2nd Sunday of Advent, A December 4, 2022
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“You brood of vipers!” So much for Christmas cheer. John the Baptist says this to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but it’s not like he’s caught them doing something terrible. These are the ones who came to him! They traveled out of the city all the way to the Jordan river to hear him preach. They came to be baptized!
People often say pastors should just be grateful that people show up… that they shouldn’t get caught up on what those people do in other places or what they wear, but that they should be gentle and welcoming. They’ll say pastors shouldn’t have requirements for baptism and should just be glad to baptize anyone who asks. Well, that’s not how John the Baptist does it. Does that mean John is judgmental? That he’s more interested in condemning people than helping them? Of course not. John the Baptist is the premier preacher of repentance. Unlike many preachers today, John doesn’t care if people like him. He only cares if they repent.
The fact is that he understands repentance because he sees sin for what it really is: slavery, infection, poison, death. When someone is dying from an infected wound, you don’t worry about the pain of using alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. You worry about saving their life. The pain they can deal with. You only have to keep reading to see that’s what John wants. He doesn’t say “you brood of vipers, go away!” He says “produce good fruit.” He’s putting a lot of pressure on them not so that they’ll leave, but so that they’ll grow.
The Pharisees and Sadducees are easy to label and dismiss. As I said it a few months ago and it’s worth repeating. We’re so quick to see ourselves as victims that we too easily overlook what we have in common with the bad guys. Like John, I don’t say that to condemn you, but to call you to conversion. The fact is that most bad guys don’t want to be the bad guy. For human beings at least, bad guys are often victims of their own evil too, hurting others because they are hurt.
There’s a reason John calls them a brood of vipers – poisonous snakes. They are full of poison because that’s what sin is. When John speaks of vipers, he doesn’t do it because he could never be like them, but because he knows of his own potential to be the same. It’s why he lives such a radical life of prayer and penance – to avoid sin. Be honest with yourself. Look really hard at your weakest moments, your greatest temptations. Are there never any times when you’ve been tempted to be not only sinful, but predatory? Have you never felt that inclination to take advantage of another’s weakness for money, power, or pleasure? To manipulate, mock, or dominate someone either because they’re in the way of your goal or because it seemed fun at the time?
Deep down, we’ve all faced a sense of inadequacy, of not being enough. We have fears and anxieties. Subject to powerful desires or simply the urge to stop hurting, we almost automatically spew the poison of sin into those around us. We all have the potential to be vipers.
But what if a viper doesn’t want to be poisonous anymore? What if it simply doesn’t know how to be any other way? Is there no hope? The prophet Isaiah tells us that when the messiah comes, “the baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.” God can overcome even the deadliest of poisons and tame the wildest of snakes – he can save vipers like us from ourselves.
Don’t get me wrong, the threat of fire is very real, but read in this light, the light of hope for the coming messiah, we can see that threat aimed not just at us, but at sin within us. Received well, the fire saves us from ourselves. How do we do that?
First, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” In other words, don’t take salvation for granted. It doesn’t matter who your momma is or what your daddy did for the Church way back when. What matters is what you do. Even better, what matters is what you allow God to do in you. If you rely on your own cleverness, connections, genetics, money… or anything of this world, you will be disappointed. Instead of trusting in science, or economics, or politics, remember that “God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” He can make vipers like you and me into saints. Recognize that. Ask for it. “Glorify God for his mercy,” as St. Paul puts is.
Secondly, do as it says in the second reading: “think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a practical application of not trusting in yourself, but in God. Part of overcoming our viper tendencies is conforming our understanding to the truth God has revealed. We can’t shut down our minds and our judgment, but we can look at them with a healthy skepticism. To think in harmony with other Christians is to think in harmony with the Church. When you come across a teaching of the Church that is difficult, that doesn’t immediately agree with your pre-conceived notions, don’t reject it. Our attitude should start with trust. A child learning to read doesn’t succeed by asking mom to prove each letter makes the sound she says it makes. No, the child succeeds when he simply trusts his mother. Understanding comes with time and maturity.
When the Church addresses non-believers, she argues and debates and offers evidence as signs of credibility. But when speaking to her own children, to believers, she ought to be received with trust. Whether that believer is a lay person, a priest, or a cardinal, obstinate rejection of clear teaching only leads to more poison.
Finally, humility and awe. Isaiah overflows with poetry. Paul often digresses into praise. John the Baptist, greatest of those born of woman, admits he is unworthy even to carry the sandals of the messiah. Recognizing our smallness and seeing the truth clearly should support the fundamental act of amazement at God’s goodness. The Pharisees and Sadducees were vipers mostly because they couldn’t stop looking at their own goodness long enough to see the splendor of God. In a noisy, consumerist society, it is easy to never give ourselves the chance to marvel, to wonder in awe at the goodness and beauty of God.
This Advent and Christmas, make it a point to open yourself up to a beauty so profound you can’t help but want to be rid of the poison of sin inside you. Turn off the jingle bells and hip hop remixes of carols long enough to really hear the magnificence of God. There are lots of times that nostalgia or coincidence made me cry at a particular song, but I can recall only once in my life that I was bluntly overpowered by the raw beauty of a song to the point of tears. It was a Christmas Chant from Palestrina called O Magnum Mysterium. Not an easy piece and not something that can be captured by an mp3. If you want to really hear it, you have to find it sung live by talented peopled.
Go out of your way to experience real beauty this Christmas. Not cheesy commercials or gaudy gimmicks, but real beauty, preferably in person. A concert featuring timeless works. A well-done play. A profound work of art. A gorgeous church that you really take in. Taking time with great poetry or some of the best passages of scripture. Give yourself a chance to experience humility and awe at God’s Goodness.
Why? Because that goodness burns like an unquenchable fire. Whether it destroys us or only the poison in us depends on us. Do we repent and embrace it? Or not?