7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 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.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you wit] the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.
– Luke 3:7-18 (NRSVUE)
When was the last time you read the beginning of the Gospel According to Luke? In Luke 1:3, the anonymous author–whom we will call the Evangelist–claims to have “a grasp of everything from the start.” With this grasp, the Evangelist promises a reader named Theophilus, “a well-ordered account” of the stories in which they have been instructed, the prophesied events that have been fulfilled. From this historical account, Theophilus, can come to have a more firm grasp on the good news and what it means for him.
Whether one identifies with Theophilus for his namesake, Greek for “God-Lover”, or as a fellow reader, we must not forget that the Gospel of Luke, as a history, is a political document. It is not simply about dates but directions on how to order our understanding of the world. When I was in college, I remember my History of Christianity professor suspending her lecture to address the elephant in the room. My classmates and I were puzzled by the notations “BCE” and “CE” that we saw following dates on the chalkboard. We had grown up with “BC” and “AD,” “Before Christ” and “Anno Domini (the Year of our Lord).” This talk of the “Common Era” was throwing us for a loop. I don’t remember whether a student piped up with the question we were all wondering, or if the professor could not help but respond to our befuddlement. What I will never forget is the professor’s explanation: “To control the calendar is to shape people’s perspective.”
The professor explained that calendars are a tool for not only marking time, but also orienting people’s expectations. To rethink the calendar is to ask what centers our sense of self, others, and the world around us. She said that the move from a Christocentric calendar to a common, secular one challenges us to consider the extent to which our histories are accountings of the past or dogmatic interpretations of it.
If you think the distinction to be academic, I would remind you that at this moment, politicians across the United States are debating whether the Bible is a resource for primary and secondary school classes. The case in favor of this is often framed as a return to Christian values, while opponents call it an intellectual retrogression. At the crux of this debate–for both sides–are assertions about where human beings lie on an ideological timeline of cultural expectation. Like the characters in Luke, we find ourselves asking whether we are to return to greater times or are we to progress toward a better future? Whose vision of greatness are we pursuing? For whom is the day’s news good? Luke 3:7-18 invites readers to consider the Evangelist’s calendar and their place in it, and in so doing reorient their understanding of what is good.
As well-ordered as the gospel may be, it is a historical narrative that embraces surprise. John the Baptist embodies this irony. The gospel introduces him as the son of Zechariah, a priest, and Elizabeth, a descendant of the ancient Hebrew Aaronite priesthood. Similarly, an earlier portion of chapter 3 situates the launch of John’s ministry of baptism with the appointment of officials like the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, the Herodian tetrarchs, and the Jewish high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, “during the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.” The narration of such great expectations lead the reader to expect John to be carrying out the family tradition at the Jerusalem temple. Instead the reader finds John in the hinterlands by the Jordan River, an unexpected place considering his pedigree.
It may even seem that John has forsaken the way of his father and forefathers, but nothing could be further from the truth. He is a most dramatic example of a priest. But to make it make sense, the reader must adopt the Evangelist’s perspective. John is operating on a different calendar, one that locates his ministry according to the prophecy of Isaiah as “a voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the LORD.” Desperate times call for desperate measures. John is a priest for just such times.
Readers have often missed just how desperate these times are within the story. In 3:7, when the crowds come upon John, he calls them a “brood of vipers” and asks “who warned them of the wrath to come?” John appears intrigued that so many would elect to follow his prophetic calendar and during a challenging season of baptismal repentance, no less. But the color of his intrigue is not as judgmental or prejudicial as some interpreters have maintained. Later Christian interpreters often appropriate the Matthean intra-Jewish polemic and conflate it with traditions of the tempting serpent in Genesis. And as the serpent character becomes twisted with Satan in chapters of Christian reception history, John appears to them as advocating for an anti-Jewish supersessionism.
