St. Johnstide
Luke 3: 7-18
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized
by him, “You are sons of the serpent yet! Who led you to believe that you can
avoid the decline of the old ways of the soul? Produce true fruits in keeping
with a change of heart and mind. And do not begin excusing yourselves by
saying, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I tell you that God can raise up
sons for Abraham out of these stones. The ax is already poised at the root of
the trees, so every tree that does not produce good fruit is felled and thrown
into the fire.”
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
John answered, “Let the man with two tunics share
with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”
Tax collectors also came to be baptized. “Teacher,”
they asked, “what should we do?”
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| John Preaching, Ghirlandaio |
Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we
do?”He replied, “Do not intimidate and do not accuse
people falsely—be content with your pay.”
The people were waiting expectantly and were all
wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ, the Messiah.
John answered them all, “I wash you with water. But
one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy
to untie. He will wash you with the breath of the Holy Spirit and with fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the
wheat into his barn, while he burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
And with many and various exhortations John
preached the good news to the people.
Luke 3: 7 -18
Living things change and evolve. If a plant never put out
new leaves, never flowered or produced fruit and seeds, we would wonder if it
had died. Evolution ultimately manifests in outwardly visible ‘deeds’.
John’s message about a change of heart and mind is an
encouragement to us to keep on evolving. When the crowd asks him how to do this,
he points to changes in behavior, to deeds done in the outer world. He
encourages deeds of sharing, compassion and right relationship to our fellow
human beings. He points to deeds motivated by social justice, by a respectful
relationship to those who are not only our equals, but also toward those over
whom we have authority.
Six centuries earlier, Buddha had brought this teaching to
mankind in his eightfold path. John is exhorting us to take up this path again seriously, as a
preparation for the One who fulfills all. By making our own inner and outer
evolutionary steps, we will ‘make His paths straight’. Through transformative
deeds, which demonstrate the transformation of our hearts, the ‘guilt-laden
seed of mankind’ will be cleansed and made viable toward the future, and
receptive to the Coming One.
For in the words of another ancient wise teacher, Lao
Tzu:
This is the profound, simple truth:
You are the master of your life and death.
What you do is what you are.
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