"A New Year’s Fire"

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
 On January 21, 2001

 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.
       Luke 3: 15-22

Is there something in your life that God is trying to burn up? Something in your life that God is trying to burn up? Or is everything in your life wheat, everything in your life full of substance and of worth and value before God? Is there any chaff in your life at all? Is there something in your life that God is trying to burn up?

John the Baptist is an amazing figure. We talk about him a little bit, usually at the beginning December, at the first Sunday in Advent, when we hear his words speaking to us about the Messiah. But here now, in the Gospel of Luke, there are a great many verses devoted to John the Baptist. There is as much written, I think, about the birth of John the Baptist in Luke as there is about the birth of Jesus.

Luke holds John the Baptist up to be a much larger figure than we typically recognize. And what a figure! What a fiery iconoclast! What a skin and clothed, locust-eating, formidable figure he is there, standing in the pictures of Luke.

“You brood of vipers! he says to the people. Not the kind of person you want to invite to the inauguration, right? He doesn’t understand good social behavior. “You brood of vipers! Woe to you. You’d better change your lives, I’m telling you. The ax is already at the tree and some of you are as good as gone already! You brood of vipers! Change your lives. You go repent and bear good fruit!

And then he stopped preaching and he went to meddling. He gave them specifics. “Some of you have lots of coats, and there are people without any coats, and you’re not sharing them at all. Some of you have enough food and there are some without any food. You’d better get started sharing! You tax collectors. (He seems almost disappointed at the tax collectors as they show up.)  “Stop cheating. You soldiers. Don’t be corrupt. Stop using your power to take advantage of others.

What was the appeal of this guy? Because the story is clear. Big numbers showed up. They came in throngs out there on the banks of the River Jordan, to hear this guy who kept chewing them out. Rebuked them. “Change, he said to them. And change at some cost. We’re not talking about easy change. We’re not talking about switching from cable to satellite dishes. We’re talking about substantive, painful change in their lives.

And it sounded like judgment. He’s going to baptize you with his fire. The Messiah is coming, and he’s got his winnowing fork in his hand, and he’s going to be clearing the threshing floor, and the wheat is going to be saved, but the chaff is going to be burned up.

Is there something in your life that God is trying to burn up? 

It’s going to be not just a fire, says John the Baptist; it’s going to be an unquenchable fire. And then Luke, incongruously, adds this verse: “And with many other such reports, John the Baptist preached good news to the people.

They showed up in big numbers. Even Jesus came. Even Jesus came. What did they receive from John? What were they hungering for that made them come and stand for this kind of rebuke, this kind of challenge, this kind of preaching?  For one thing, maybe it was the truth. He had told them the truth, you see. Maybe they were just hungering to have at least one person in their lives who was willing to tell it to them like it was. One person who knew the truth about them and was willing to talk to them openly and honestly about it.

Maybe they came for the truth. Indictment can sometimes be strangely liberating. To finally get rid of the secrecy and the hiding and the manipulating and the game playing. It’s the strange liberation of being discovered and not having to hide any longer.

Part of the reason that they came was that he told them the truth. Part of the reason that they came was that he gave them a direction. Clear steps. He gave them a discipline. He gave them a plan. “What shall we do? they said. That’s what the text says. They asked him, “What shall we do? And he said to them, “What shall you do? You should live differently! You ought to share the things you have. Can’t you see there are people who don’t have enough? You need to stop cheating. And those of you who have power, you need to stop using it to take advantage of others. You have that power to protect the whole community. That power is given to you to govern us. That power is given to you to see to the common good. Don’t be using that power to increase your own warehouses. Be satisfied with what is an appropriate reward for you. Don’t be greedy. Repent and bear good fruit.

He gave them steps. He gave them things to do.  Is there something that God is seeking to burn up in your life?

Did you watch any of the inauguration yesterday? I got to see some of it. I went to the barber shop and they had it on the television there. It was kind of hard to hear, because of course people were talking about the Super Bowl in the barber shop and they made a lot of noise. Every time I would look up to see what was happening on the television, the barber would take my head and turn it back around. But I got to turn at that moment when they invited the Methodist pastor to give the benediction. I thought, with professional interest, that it was a good benediction. He prayed (and this was an African-American Methodist pastor from somewhere in the Washington D.C. area), and I was moved by what he said. He prayed for the outgoing administration. He asked God to help those who were leaving and he prayed for the incoming administration. He asked God to bless those who were coming on to the scene. He asked God to forgive us, all of us in the United States, and he laid out some specifics. The one I heard that stuck in my memory was he said, “O Lord, forgive us for holding onto materialism at the expense of morality.

