Repair

The scriptures referred to are Luke 3:7-18.

An old adage of journalism is not to make yourself the story. For reporter Susannah Cahalan that wasn't an option. She was almost institutionalized with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia because of a rare brain disease. And with her audio and visual hallucinations and her delusions, those diagnoses almost fit. Luckily, one doctor realized that the usual psychiatric categories did not explain all of her symptoms, like the seizures or the catatonia. Eventually he was able to diagnose her with a rare form of autoimmune disease, called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Once it was diagnosed, it could be treated. I highly recommend her book, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, and the Netflix film of the same name with Chloe Grace Moretz. It really hits home with people who have had rare and hard to diagnose disorders, and the frustrations of having to go to doctor after doctor to get a valid diagnosis. But the film only hints at the many months of therapy it took for Cahalan to get better. In most stories of medical mysteries, the focus is on the diagnosis and rarely on the long, admittedly mundane process of rehabilitation. Even as a nurse, I learned new things about Occupational and Physical Therapy and the practical steps of, say, walking when I myself was a patient. Diagnosis is just the beginning; treatment should follow.

The first Sunday in Advent we looked at the grim diagnosis of this world. Last Sunday we looked at stuff so bad we should just chuck it out. This Sunday we look instead at what can be fixed or repaired. And we start with a very surprising person: that old bugeater, Mr. “You brood of vipers” himself, John the Baptizer.

If you only read Mark's gospel, you would know almost nothing about John's message. If you only read Matthew's account, you would mostly get his very negative diagnosis of the situation in Judea. In the gospel of John, the Baptizer's entire cameo is devoted to his pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. Only in Luke's gospel do we hear John's very constructive instructions to the people who sincerely repented and wanted to change their lives.

Before we get into the specifics, I just want to interject a problem I have as a chaplain at the jail. People have donated a lot of books that tell folks how to become Christians and a lot of books on very specific topics within Christianity, but almost nothing on how to live the Christian life in general. So I put together a brief list of 7 basic steps in following Jesus. I preached a series of sermons on them during Lent of 2017. [Start here.] But my point is that this seems to be a neglected part of our teaching. Barbara Brown Taylor sensed this when she was converted in her dorm room by another girl apparently using some “4 Spiritual Laws” type of canned evangelism. When the girl left the room, no doubt putting another notch on her evangelistic belt, Taylor wisely wondered what she had just committed herself to. And she started investigating. She  went on to become one of the greatest preachers in the late 20^th century. But she had to find out how to be a Christian herself.

There are books on discipleship out there and they pretty much include the stuff I did when compiling my list. I did, after all, aim at presenting the basics. If I have any criticism of how some folks approach it, it is that they make it primarily about words: pray, study the Bible, proclaim the gospel. Yes, those are all vital. To be fair, they usually include joining a community of Christians and worshiping. They also include adopting a holier lifestyle and stewardship of your life. And they briefly touch on the commandment to love others. But just how do we do that? It's not merely by being nice and talking about the good news. We need to manifest that love in concrete actions. And those actions will probably move us out of our comfort zone.

Let's look at what John says to the newly baptised. “And the crowds asked him, 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.'” An undifferentiated group of people ask and John gives an answer that applies to anyone. And the answer is to share your excess with those who have little or nothing. The coat or tunic referred to was a kind of long undershirt that may have gone to the ankles or only reached to the knees. This was the one piece garment of Jesus' which the soldiers gambled for at his crucifixion. Anyone dressed only in this undergarment was considered naked. If you only had that one garment and were homeless, you would get very cold at night, which is why, by Biblical law, if a poor person used their outer garment as security for a loan it had to be returned to them at night. (Deuteronomy 24:13) In that same spirit, if you had more than one undergarment, you could afford to help out a person who had none. John is saying “You don't need it; they do; give it to them.”

John says we are to do the same with food. If we have more than enough, we should share. These are basic necessities. If a person has come around to God's point of view, they should be as generous as he. Perhaps John was thinking of Proverbs 22:9 where it says, “He who is generous will be blessed for he gives some of his food to the poor.” After all it was the law in Israel, laid down in the first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible, that you had to make provision for the poor. In harvesting your fields you had to leave the edges alone and not pick up the gleanings, nor go through your vineyard a second time and pick up the fallen grapes, so that the poor could have them. (Leviticus 19:9-10) Every third year a tenth of your produce was collected to give to the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows. (Deuteronomy 26:12-15) The basic principle is spelled out in the Torah: “If there is a poor person among you, one of your brothers in any of the gates of your land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Instead you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him enough for whatever need he has.” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8, HCB) Notice how God emphasizes that he is giving them the land. Therefore his people should pay it forward. Or you could think of it as paying God back. In Proverbs it says, “The one who is gracious to the poor lends to the Lord, and the Lord will repay him for his good deed.” (Proverbs 19:17, NET) Returning to God, which is what repenting basically is, means returning to reflecting his image, which is gracious and generous.

Now we move from general principles to how newly baptized people must behave in specific professions. And these are not popular jobs. First, let's look at tax collectors.

According to the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, to which I am indebted for most of what follows, the tax collectors in the gospels were probably not the main officials who oversaw collection but their subordinates. Nevertheless, they were hated for several basic reasons. First, of course, is the fact that they worked for the occupying powers, the Romans. So their fellow Jews saw them as traitors. But beyond that, they set their own fees, which were whatever they could get away with, enriching themselves in the process. They also took bribes to lessen assessments. And they could be ruthless in collecting what they assessed. They were legally permitted to search anything and anyone, except for a Roman lady. They could seize any property not properly declared. In Egypt, there is a story of tax collectors beating up an old woman to get her to reveal where her tax-dodging relatives were hiding. On one occasion, when the harvest was bad, an entire village fled at the news that the tax collector was coming and started up a new village elsewhere!

