Brood of Vipers.

Matthew 3:1-10

December 4, 2016

I.

In all four gospels the story of Jesus begins with a story about a man named John who appears in the desert east of Jerusalem, along the Jordan River, preaching.  As always, the desert, the wilderness, is the place where interesting things begin to happen.

John does not show up in the city, which was controlled by the elites who ran things.  It is in the desert that Israel’s future emerges, ever since the time of Moses.  Often the prophets live out in the desert, like Elijah.  Prophets, and God, often approach Israel from the fringes, the margins, the edges.  They are usually outsiders to power.

If we want to hear the Word of God, it is always more likely to emerge from people and communities that are not wealthy, powerful, or privileged.  The Word almost never comes from successful people in business or government, or even religion.  It never comes from the center because too many compromises have to be made in order to achieve success by the world’s standards.  

We generally complain about the “decline” of our traditional churches.  That just means they’re not as successful as they were when I was a kid in the 50’s and 60’s.  But I suspect that the more marginalized and powerless and unsuccessful we become, the more likely we are to experience the Word of God.  There are no distractions in the desert.  In the desert you have nothing to lose.  Reform and renewal among God’s people has usually come not from the established, well-compensated, educated, titled leaders, but from the losers, the excluded, and the marginalized.

The message that John delivers is, “Change your hearts and lives!  Here comes the Kingdom of Heaven!”  Literally, John means change your way of thinking, change your mind, change the way you see things; turn around and move in a different direction!  Open your hearts to what is coming!  God’s Kingdom, God’s way of peace and justice is already here!  We need to adjust ourselves so we can see it and live in it!

The Kingdom of Heaven is something we can’t perceive unless something in us changes.  We need the spiritual equivalent of glasses, corrective lenses, to overcome our ego-distorted and corrupted vision, so we can see what’s really there and not continue to assume that the blurry, indistinct, conflicted and confused world we see with our imperfect eyes of flesh is true.  

We have to be attuned to the right wavelength, not just as observers, but as participants.  The Kingdom of Heaven is something we only become aware of when we start to participate in it, when we start to live according to its laws and values.  The more we do it, the more we see it.  The more we practice the more is revealed to us.

II.

And the Kingdom of Heaven is an alternative political reality.  It is opposed to the kingdoms of this world, which are based on violence, fear, anger, greed, and sin generally.  Matthew uses the word “heaven” where the rest of the New Testament usually talks about the “Kingdom of God,” probably because because of Jewish misgivings about over-pronouncing God’s name.  But it creates a misunderstanding that the Kingdom of Heaven is something we only attain after death.  God rules from heaven, and making God’s Kingdom active on the Earth is the goal of John and Jesus.  Jesus himself will teach us to pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.”

The point of John and Jesus is to bring people to live together in community according to the rules and values of God, as given in Scripture.  This creates an alternative polity which is inherently threatening to those who control and benefit from the economy and system they have set up.

Matthew then quotes Isaiah’s prophecy about God’s people returning from exile in Babylon, and applying it to the situation of John.  Just as God was miraculously delivering the people to the Promised Land back then, so also now God is spiritually bringing people into the Kingdom of Heaven.  John’s role, like that of Isaiah, is to proclaim it and prepare the way.

John subsists on what little the desert provides.  He does not wear manufactured or bought clothing; he does not get his food from the agricultural system.  He wears animal skins, and he has this diet of bugs and honey.  In so doing he declares his independence from the urban economy, which maintains his authenticity and moral purity.  He is therefore immune to the charge that he is benefiting from the system he is criticizing.  John may be a little off, but he is not a hypocrite.  He doesn’t compromise at all.  He chooses a radical asceticism, connected directly to the Earth, and renouncing all the benefits of a corrupt and unjust economy.

Not even Jesus goes this far.  Jesus doesn’t stay in the desert; he chooses to engage with people in society and share their lives.  Paul goes even farther and uses the benefits of the Roman Empire including his own privilege as an official citizen to undermine and oppose the Empire.  John’s approach is not mandated; we don’t all have to live as strictly as he does.  But sometimes we need these folks way out in what we might call an extreme place, to help us move forward.  We need the monks and the hermits and the Amish and others who refuse to participate in this or that aspect of modern, urban, technological existence.  We need them because their vision and model prepares the way by showing us things can be different.