John the Baptist called for them to change, you see. That was a specific change. Lord, we’ve held onto materialism when we should have held on to morality. Sometimes it looks to me like we’ve held onto materialism at the expense of everything. Materialism instead of justice. Materialism instead of health. Materialism instead of service. Materialism instead of friendship. Like these people on the banks of the River Jordan, they were just holding onto everything. And John the Baptist told them some of that stuff is garbage, and God is going to burn it up. God is going to burn it up.

Is there something God is trying to get you to change? Something that God is trying to get you to stop? Something God is trying to get you to leave right there at the river bank? He gave them a clear sign. He gave them this sign of baptism, the sign that the change had been made. It was a sign that was available to all of them, accessible to all of them. You didn’t have to have boots and a black tie. You just had to come to the river bank.

It was available to all of them. Water was a sign to them of a transcendence. They knew that where there was water that somehow they were close to the presence of the Living God. It was a mark. It was cleansing. They recognized it as life-giving. It was renewing. And so they would start out on this new path and would start out with such high hopes.

By the end of January, they had broken all of the resolutions. Feel familiar?  That’s what it’s like with us, you see. We just are never able to make it the whole way. Some of that garbage we just can’t let go of. We try and we try, but we are never able to make it completely, are we?  There’s some meanness in us that creeps back up just when we think we’ve got it all bottled and put away. Some addictions that continue to hold their power over us when we thought the new life was flowing through every vein. It can surprise us at times, and at other times it can just disappoint us. But it keeps showing up.

Maybe that’s why John talks about this fire, as a word of grace to them. What if it’s not judgment. What if it’s grace? What if judgment is grace? There’s a theologically stretching idea for you. What if God’s judgment is God’s grace?

Did John mean it as a word of hope to them? There is something in you that God is going to burn up. You may not be able to get rid of it. You may not be able to let go of it. But God’s going to burn it up. God will get rid of the chaff for you. And only the wheat will remain behind.

I’ve told some of you this story before, but it stuck with me so that I want to share it again. It was a powerful moment in my own life. I was at a convention with pastors across denominations, and we were hearing a variety of speakers. It was at Stetson College. There were Roman Catholic priests there, and Episcopalian priests, and Methodist ministers and Presbyterian ministers, and Lutherans and United Church of Christ. Every denomination. And there was one great speaker after another bringing forward the message that week. We got to hear David Buttrick, who was at that time an aging man. He was speaking to us about the changes that pastors needed to make in themselves before they could expect change in the church. Like John the Baptist, he was laying it on! Finally I guess we had had about enough. One of the folks out in the Lutheran section hollered out in levity, “But Dr. Buttrick, we’re Lutherans, and we won’t change! And without a second passing, a Roman Catholic priest hollered, “We won’t change! Catholics have never changed, and we’re not going to start now!  And before three seconds were gone, every denomination hollered out that they weren’t going to change either! The whole room was kind of shaking with levity.

Buttrick stood at the podium until the laughing had stopped, and kind of smiling, he said, “You’re right. You’re right.  You’re not going to change. …………….But God…, he said, “…will change you.  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, God will change you.

Maybe it was a word of grace to them. There is something in you that God is going to burn up. Oh, I am looking forward to the resurrection. I think it’s at the heart of the Christian faith that God will bring everything that God intends in us into God’s fullness and life everlasting. But there’s some part of us, I think, that God will be wise to leave behind. Some faults, some sadness, some inability to do the right thing. And it will be good news for us if God burns that up.

Maybe God’s fire is good. Maybe it’s painful, but maybe sometimes it’s just cleansing. Like the choir sang in that great anthem, “Your dross to consume, your gold to refine. That is the design of God’s fire.

I’ve been reading a little book of prayers over the last six months. I’ve been passing it out to different folks on different occasions. It’s called Prayers for All of God’s People. There’s a prayer in there for this week by Thomas a Kempis, who was a great Christian saint, a man I think who had mastered in his life the practice of personal piety. A Kempis, who wrote the book called The Imitation of Christ, which I think is the most read book across history, save for the Bible. It had a little prayer that goes like this, and it seems to fit with God’s fire.
  
Lord, Lord, you know what is most profitable to me. And so Lord do this or do that, but according to your will.
Lord, give me what you will and give me as much as you will, and give it to me when you will, O Lord; but O Lord, what You will.
Lord, do with me as you know what is best to be done, as it shall please you and as it shall be to your honor. But your will, O Lord.
Put me where you will. I am your creature, and in your hands lead me and turn me where you will, but your will, O Lord.
For lo, I am your servant, like Mary, ready to do all things obedient to thy will. For I do not desire to live to myself, but to you, with God that I might live worthily and profitably. But your will, O Lord.  Your  will.

Today I’m thinking that it’s a prayer for God’s fire. Not just a prayer for discipleship, but even a prayer for resurrection.

Is there something in your life that God is trying to burn up?

© 2001  John T. DeBevoise