Pastor Christa von Zychlin

Our Savior’s, Hartland, WI.

262-367-6000

www.oursaviorshartland.org

Advent 3C  2003

Luke 3:7-18

Burned Out or Fired Up?

I love fire, don’t you?

 Or maybe I should say I love small fires, a single candle flame or a larger campfire, ringed with stones, contained.  Safe.  Manageable.

 What I don’t like is a conflagration, a fire that’s out of control, a big raging fire with walls of orange and blue coming at you, flaming your face licking your soul , heating the air and roaring like a lion ready to claim its territory.

 The appointed Gospel for today the third Sunday of Advent  is the Gospel of Luke the third chapter, which we began last week; John’s all grown up now, and he’s preaching about  fire.  And it’s not a cozy Christmas fire he’s preaching about, it’s not a single cheery flame or a stone ringed fired, he’s talking about a fire of wrath, and ladies and gentlemen it’s coming our way.  And I don’t like it.

 When we lived in Africa we sometimes drove through a conflagration of fire.  Farmers there still lived by the old slash & burn technique of farming.  You’d clear a field for planting by burning it. 
And as much as our missionary agronomist frowned on it, it was a sure-fire J way of clearing out old stubble, some pests, and it had the added benefit of chasing out any game animals that were living there – bush rats and small antelope, rabbits all came bounding out from the fire, and became an easy target for waiting hunters with bow & arrow.  The days of the fires were good days for the poor people of the villages  & country side, who feasted on fresh meat.

 There’s a fire coming your way, says John.  Just when we may be coming to church to be comforted:  “It’s a zoo out there. December 25^th can come & be gone” the check out clerk says to me at PickNSave, “I’ve had it.  My kids are driving me insane with all they think they should be getting for Christmas.”

 So some of us, weary souls, are coming to be comforted, and reassured that there is a real meaning of Christmas waiting for us here & then we come to church and THIS is the appointed text.

 “His threshing fork is in his hand, and he is ready to separate the wheat from the husks.  He will store the wheat in his barn but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

 And I feel like saying, forget this!  I’m burnt out already! This isn’t Christmasy.  John the Baptist, you can go back where you came from.

 Reminds me a little bit of the old story about the guy who was driving up a steep narrow mountain road just enjoying the scenery & minding his own business.  A woman came barreling down the same road.  As she passes, the woman leans out of her car window and yells “PIG!” to the other driver.  Well his mood was broken, so he quick pokes his head out of his car window and shouts back to her “SOW!”  And then he goes around the next bend & runs smack into…  a pig in the middle of the road.

 We may just be minding our own holiday matters and not feel this is an appropriate time of year to have John the Baptist barreling out of the wilderness at us yelling about the judgment to come, but like it or not!   There IS a judgment coming, a holy wrath, and you & I had  better figure out if we’re ready or not! And no, it can NOT wait until after Christmas.  There’s a fire coming.

 Back in Africa,  along with watching for the game animals, you also wanted to be wearing big boots if you were around the area of the fire, you know why?  Because of the snakes.  Up out of the ground they would slither and slide to escape from the heat of the raging fires, and among the ground snakes & field snakes and harmless speckled snakes there would also be green vipers, with fangs of poison they would just as soon use on you if you got in their way.

 So John, in the wilderness, well acquainted with the ways of poisonous snakes, says to the crowds, and the crowds are us, he says:  You brood of vipers.  Translates “you bunch of snakes” but it’s worse then that in the Greek, he’s saying to us, it’s not only  you who are snakes, your parents are snakes, your ancestors in Denmark & Norway & Germany, Italy & Mexico were snakes.  Whoa!!!   And you can see where if this is the M.C. for Jesus, John the Baptist telling the crowds that not only are they messed up but their whole heritage is messed up, and in need of a big change, a metanoia, an about face kind of repentance, if John is only the M.C. or the warm up band for Jesus, then no wonder this nice little baby whose birth we’re preparing for at Christmas gets himself killed by the crowds near the end of the story. 

 Repent!  Shouts John, two weeks before Christmas, and I’m thinking wait a minute, I’m going to be practically preaching to the choir this weekend.  I mean who are the people who come to church two weeks BEFORE Christmas?  You guys, WE guys are the good guys!  Right?   We’re the ones who are in church for Pete’s sake.  We’re not the C & E’s “Christmas & Easter” Christians, we’re the ones who get it, John.  We light the Advent candles and we send our kids to Sunday school and some of us even stop at the Christian bookstore to buy something religious for the kids, not the main present of course, but a little something to slip in with the main present to remind everyone of what Christmas is all about.

 And John says no you’re exactly the people who need this message most of all.  You religious church goers, choir members, children of active Christians and pastors!  Because we’re the ones who are in maybe the most danger to think that it’s our going to church, it’s our reading the Bible, it’s our prayer lists,  it’s our serving as ushers or lectors or singing in the choir that makes us Christians and will save us from the wrath to come, the fire, the conflagration of judgment that the Bible says is coming our way.

 And John tells us it’s none of this you guys.  Unless THIS helps you to turn around.  Unless THIS makes room for God to light a counter  fire,    in you. 

 I never knew that one of the most powerful ways of fighting fire was with fire,  until we had a field fire in Africa near our home, that grew & blew out of hand.  The wall of fire was coming at us, what should we do?  we could hear the roar, we had to cover our faces, I remember how black soot covered all the wash we had out on the line, and our African neighbors ran out & proceeded to light fires on the very edge of our compound!     I was horrified until someone explained to me that these are back fires that burn up the fuel & oxygen in the area so that the big angry, out of control fire has nothing to feed it & so it backs away and that fire did not touch us. 

 There’s a fire coming, there’s a judgment coming.  Says John.  And we church people can’t just sit around next to our little electric church fireplaces, hoping to keep us & our families safe.  God’s going to  fight fire with fire. 

 And the people listening to John got excited!  What shall we do?!  They say, three times over:  the crowds, the tax collectors, the soldiers ask, “What shall we do, to get ready?”  And look at how John answers.  Very very specifically. 

 Go to your closet & count your coats.  If you have two, figure out how to give one to someone who has none.  Every gift under our tree in the narthex is an example of a family or individual in this congregation who has decided to do exactly that.  You’ve decided to light a counter fire.

 Go to your refrigerator & your pantry.  If you have overflowing items there, then find your way to the Hartland or North Lake or Waukesha or Kujichagalia or Christo Rey food pantry this month yet and bring some of it there.  Or write a check.  And make it significant. 

 If your church is a wealthy church, you must share your resources with a church  that is less wealthy says John.  We will be attempting to find more specific ways of doing just that in the year to come with Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Milwaukee and the Kujichagulia Lutheran Ministry Center on Capitol Drive. 

 And beyond that, do your every day job out there in the world, says John, turning away from our “what’s in it for me” attitudes,  and pay special attention to the poor, to the children, to teenage pregnancies, to immigrants, to the refugees.  Because just so, as one of the least of these, is exactly how Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and how he promises to come to us, in our lives today.   And his fire is the beautiful fire that will never go out. And his  light is the one that shines in the darkness.  And the darkness will not,  will not over come it.           AMEN.  

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