around; a decision to face in a new direction. It means making a 180-degree turn (it’s amazing how so many people refer to this as making a 360-degree turn, which lands you in exactly the position in which you started!)

          So what practical instructions does John the Baptist give to those desirous of repentance? The first requirement is for compassion and mercy on those less fortunate. “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one with food should do the same.” What has this to do with repentance? Simply that by opting to give away our tunic, we are opting not to be selfish. I was awash with unselfishness the other day, by the way, when I gave away four of my old tunics to Goodwill, although I was secretly motivated by the fact that they would, in all likelihood, never fit me again!

          Then John the Baptist turns his attention to particular groups in the congregations --- members of professions that were hated by others. The first of these was tax collectors, hated for two reasons. First, they worked for the oppressor, the Romans. They were viewed as traitors who would sell their honor for the love of money. But more to the point, they had a reputation of cheating their fellow citizens whenever they could. They were expected to collect a given amount of money from a particular region. Anything they managed to collect above and beyond that was used to line their own pockets. This is why John the Baptist tells them not to collect any more than they were required to do. This is a pretty radical statement, because it removed the profession of tax-collector from the evil column, and gave a prescription for honest tax-collecting, an oxymoron to Jewish ears.

          Then the Baptist turns to the soldiers in the crowd. Soldiers had a reputation of being corrupt, of extorting people, of bullying them --- in short, taking advantage of their position. They get three pieces of advice: Don’t extort money; don’t accuse people falsely; and be content with your pay.

          So maybe John the Baptist, his “brood of vipers” greeting notwithstanding, is not so harsh after all. He is doing what prophets are supposed to do: he comforts the afflicted, and afflicts the comfortable. In the midst of our Christmas preparations, he challenges us, reminding us that maybe we’re not as good as we would like to believe. We all can stand a little self-examination, a little introspection. We would all do well to come to grips with our selfishness and pride. We could all be more humble, more generous, more patient.

          We are on the way to the Manger, “bending our joyful footsteps,” as the hymn says, en route to Bethlehem. But on the way, the church confronts us with a bit of tough love in the wilderness. The advice John the Baptist gives the self-righteous multitudes, the tax-collectors and soldiers is no less applicable to us. Let us, in the words of the collect, “heed his warning and forsake our sins.”

          Let us pray:
                    Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
                    Make straight the way for God within,
                    And let each heart prepare a home
                    Where such a mighty guest may come.

          Amen.