13 Dec 2009 - "What Should We Do?"

Diane Whittaker
Luke 3:7–18

The test of good preaching is not necessarily how interesting or well delivered a sermon may be. Although maybe one test is whether it gets repeated elsewhere – I must admit that the kernel of this sermon is from one preached by William Palmer Junior, who published a sermon based on this passage from Luke on an American website – Desperate Preacher!

However the real test is: Does it get results? Or, as John the Baptist may have put it: Does it bear fruit? John was unique in many ways. The Bible comments on his manner of dress and his diet, but even more compelling was the fact that crowds flocked to his sermons even when he addressed them as a “brood of vipers” and warned them that the axe was about to fall on those who did not sort their relationship with God out. Not exactly the best way of attracting an audience! The test of John’s preaching was not just that crowds gathered in the wilderness of the Jordan to hear him. It was not his riveting appearance or his hectoring of his listeners. It was rather the results he got. At the end of his sermon – insults and all - he got a response -  “The crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’”

Do we know what to do to get ready for the coming of Jesus?

As I’ve spoken to people recently, I’m beginning to hear the same question over again - “Are you ready for Christmas?” When we stop to chat, we talk about buying gifts for our loved ones, getting Christmas cards posted, or decorating our homes. Yet even if we were to have every one of our gifts purchased, paid for, wrapped, and ready for their recipients; even if every one of our Christmas cards had been posted a week ago (fat chance!); and even if our home was decorated for the holiday in a way that might be approved by TV gurus, we still might not be ready for Christmas.

What should we do, indeed?

We all really know deep down that Christmas isn’t just about presents, food and decorated houses. We know that Christmas is really about the birth of a child in a manger, the child whom the prophets called Emmanuel—God with us. Christmas is about how we respond to that child—and to the adult he would become. We may ponder about the meaning of Jesus’ coming into the world. We may try to understand words like incarnation and immanence and transcendence. However, even this isn’t getting to the nub of the matter - Christmas should be about more than abstract theological thinking just as it is more than being about tinsel and mistletoe. Christmas is about practical matters like life and death and meaning. And practical matters deserve practical answers. And this is why John the Baptist can speak so powerfully to us, even today – his answers to the crowd’s questions are truly practical.

What should we do? What should we do to get ready for the coming of Jesus?

Three times that question is asked in this morning’s gospel lesson. And three times the answer that comes back is intensely practical. Practical answers for a practical question—that’s what John was about in the wilderness two thousand years ago - and John’s answers still have practical relevance for us today.

“What then should we do?” the crowds ask, and John says, “Whoever has two coats must share with any who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” To get ready for the coming of Jesus, we have to learn to share.

Practical advice. It’s one of the simplest and most direct ways of dealing with all sorts of problems in our world – hunger, want, homelessness, loneliness. It may even come under the heading of one of those important things we learned—or should have learned—when we were children at school. We get ready for Christmas—and for the far more important day when Jesus comes a second time—by sharing. But if the only sharing we’re planning to do this Christmas is with our family or friends, that doesn’t really count. John tells us to look for those without coats and those without food. Those are the people with whom we need to be sharing at Christmas.

“What should we do?” ask the tax collectors, people who were about as popular two thousand years ago as they are today. The difference probably is that more of them were dishonest in John’s day than in ours. John’s practical advice to them is “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Contained in that instruction are two things we all need to hear. The first is, “Don’t cook the books.” Dishonest bookkeeping is not just a matter of concern for tax collectors, or corporations like Enron, or mutual fund managers. Being honest with money is just as important for taxpayers as it is for those who collect the taxes, something we all need to be reminded of in this current climate of ‘bashing the bankers’ and being outraged at MP’s expenses fiddles. The second thing John makes clear, and the thing that usually lies at the root of dishonest bookkeeping, is that greed is a temptation for every one of us. Our entire society sometimes seems to be gripped in the clutches of a passion for more of everything—bigger salaries, bigger houses, bigger cars. John challenges us to ask ourselves how much we really need. He doesn’t tell us to go out into the wilderness and live wearing a camel hair shirt and eating locusts and wild honey. He simply tells us to live honestly within our means. It’s a practical answer for those who want to get ready for the coming of Jesus.

The soldiers are the last to ask the question, “What should we do?” And John has two practical instructions for them that certainly are relevant for us as well. The first is don’t abuse your power. “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation.” In John’s day, people who wielded spears or swords were those who could exercise power improperly. But you don’t need a sword or spear or even a gun to abuse power. It’s just as easy to abuse power by belittling or bullying others who are weaker than us.

Secondly, John tells the soldiers to be satisfied with their wages. Do you know anyone who is satisfied with his or her wages? That universal dissatisfaction drives the mobility of our society today. We move from job to job and from city to city in a never-ending quest for satisfaction, yet we never really seem to be satisfied for long. John says that those who really want to focus on getting ready for Jesus should try to be satisfied where they are and with what they are getting.
Do you see a common thread in all this practical advice? Those people in the wilderness two thousand years ago seemed to be consumed with getting and spending, getting and hoarding, getting and getting more. Just like us. Only when our thinking is completely turned around, when we start to think about giving and sharing, and finding satisfaction in our lives that is not rooted in the accumulation of things, will we join those who truly are making themselves ready for the coming of Jesus. It’s all pretty practical, really. And as the Bible says, it’s good news.

Are you ready for Christmas?