The Cutting Edge--December 16, 2024

The Cutting Edge--December 16, 2024

"And the crowds asked [John the Baptizer], 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.' Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, 'Teacher, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.' Soldiers also asked him, 'And we, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages'." [Luke 3:10-14]

How do you get ready for the turning point of history? You share your food and clothes.

How about that?

It some how seems too... ordinary... too routine, maybe, for the arrival of a deliverer your people have been waiting on for centuries. It has the feel of telling the French citizens living under the Vichy government and Nazi occupiers, "The Allies are coming soon! Get ready for D-Day by donating shoes to the local homeless shelter, reforming your business practices, and making sure not to undertip your waiters and waitresses!" These actions seem so small and insignificant compared to the big and important events for which we are hoping.

And yet, that's precisely what John says: the Messiah is coming--share your abundance, and treat people justly rather than for selfish gain. So his counsel to the crowds is, "If you have more than you need, give away the excess to people who are without." And his direction to the tax collectors, who were widely seen as sell-outs to the Romans and cheats who used their position to extort money from people with impunity, "Don't cheat people. Don't use your position to get more for yourself." The same to the soldiers--these would likely have been more like law-enforcement or police under the authority of Herod--they were supposed to use their positions, like we see on police cars today, "to protect and serve," rather than to shake people down for money or falsely accuse people. In other words, justice and mercy.

John's message to people waiting for the coming of the Messiah was to do justice and to practice mercy--to put the needs of others before your own, and not to abuse your position to make yourself rich at the expense of others. In a sense, none of this was new. John wasn't inventing new commandments--he was riffing on the same message of the prophets who came before him like a jazz musician. John was only taking the words of Micah, "Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God," and putting them into real life ordinary situations to keep those words from becoming empty slogans or vague concepts. The prophets had always said, "What God is really after with us is that we love one another with our actions, our words, and our possessions." John just gives concrete examples--the second coat, the shared meal, the refusal to leverage your position for selfish gain.

And notice in that: there is no additional talk from John about who "deserves" our sharing. There is no asterisk or fine print that adds, "But of course, not for freeloaders... or people who came from far away... or people you don't particularly like." John simply says, like both Deuteronomy and Mr. Rogers would say it as well, to care for the "neighbor" who is in front of you--whoever that happens to be. Similarly, John doesn't tell the tax collectors, "Look, you have gotten yourself a good position--of course you're going to want to get the perks from it! That's just how the world works!" Nor does he live in the illusion that the soldiers aren't tempted to abuse their authority and weaponry--nobody accuses John of "not supporting the troops" or of "undermining law enforcement" just because he calls them out on the abuses he has seen in the past. John just baldly says to anyone he meets that the right way to live in expectation of God's Messiah is to practice justice and to let mercy become a way of life, which is all that any of the other prophets had ever said, too.

But let's be very clear about something: John doesn't tell his listeners that they have to be good little boys and girls in order to make the Messiah come. He doesn't preach that enough good behavior and rule-following will bring about the Reign of God, and he doesn't really even want us to believe that the only reason to behave is just to avoid future divine zapping. We don't do justice in order to prime the pump so that the Messiah can come, nor is the Reign of God powered by our good deeds like Tinker Bell being brought back to life by enough audience clapping and belief in pixies. John calls people to act justly and practice generosity in their ordinary work lives and neighborhoods because justice and mercy are what the Reign of God look like. And when the Messiah comes, and when the Reign of God breaks out in fullness everywhere, justice and mercy will be the order of the day. John is just telling us to live ahead of the curve now and practice life like that already.

In other words, because we believe that in God's Reign, everybody gets to eat, we will practice that kind of life now and share our bread. And because we believe that in God's Reign, nobody will go without clothing, we share our clothes with others rather than hoarding closets full of clothes we will never wear and only donating things we don't like anymore or spilled tomato sauce on once. Because we believe that God runs the universe on grace and gives good things to people regardless of whether anybody else thinks they have "earned" it, we will practice grace in our lives, too, without getting all fussy about who is really "worthy" of help. And because we believe, John says, that God is able to provide enough for everybody, I don't have to use my power and privilege to put Me-and-My-Group-First, but instead can use our positions for the good of all. We live like that now, not in order to make the Messiah come, but because that's how life is wherever God reigns. John is just calling us to live ahead of the curve.  To take John's message seriously is simply to live at the cutting edge--living now in light of how the world will be in the fullness of God's reign.

And that happens in ordinary actions, in everyday situations, in the mundane and the routine as much as in the grand and monumental. The way to get ready for the coming of the new creation is not to wear sandwich board signs on the street corner announcing "The End Is Near" but to share with someone who can never pay you back, to refuse the perks of your position, to love someone who doesn't expect it. We live as though the Reign of God we are waiting for is already breaking out all around us.

Because it is.

Lord Jesus, give us the vision today to live in light of your promised future, in all the mundane details of our daily work and life.