Rev Gav

What then should we do?

Luke 3:7-18

I was once chatting with a parishioner after Sunday worship, and as we supped our appalling church coffee, she mentioned her son, and being the polite priest, I asked what he did for a living. She waved her hand dismissively, “Oh, he’s some kind of rocket scientist.” I persisted with the conversation and asked what line of work he was in, to which she replied, “Something in NASA to do with engines for the space shuttle.” My eyes grew wide and I laughed, “Oh! So he really is a rocket scientist?” She tersely pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and gave me a hard stare of which even Paddington Bear would be proud, “Yes, that’s what I said!”

In today’s Bible Reading we are immersed (get it?) in a scene by the River Jordan where John is plunging people in the river for what he calls a baptism of repentance. Now, far from a big smiley, welcoming face, with the words, “Hello folks! Welcome to the Jordan. My name’s John and I’ll be your baptiser for the day,” he calls out, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?!” Nice, eh?

You can imagine the crestfallen faces of those who had turned up, jollied along by friends and family, to do this ‘thing’ that they could then, afterwards, chat about in the pub. You see, the act of baptism itself was very simple. You waded out, John dunked you under the water, and up you came. You waded back to the shore and then you were you were all done and dusted or as we said back in the 90s, “jobs a good ‘un.” Yet, for John, this baptism was a very serious matter.

John clearly believed that something, or rather ‘someone’ was coming who would herald a definitive moment in the history of humanity, one that would be a watershed moment (excuse the pun) in the lives of, well, everyone. To hammer home this point he used a metaphor that anyone living in the countryside would have understood — the act of separating wheat grain (the good bits) from the straw and chaff (the bad bits). John described this person as having a, “winnowing-fork in hand, to clear his threshing-floor,” and, “to gather the wheat into his granary, burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

It has been understood commonly that John was talking about separating ‘good’ people from ‘bad’ people but this is not the case. The writer Luke goes on to say, “and with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.” Clearly, if John was saying people would be swept away and burned, this would not be good news! So what was the good news that John was talking about? The good news was that someone was coming who was going to deal with all the bad bits in people’s lives, leaving only the good bits. Wow! This really is good news. I mean, I’ve definitely got bad bits I’d like dealt with! And it was good news back then, unless you were kind of in love with your bad bits, like Herod was, who loved his bad bits so much that he had John banged up in prison.

John was saying to the people, look, this plunging in the river, this baptism of repentance, is what it says on the tin. Repentance means changing your mind and heading in another direction. If God is going to destroy all the bad bits in your lives, if this is where we’re all heading, then we should align ourselves with the good bits in the here and now. This stuff matters! Without repentance, without a commitment to a change in your hearts and minds, then what you’re doing here in the river Jordan is simply going for a swim, and anyone can do that!

And this is where the rocket science comes in, because people stood there, perplexed, and asked John what they should do. Now, I know that Luke doesn’t tell us about John’s facial expressions — whether he rolled his eyes, facepalmed, with the word, “Really?” and I wonder what the people were expecting? Perhaps they expected John to tell them to go and do some deeply religious and spiritually profound thing, but the truth is that repentance isn’t rocket science. John said, “If you have spare clothes then give them away, and if you have food then share it with those who are hungry, and be content with your pay and don’t extort money out of people or rip them off.” In other words, align yourselves by keep doing the good stuff — that wholesome and useful grain — in your lives. I can imagine the people saying, “Is that it?” and John saying, “Yes! Now, are we going to do this baptism thing or what?”

Us pastors have sometimes made Christianity such a difficult way to live, asking people to do more in the church, or read their Bibles more, or pray more, but Luke, through his gospel, reminds us that Christianity is very simple. Follow Jesus, the one who has blown away the chaff from our lives and who has freed us from sin and death, and repent — commit to being the loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled people God has called us to be. And if you want to do this, then sure, go ahead, be baptised as a sign and symbol that you have embraced this way of life — the way of Jesus — and that the chaff has been blown away.

We are experiential beings, and baptism is an experience designed to be remembered so that, as we journey through your lives, we can think back to that moment when we were plunged in the water and rejoice. Baptism without repentance is simply going for a swim and repentance isn’t rocket science.

Amen.