Authenticity is important.  It may be why people from that whole region, including Jerusalem, trek out to see what John is about, submitting to his ritual of dunking people in the Jordan River after they confessed their sins.  The Israelites had crossed the Jordan River when they first came to Canaan, after their liberation from Egypt.  Being immersed in that particular river is a sign of crossing over into God’s Kingdom; it’s a sign of emancipation.  And water of course represents both washing and rebirth.  And the people confess their sins as a way of leaving their old selves behind before they go down into the water for renewal.

III.

At this point, the text says that many Pharisees and Sadducees come to be baptized.  These are members of two establishment parties.  They were the people in power.  Perhaps some of them are inspired to confess their sins and be baptized. 

But John has harsh words for them no matter why they came to him.  He doesn’t welcome them like the privileged and powerful people they are.  “You brood of vipers!” he thunders.  “You children of snakes!  Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon?  Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives!  And don’t even think about saying to yourselves, Abraham is our father.  I tell you that God is able to raise up Abraham’s children from these stones.”

(I am still waiting to see those words decorating the mall in December.)

Calling someone a snake was no more of a compliment back then than it is now.  Some folks back then apparently thought that baby snakes ate their way out of their mother, causing her to die.  This might account for John’s image of parasites sucking the life out of the very tradition that gave them birth.  John expresses surprise that they have come to him at all, since they are wholly invested in the system that is bringing down God’s wrath.  Usually Pharisees and Sadducees are so self-righteous and clueless that they have no idea they are doing anything wrong.

They need to start producing good fruit, which is a common metaphor for doing good actions, behaving well, obeying God.  Instead of working to sustain a system that is keeping the people in different kinds of bondage, they need to start setting people free.  They need to start leading a community that reflects and expresses God’s will for justice, peace, equality, inclusion, and healing.  They need to start doing what the Torah says and not just talking about it, and applying it in the most self-serving ways possible.

They are relying on their ethnicity?!  Assuming that merely claiming Abraham as a blood ancestor is going to make a difference?  Seriously?  John says that since God can make descendants of Abraham out of any common piece of rock, they should not depend on that.  Indeed, ethnicity is over.

This is Paul’s point as well, especially in Galatians.  The assumed spiritual superiority of being Jewish, claiming Abraham as an ancestor, is not working anymore.  We are not any better than Gentiles, says John to his own people.  Not only are we not exempt from God’s judgment, being the chosen people makes us the lightning rods for it.  We have the Torah, we’re supposed to know better.

Our sense of superiority, exceptionalism, uniqueness, and inherent godliness as a nation, is wrong.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be conquered by the Romans in the first place.  We’re just like every other loser country, squashed under their ruthless system.  The angry judgment is already here.

IV.  

God doesn’t do a DNA test for salvation.  God looks only at what we do out of our trust in God.  Can it be said that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, in the words of the prophet Micah?  Are we welcoming strangers and aliens?  Are we adequately providing for the needy?  Are we peacemakers?  Are we faithful disciples of the One who is to come?  Are we showing these qualities in church as well as in society?

John is saying that we get to choose our future.  On the one hand he says, “Here comes the Kingdom of Heaven!”  On the other hand he talks about a coming angry judgment.  It seems that both are coming.  We have to decide which one we’re going to receive.

Which one we receive is based on our “fruits,” our actions, our behavior, our relationships.  Do we demonstrate love, joy, justice, healing and peace?  Do we live lives of prayer, acceptance, forgiveness, and generosity?  Are we known by our gentleness, simplicity, and grace?  If so, we are already letting God’s Kingdom shine through us.

But if we are reacting out of anger, fear, separation, judgment, condemnation, ethnic or national superiority; if we are resting on our privilege, status, wealth, or power; if we are propping up injustice and inequality; if we are bullying people with mindless vulgarity… then we can expect God to apply the same wrath to us that we dumped on others.

The time is always now to start getting this right.

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