But the Lukan tradition itself has a different orientation; one that takes note of the unexpected. John himself is surprised by the crowd coming to him at the Jordan like snakes emerging from the water. Here we should remember that snakes appear one more time in the Evangelist’s sequel, the Acts of the Apostles in chapter 28. The Apostle Paul was shipwrecked off the coast of Malta. Cold from the water, he gathers some wood to lay on a fire. But as he does so, a snake jumps out from the heat and latches to his hand. These Lukan narratives are true to life in that snakes startle easily. And when we return to John’s encounter with the brood of vipers, his prophetic question takes on a pragmatic significance. He is speaking to the moment. In the words of the Negro spirituals, John wonders what “troubled the waters” and what trouble [they’ve] seen” that they would come to the wilderness for repentance. It is as if John asks, “What makes you all seek baptism?”.
John anticipates and summarily rejects one answer: heritage. It is not enough to say it is because it is what we and our ancestors have always done. Note the Evangelist’s diction “brood” (a synonym for “offspring”) and the discussion of Abrahamic lineage (v. 8). John retorts that being children of the Hebrew patriarch brings no special privileges. Granted, ancestry is not unimportant. After all, the Evangelist makes a point of providing us John and Jesus’s family history. But John’s calendar does not have people look back on past seasons; rather, it orients people to ask whether they have borne fruit befitting God (v. 9). And if they haven’t, time’s a-wasting. The fruitful will be harvested and the fruitless will be slash and burned. This leaves the already-troubled crowd wondering how to make sure they are ripe with repentance.
The Gospel of Luke spells out the good news with a practical sensibility. If you have a surplus of coats, supply those who are without one. If you have extra food, share with the hungry. If you are a tax collector, be true to the ledger. And if you are a soldier, accept your wage and do not exercise force for ill-gain. Welfare, taxation, law and order… Was the Evangelist speaking to a crowd of readers troubled by the day’s policies? On my drive to work, the call-in newsradio show has been asking people about their hopes and fears on these same issues since the election of Donald Trump. One episode centered on the troubles of federal workers as the President-elect plans to eliminate the bureaus and programs that employ them. Maybe the Gospel of Luke has a word for them too.
In any case, the crowd seems excited by Johns’ calendar and its associated social expectations. They wonder whether his platform is a sign that God has anointed him to usher in a new era for them. John is quick to reorient them to an expectant future. In this moment, he is baptizing them in water and encouraging them with good news. But a new era is coming in which one will baptize with fire and bring them a Holy Spirit.
The text is unclear as to what the crowd makes of the times ahead. As mentioned earlier, John’s message follows a prophetic pattern. And we have countless examples, Old and New Testaments alike, of people not taking kindly to prophets’ admonitions. If we read ahead to 3: 19-20, we know that Herod will imprison John. Baptism does not exempt one from suffering. What is more is that John says that, however powerful he himself may be, the one to come in this new era is even more powerful with an even more intense regimen for baptism and harvest. And Lord knows that Jesus is not spared of hardship. The crowd should prepare to be further troubled in the days to come.
But “trouble don’t last always,” to quote a Gospel anthem. The coming one also gathers the sifted wheat. John’s exhortations remind me of C.S. Lewis’s description of his Christ-allegory Aslan: not safe, but good. So too is the news brought by John. It is not safe news but it is good news. Leaving behind surplus, snugness, wealth, and strength for the common good is a tough ask in a season of uncertainty. The lectionary reading suggests that when this becomes too troubling a proposition, then perhaps a change in calendar is in order.
Perhaps that is what the challenge of advent brings. It is the beginning of a political story in which readers learn to reassess what good looks like in the face of the day’s troubles. Through the challenge of surprise they come to see the importance of not overlooking their neighbor’s well-being. And when that falls out of view, they come to check their calendars and perspectives. They are reminded to not take for granted the good times and to take heart in the bad. Advent is a season where gospel readers remember to expect the unexpected so that they might ready themselves for a good harvest.
I find this reflection great, soul-lifting, and prophetic especially for countries with so much policies that are not pro-poor. Such “policy calendars needs reversal.”