For Sunday
Advent 2A
Collect
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
For those of us who have grown up in the church, it is easy to treat the Pharisees and Sadducees as the antagonists of the story. So whenever they show up, we already know to hate them, right? It’s like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast — we boo him when he comes on screen. But that isn’t here yet. That isn’t the point. Nor, dare I say, their role to play. Especially here.
Even so, why does John call them “Brood of Vipers”? And why does he ask who warned them to flee? Does it even matter, since warning is what John seems to be doing? It feels like he’s rejecting people who could be on Team Messiah! I doubt it is, though.
There is a gap between the learned and the masses; a chasm that can only be bridged by radical transparency or widespread literacy: developments which would come many centuries later.
And this seems to be part of the frustration.
It is as if John is leading a worker’s movement and corporate CEOs and Wall Street traders are showing up to join in. It isn’t about the inclusiveness of the movement so much as the nature of it — and how unlikely it is that these people are all that interested in joining it. Precisely because the message isn’t directed at them. It is for the people that they are actively taking advantage of.
And why it’s natural for John to assume there’s an angle.
It seems they still have something to prove. That they are trees that can bear fruit worthy of repentance. Not as a potentiality, but right now.