The target is drawn on your belly

This week is on Luke 3:7-14:
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? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”


These words are not red, but I think they're still worth paying attention to. They address our complacency, and are almost beyond understanding for people of our generation.

John the baptist led a movement of God that laid the groundwork for what Jesus came to do. It was like an arrow aimed at selfishness and greed. In these verses, his movement had gotten popular, and in addition to the faithful people seeking God, it was beginning to attract religious "tourists" and non-religious folks who had no idea what they were in for.

Traditionally people were complacent in their religious or cultural identity as the chosen people of God. Today we might be complacent because we call ourselves Christians or Americans. "I can't possibly be the tool of Satan, because I'm an American. Mom and Apple Pie, baby!" "I can't possibly be steeped in sin and immorality. I go to church three times a week, tithe, and sing on the worship team. Plus my Bible has my name embroidered on the cover right next to Jesus." I'm sure we've all seen our own counterexamples who aren't us.

So these unwittingly broken people showed up to John's God clinic. He met them on arrival and was like "You need to do more than just show up. You need to change." So then the crowd was like "Crap. Now what do we do?" So John told them: "Expand your universe beyond yourself. You have neighbours." Each of his instructions to people addressed some issue of selfishness and complacency.

People didn't have a whole lot of clothes then. Someone who had two shirts was better off than many, and someone with extra food was better off than the starving. John's socialist-sounding instruction was to share your surplus with those who need it. Even if they didn't work for it. That's grace and compassion, but it goes against everything we're taught to survive. It goes against right and wrong. John stopped short of the cross and it was still shocking. He didn't say, if you have a shirt, give it to your neighbour. He just said "Quit hoarding" and it was beyond people's expectation.

John also spoke to the tax collectors. It wasn't just the religious authorities he was addressing. Tax collectors were quislings, collaborators with the Roman occupying forces, who extorted extra tax money off of the people they collected it from. Where Jesus's parable had administrators saying "If your debt to my master is 100, make it 80" these guys would say "If your debt to my master is 80, make it 100." John told them not to collect any more than they had to. Don't get rich off of the poor via extortion. And that's still shocking.

Then he addressed the soldiers. These probably weren't even Jews. They were the enemy. Many were uneducated thugs who joined the army to get rich off of plunder or to gain citizenship, if I remember correctly. John told them not to abuse their authority and power. He stopped short of telling them not to occupy God's Holy Land at the time, which is what everyone probably wanted him to say. He just told them not to use their uniforms to lie and cheat. In some places, that would still be shocking.

John is not Jesus, but he's the guy God chose to teach the prep school for the education Jesus had in store for us. His words still carry the weight of God's authority. Most people never consider their place in the world, but focus on their own advancement and their own needs. When you see others for the first time, and value them as highly as God values them, your perspective and your actions must change. Jesus addresses the heart with the assumption that you'll want to change the behaviour too. John addresses the behaviour in order to make it obvious to the heart why Jesus is about to talk to it. That little twinge of "But that's crazy! That's impossible! It makes no economic or social sense!?" That's your selfish heart.

When we decide to stop living as individuals, and decide to join Jesus and his community of believers, and the world he has sent us to, it should change our perspective. There's nobody who John addressed at the river who couldn't be us. It's scary stuff! What are you hoarding that somebody else needs? What have you buried in the ground, piled in the storehouse, or hung in the closet that could be shared? Is your heart protesting? Maybe John is still telling you about Jesus.

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