Zephaniah 3:14 - 20; Luke 3:7-18
December 13, 2009
Usually, when we hear about someone in the bible being thrown into the unquenchable “fire”, we all say, “Oh, I know what that means. That’s hell.” And we definitely have fire in this passage. In fact, we have the word “fire” three times. And it’s the same greek word each time. What’s interesting is that we read only two of those fires as “hell”. The third fire i9s in the context of John promising that Jesus is coming to baptize us – baptize us with the Holy Spirit and… fire. And presumably that’s a good thing. So which is it? Is fire from heaven, or is it just another word for hell?
It occurred to me that these three fires might be closer in meaning to each other than we generally assume. When John the Baptist says Jesus will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire, we don’t hesitate even for a single moment in understanding “fire” metaphorically. And of course it is a metaphor. And thank God, right? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want actual fire to have any place in the baptisms we do here.
Yet, when we hear about people being thrown into the unquenchable fire, we tend read it more literally. We might even have visions of evil people languishing eternally in a place where fire is all around them and there is nothing they can do about it. But most likely this author meant fire as a metaphor all three times. And maybe, just maybe it is a metaphor for the same thing all through this passage. Maybe it’s not from heaven in one case and another word for hell in the other cases. Maybe in all instances it’s a metaphor for God powerfully coming into our lives and the feeling we have when that happens.
True, it’s hard to get away from the notion that fire is painful. But if we stay in the metaphorical realm, we can read that pain not as unbearable physical burns, or harsh, torturous punishment, but rather the pain we feel when we know we need to change. Change is hard – sometimes even painful. To feel the spirit of God come on you, you might by God’s very presence – God’s light – feel exposed. Think of times when you have read the bible or maybe heard a sermon and all of a sudden what you need to change becomes painfully clear. I think of all those times I encounter passages about giving everything I have to the poor. I feel the pain of the exposure that I’m not doing it and I anticipate the pain I think I would feel if I did.
Now, I wouldn’t be true to the text, or to what we have pieced together of history, if I didn’t acknowledge that John the Baptist may have seen the unquenchable fire as a permanent, painful state; punishment for the wicked. It’s not exactly hell for him – that concept hadn’t developed yet. Nevertheless, a firey judgment was likely a part of John’s vision.
But Luke corrects that view both in his unique presentation of John the Baptist and in his presentation of Jesus’ life. When we compare Luke’s gospel to Mark’s and Matthew’s, we see Luke softens John by adding things the others don’t: notably he adds a conversation between John and the people who followed John into the desert. John is preaching to them, calling on them to repent and “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Wondering what that might mean in light of their circumstances, the crowds ask him, “What then shall we do?” and John answers. Luke is the only one to include this interchange.
In Luke, John has an ethical dimension to him that is absent in the more stark apocalyptic characterizations in Mark and Matthew. Instead of John baptizing people, calling them to repent because the end is coming, in Luke, when John speaks of baptism, it is a baptism that becomes the beginning of a new life – a new way of being in the world. Luke calls on the people (through the voice of John the Baptist) to completely change the social order. The role of John the Baptist is to remind us that baptism – the metaphorical, illuminating and transforming fire from God – can affect people and make change possible.
So what is John’s answer? What should people do? John lists what the people should do: whoever has two coats must share one; whoever has food must share with those who have none; don’t financially exploit people; don’t allow wage disparity to get out of control. This list, of course, should not be taken as exhaustive, but rather emblematic. He’s talking about the people bringing in a new world order.
But notice it is more than just that the lowly are now glorified and the oppressors are now cast out. Yes, the prophets were concerned with the poor, the widow and orphan. They were railing against the exploitation of the people by the powerful. And Jesus follows in that tradition. He announces his ministry as bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and setting free those who are oppressed. But Luke has something important to add to that prophetic tradition: His explicit inclusion of the tax collectors and soldiers in the Realm of God. This is the core of the message for Luke. It’s more than just an add on – it is at the heart of what he believes Jesus makes possible.
The tax collectors and soldiers aren’t the poor, in fact they have power. Instead they are the despised. Tax collectors were people who collaborated with the local or imperial oppressors and often operated with excessive force, bribery or corruption. They were, in short, morally and occupationally wicked, irrevocably evil. In the same way, soldiers were not good people in the eyes of the Jews. They lived high off the hog and their job was, in part, to make sure the Jews could not do the same. Luke is saying everyone can be refined by the fire – no one is beyond change.
The question of the people – what then shall we do? – has staying power today. And the answer still comes to us; share food and clothing, don’t exploit people for our own gain, and redistribute wealth. But beyond the instructions to the people in the story, Luke is making the larger point to us as well. It’s a point about inclusion and grace and second chances. Just as Luke assumed the despised were included in the Realm of God and just as likely to be changed by this Holy “fire”, so we must believe no one is permanently thrown into some hell of fire. Rather, when the fire is one of baptism and possibility, we realize that we can never write anyone off.
Shortly after the torture memos were made public in April 2009, The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that showed 54% of people who attend church services at least once a week agreed that the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Surely from this poll we must conclude that the church has lost our way. If we in the church believe torture is justified, we believe some are expendable in the fight for a greater good. And who better to expend than those evil ones who already have a place secured in the unquenchable fire, right?. One can argue we’re doing God’s will by “throwing” the terrorists into prison…our own kind of fire; Torturing them as if it is the worst imaginable hell – because that’s what the bible says will happen anyway.
But what happens when we frame fire with the baptism Jesus brings, instead of with condemnation? By including tax collectors, soldiers and those like them, Luke reminds us that no one is outside the Spirit of Christ. We are the ones who try to make it otherwise – and then justify it by dividing the world into those who deserve good fire and those who deserve hell fire.
I think it’s a good time to put ourselves in the shoes of the crowds of people surrounding John and ask with them, “What then should we do?” Luke’s answer in part is we should open our circle to the despised – giving them the opportunity to be refined, just as we all need refinement in some way. We should offer the love and power of Christ to everyone, because for Luke, no one is outside of the Realm of God: not the poor, not the rich; not the orphan or the despised; not the Jew or the Gentile. Even the most hated people are part of God’s creation.
Luke ends this passage by saying John continued to preach the Good News. Yet fire – even if it is from heaven, doesn’t sound all that pleasant. Is it really “good news” for us? Well, I think it is “good news” for us – especially when that “us” is universal. There is pain, there is brokenness in the world, and change is extremely difficult. But God’s light does shine and gives us and everyone else the opportunity to see reality and then respond with our lives. That is the hope.
That’s what makes it possible for Zephaniah to say to the people “Rejoice! Rejoice! Again I say rejoice!” even when they are standing on the brink of defeat at the hands of the Babylonians. The people were about to lose everything, and the prophets were saying it was because they had forgotten what they were to do: care for the poor and the widow and the orphan. Yet instead of saying that they are forever condemned, forever cut off from God, Zechariah knows that God will never abandon them. They can change, they can listen to God’s word and be inspired by it and live by it. That’s such good news that Zechariah can genuinely say, “Rejoice!”
We too can rejoice even when it feels like we’re in the fire. We too can rejoice that anyone can be moved to live in accordance with God’s will. The hope is in the question: What then shall we do? Because the answer points a way forward. It doesn’t point us to an immediate end, when there’s nothing we can do but wait. It acknowledges that we have to keep waiting for God’s realm, but in the meantime we have choices about how we live, and those choices make all the difference in the world. Amen.