Now one might think that John the Baptizer will tell penitent and baptized tax collectors to leave such a corrupt system. But, no, he says simply, “Do not collect any more than you are required to.” Neither John nor Jesus nor Paul has a problem with the idea of taxes. The Romans did keep the empire relatively peaceful for 200 years, built roads and made it safe to travel by land or sea. Taxes are the price you pay for civilization. What John focuses on is fairness and honesty. The tax collectors are not supposed to squeeze people or pad the amounts they collect. John is advocating reform not revolution.

Similarly, when asked by some soldiers who were baptized what they should do, John says, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied by your wages.” Unless you were a Roman citizen, you did not have any of the rights we now take for granted. A Roman soldier could force you to carry his pack for a mile. He could even kill you, were you no one of importance. Having the power of life and death over others is a very corrupting one. And were these soldiers of Herod rather than Roman soldiers, the temptation to use their position to extract money from the population was greater. Herodian soldiers were not as well paid as the average peasant laborer. Their power made it easy to extort people, either by threats of violence or by dreaming up a bogus charge on which they could arrest them.

John tells them to stop misusing their power and to be content with what they had. As soldiers they got food, shelter, and other privileges. A lot of people, then as now, came from the lower socio-economic classes and entered the military to better themselves. John expects them to better themselves morally as well.

So John enunciates several principles for new converts. First, generously share what you have with others. Help them fulfill their basic needs. As we said, this is not new with John but goes all the way back to the first few books of the Bible and was enshrined in the laws of the kingdom of Israel. God actually says, “There should be no poor among you...” That is, due to all God's blessings and provided people followed his commandments. (Deuteronomy 15:4-5) But God realizes that will not happen so he makes explicit our duties to the disadvantaged. John is saying, “If you truly repent, that is, return to God, you will take care of those created in his image.”

The next principle is to be honest and fair in dealing with others. Do your job right and don't abuse your power. This American Life had a whole episode on the tyrannical head of the maintenance department at a school district in Schenectady, New York. The head of maintenance got his job by sabotaging the energy saving plan of his predecessor, using his access to the computer system to leave all lights and heat on in all the classrooms as well as the lights on the football fields all day. Then he promised the school board that as the new head of maintenance he would save money. To keep that pledge he ruthlessly kept costs down, even confiscating the space heater a teacher bought to raise the temperature of his classroom above 56 degrees. The man was so petty that he fired a plumber simply so he could fire another plumber he didn't like without violating the seniority rules. The first plumber was just collateral damage in his campaign of retribution against anyone who stood up to him. He punished people by giving them the worst assignments until he felt they learned their lesson. He was eventually arrested for going too far. He used his power, which does not on the surface appear to be that great, to abuse others and enrich himself. (Through various tricks he ended up making more than the school superintendent!)

In contrast Paul says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for people.” (Colossians 3:23) Any honest occupation can be seen as a ministry and a stewardship of God's gifts to you. I think we too often focus on leadership in this society and even in the church. Not everyone can be a leader. And a leader can't do much without followers. Both are needed but too often we undervalue the people who are not leaders, both societally and financially. Which will close a company faster: the loss of a CEO or the loss of its workers? You can't have a church with just clergy but no laity. We all have our roles and functions and we can serve God in whatever position we find ourselves, provided the job's main requirements aren't to abuse people but to serve them.

Finally John says, “Be content with your pay.” Now this goes against everything our system teaches us. We are to always strive for more. Yet studies show that after reaching the point where you can meet all your needs comfortably, more money does not equal more happiness. In fact, our economic system tries to make you discontented with your current car, home, phone, clothes, etc, so companies can sell you more expensive ones. It even makes us unhappy with our own bodies so we can try to fix them with diet pills and exercise equipment and gym memberships and cosmetics and plastic surgery.

What it doesn't want you to be discontented with is the system itself or the society that depends on ever greater inequality. And companies cannot be content to simply make a profit. The profits always have to go up. The business must constantly expand. We must make more stuff, which means using more resources. Yet, as Edward Abbey said, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” To which Kenneth Boulding might add, “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.” (Boulding, by the way, was an economist, albeit an apparently sane one.)

Our discontent should be with the way things are, where people hoard and increase their surplus rather than share it, where they abuse their power, and exploit others, committing injustices and cruelty and always strive for more money or possessions or power. But John is not asking us to tear everything down. Some stuff must be tossed out but certain basic things can be retained and repaired. Foundational institutions and relationships remain while things that are not essential can be reimagined and rearranged. 

One thing that needs to be reimagined is our idea that good and evil are binary. As Aristotle pointed out, it is evils that come in opposites. For instance, neither cowardice nor its opposite, recklessness, are virtues. Bravery falls somewhere in between. And the opposite of autocracy, too much power in too few hands, is anarchy, where there is a complete absence of authority or order. The truly good option is the society where those who call themselves public servants do in fact serve everyone and where all people share and live by the words of Proverbs 30:8: “Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need.”

God knows we have made a mess of the world he gave us and misused his good gifts to us. Yet God doesn't seek to get rid of us but to repair and restore us to what he intended when he made us. We in turn can assist him in repairing our relationships not only with him, but with ourselves, with others and with the world we live in. Of course, we will encounter resistance from those who like things as they are or from those who don't but who fear change more than they desire a better world. They rightly perceive that the rehabilitation of people and society will be a long and sometimes painful process. We can help win them over by demonstrating in our lives the generosity, love, fairness, honesty and peace we find in our King and which we nurture in hope of seeing his kingdom come on earth.