Pastor Peter Lisinski

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“From Polarization To Peace”


In this year of our coming Lord, AD 2024, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has chosen the word ‘polarization’ as its annual “Word of the Year”!   Polarization refers to the global evolution of mutually exclusive visions and diametrically opposed strategies for establishing and maintaining social stability and economic security in a divided world of increasing intolerance fueled by the same antagonistic attitudes of fear, anger and hatred John the Baptist confronts in today’s Gospel:  “You brood of vipers!” 


Vipers are a particularly aggressive and deadly breed of poisonous snake.  And as a metaphor of human behaviour, according to Webster’s Dictionary, a viper is “a malicious, spiteful, or treacherous person” (p. 1,586).  John’s message pulls no punches, and excludes no one; it addresses us all!  We may not be as mean, nasty or harmful as the average viper, but all human beings carry the basic survival instinct that prominent biologist and philosopher Richard Dawkins calls “the selfish gene”.  Martin Luther called it natural self-interest.  The Bible calls it sin.

      

But instead of being offended by John’s rather blunt and harsh judgment, many responded positively and asked, “What then should we do?”  I imagine that is the question you have been asking among yourselves during these particularly challenging times within your congregation, indeed for all the declining churches of western civilization:  “What shall we do?  What’s our future mission?  How can we best serve the community around us?”


John identified the same three symptoms of humanity’s self-destructive self-interest condemned by all biblical prophets.  First, poverty:  “Let whoever has two coats share with those who have none; and let those who have food do likewise.”  According to John’s vision, no child of God should be deprived of food, clothing or shelter.  Second, taxes – they’ve been in the news lately:  “Collect no more than is appointed.”  Make the taxation system fair to all.  Third, military power; addressing soldiers, John said:  “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation; be content with your wages.”  Do not use your position of power and authority to intimidate or exploit others. 


These are the three primary social consequences of sin polarizing our world today, even as they polarized the world at the time of Jesus’ birth.  Remember how that story begins?  “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered – “taxed”, according to the King James translation most of us grew up with! …” (Luke 2:1).  The primary purpose for this imperial decree was to ensure the efficient collection of taxes required to recruit and pay soldiers well enough to secure their loyal service in establishing, expanding and enforcing the Roman Empire’s ambition to control the global economy!  Sounf familiar?  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, poverty and military power remain the two biggest obstacles to peace, and both are the direct result of how governments budget and spend the money collected in taxes.

  

John’s vision of peace on earth, proclaimed by a choir of angels celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ thirty years earlier, was – and remains – diametrically opposed – the polar opposite – to Caesar’s vision of peace on earth.  Hence, both were executed in the name of Caesar, whose legacy perpetuates a culture of permanent war on earth.    


The goal of world peace – dear to the heart of every beauty pageant contestant – seems as distant today as when John the Baptist first proclaimed the coming of God’s Messiah in the wilderness of the ancient Middle East; and so we ask the same helpless question the crowds asked in today’s Gospel:  “What then shall we do?”


John’s answer was to share the wealth generated by creation’s natural resources and human ingenuity more fairly; to treat our neighbours more respectfully, and live more humbly.  In his conversations with tax collectors and soldiers – people in public positions of trust and authority – John called for integrity and honesty.  He spelled out clearly that every human being is a child of God with a divine right to food, clothing and shelter; and that the enforcement of law and order must never violate human dignity or inflict excessive physical or psychological harm.


That’s what John means when he says, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” John the Baptist called for a radical turning away from our own attitudes and behaviours of greed, hatred and violence; and John called for a radical turning toward attitudes and behaviours of justice, compassion and humility.  “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree…”  The word ‘radical’ has its roots in the word ‘root’!  John called for radical personal and social reformation that reaches the very roots of our faith, civilization and human nature!  And he promised that the unquenchable fire of God’s Holy Spirit would reverse the world’s polarization through the coming of God’s Messiah, whose winnowing fork will sweep away the imperial cultures of poverty and war, and gather all who hunger and thirst for God’s reign of love and peace, born in a Bethlehem barn and laid in a manger in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ, who came, who comes and who will come again, to feed all God’s children with the bread of life, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen