Matthew 3:1-12: More Than Just "Do This, Do That"

Have you ever played the game called “Do This, Do That”? It’s not all that popular, so maybe you have never played it. But the leader of the game, does actions (kinda like this) and while saying, “Do this.” Those who are playing the game mirror the leader’s actions. The game keeps going on in this fashion until the leader says, “Do that.” And whatever action the leader does while saying “Do that,” is the only thing that gets players “out” of the game. So basically players copy the leader’s example while she or he says “Do this,” but as soon as she or he says “Do that,” one ceases to follow the leader’s motions. So let’s play one round, shall we?

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was really good at this game. Not because I was super quick and had instinctive hand-eye reflexes, but rather the opposite was the case. I was slow and so I was always a move or two behind. When everyone was “oohing” and “awing” because the leader said, “Do That!” I was a step late and could stop in anticipation of what was to come.

The season of Advent is a prophetic season that often comes off sounding like, “Do This, Do That.” We look ahead to Christ’s coming both in the person of Jesus 2,000 years ago and the future advent of Christ. It’s a season when we are eternally looking ahead. Often we may hear the prophets telling us as we wait to “Do this and do that,” or better yet, “Do this, and don’t do that.”

We can hear John the Baptist this morning as the king of “Do this, Do That.” John is out in the wilderness saying “Come on out… Do this,” “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near, turn around, do this,” “Come into the waters of Baptism, do this.” Of course, the game of “Do This” changes suddenly to one of “Don’t Do That,” as soon as the Pharisees and Sadducees enter into the waters of the River Jordan.

Starting off the conversation calling the Jewish leaders, “You brood of vipers,” makes it seem as though the deck is stacked in this game. Yet, I can see a wry smile on the face of the Baptizer, as he asks, “Who warned you of the wrath to come?” John sees these hyper-religious men as people who rely so heavily upon their rituals that they have forgotten that it is not religion that they worship, but God. He warns them that entering into these life-giving, renewing waters is no empty gesture. True baptism to the prophet is shown in the good fruit it produces. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he says. Do not cling to your ancestor’s merits for God can raise up stones to be children of Father Abraham. Then, John gifts us hearers with two images that at first appear to be dichotomous, either/or, “Do This, Do That,” yet they provide a subtle way for us to prepare for Christ’s coming both as a community and as individuals.

On the surface, we hear either, “you will be a tree bearing good fruit” or “you will be cut down”; “you will be wheat” or “you will be chaff.” There was a tree in the backyard of my childhood home, a great, beautiful apple tree. When I was in elementary school I would excitedly run outside almost every autumn morning to pick fruit from its branches. Then, I would put it in my lunch bag and proudly pull out some homegrown good produce at school. Yet, as the years went on and on, the tree grew older and older, and it bore less and less fruit. Eventually, this once fruitful apple tree slowly started to decay and die. While this saddened me, what I learned from watching this little backyard ecosystem was that even in the process of dying this dying tree was continuing to grab nutrients from the soil and its branches were blocking the sunlight from other smaller seedlings.

John’s warning about the trees bearing good fruit can be taken as a warning to “be good,” whatever that might mean, but maybe what the Baptist is crying about is a need to make way for new growth within our religious communities. I do not intend to pick up an axe and start chopping down dying ministries within our church, nor do I want to light fires to our tradition, but perhaps we together can see where pruning and maybe even hacking is in order to allow for something fresh to sprout. Where is the good fruit in our church? Where are those decaying things that take up our energy? What is blocking good new growth from happening? John’s cry is for us to dream something new together to bring it about and not to cling too tightly to the old ways. Yet there is another image.

One is coming who is more powerful than John, and his baptism is with the Holy Spirit and fire. The image that John uses for this fiery one to come is an agricultural image. The messiah will come with a winnowing fork in hand, as Lucy McCain said in centering prayer this week, there is grace in that he is not carrying a shovel. Yet the end of this image of the messiah seems a bit scary: the wheat is kept in the granary and the chaff is burnt up in an unquenchable fire.

I am not a great farmer, and we have many green thumbs in our church, so if what I am about to say is wrong, please correct me: Wheat is made up of grain and chaff. The chaff is that which protects the nutritious grain from bugs and the elements until the time is right for the grain to be harvested in the granary. John’s image is not asking us to think, “In the life to come do you prefer smoking or non-smoking?” as some church signs read. Rather, we are the stalks of wheat. We have a part of us that protects us from being fully vulnerable with one another and with God. Christ’s call is to shake off that chaff. Let the part of us that is keeping us isolated, alone, and “safe” be burned up in the unquenchable fire. Now I know this sounds scary, but we cannot live fireproof lives. We do not possess flame-retardant spirits. Part of us, that bit that separates us from one another has to be torched.

Once we let that chaff go, then we can come together. We can enter into the granary. As our grains come forth we are pressed together and turned into that flour that makes the bread of life. This is the good news hidden within the “Do This, Don’t Do That” game that John seems to be calling out in the wilderness. Once we move beyond our initial panic of believing that the Baptist is speaking of heaven and hell we can hear this truly difficult, yet fully inspiring message. With God we are called to cut down that which is dying and not bearing fruit in our community in order for new growth to happen and to shed the chaff providing us false security, so that we can come together to form the bread of life. In this season of Advent when we are asked to slow down and be quiet, to watch and wait, to stop and listen, God is coming to be with us. It is not a game of “Do This, Do That,” it is a time of discernment to prune our hearts and ministries, to shed the chaff so that God can bear in us good fruit and form our grains into the Bread of Life.