The Shame on Us Good News

Text: Luke 3:7-18

You brood of vipers! You sons and daughters of serpents! You children of snakes!

What kind of people would find these words to be good news? What kind of person would take the scolding that John gives them and interpret it as gospel? Who after hearing such reproaches would then turn to John for guidance?

Recognized as a prophet, imagined by some to be the savior of Israel, John draws huge crowds in the wilderness. He preached repentance, a change of direction; and he baptized people in the river. All sorts of people came to see and hear and be washed by him. Crowds of Jews and probably pagans, despised and cheating tax collectors, Roman soldiers enjoying the wicked privileges of an occupying army. All came to hear John.

By calling them children of vipers, John shames them. He makes them ashamed of themselves. John is not trying to create ill will among the crowd, within the people of the crowd. Instead, he is exposing what they already know. John is not creating a feeling in the people that they do not already have. He is naming an unpleasant conviction that they already hold but have forgotten, or have hidden, or are denying.

The people are ashamed because of what they have done and allowed to be done. Sorrows they have caused and injustices they have let happen. Injustices caused and sorrows they have not prevented. They should be ashamed. We should be ashamed. Shame on us that people starve. Shame on us that people have no place to live. Shame on us that people wage war. Shame on us that some have very much and some next to nothing. Shame on us for obscene violence.

Shame is not the same as guilt. Guilt is in the acts done or left undone, and the relief is in forgiveness. Guilt is the result of works. But shame is Sin with a capital “S.” Shame is about our being. It is how we are saints and sinners at the same time. Forgiven and shamefaced at the same time. We are forgiven our sins, but we remain sinners.

We can feel—or be—not guilty, innocent, and still feel shame for our group, institution, nation, or the world.

Guilt moves us to remorse and apology. Shame moves us to seek a new way of being. We confusingly use the one word, repentance, for both things. But the repentance that comes out of guilt is regret and the repentance that comes from shame is transformation.

The crowds do not apologize. Instead, they ask “What then, should we do?” It is revealing and important that they do not argue with John. They do not equivocate or explain or defend themselves. They do not mock his unreasonable idealism. Nor do they fall into despair or discouragement. They are ashamed. They know that John knows them. John has spied them out correctly. Their eagerness to know what to do now comes straight from their recognition that John is right. In that case, they ask, what shall we do? What, then—in that case, and in particular—what then shall we do?

John responds in the spirit of the question. His answers have nothing to do with feelings and nothing to do with belief. They have to do with what to do. There are three groups in the passage—perhaps standing for the large variety of sorts of people. And for each, John has a different answer. To the crowd: Be economically fair. If you have two coats, give one to a person who has none. To the tax collectors—who in these times ran a kind of protection racket: do not use your position of authority to rob from others. To the soldiers: do not use your threat of power to oppress the people and exploit their fear of you. John advises in favor of fairness, generosity, and humility and against injustice, greed, and dominance. But not in the general—which gets us nowhere; it is like saying “be good”—but in the specific.

Lutherans make the distinction between law and gospel. But this does not mean that the law—rules of behavior and ethics—are inferior to and superseded by the Gospel, or are trivial in light of God’s grace and forgiveness. There is good news in the law, and the law is useful. There are lots of exhortations and advice and commandments and teachings about behavior in the Bible and are part of our faith.

The law, things that tell us what is good to do, convict us. That is, they remind us that what we are doing is not always so great. In that way, they shame us as John’s words shamed the crowd. They discover us hiding behind ramparts of privilege and wealth, ancestry (“We have Abraham as our ancestor!” the crowd thinks), and also competence, good will and good intentions and fine gestures. All the things we use to duck from our shame. The law does not condemn these things—they are often a part of us—but it does treat them as beside the point. The laws reveal us inside the ramparts, which is both embarrassing and good.

And the law also keeps us attentive to other things and places and people of the world. If we are to share our second coat with people who have none, we have to seek and see those people. If we are to visit the prisoners—a kind of law Jesus mentions—then we have to find them. If we are to avoid cheating people, we have to see how what we do cheats them. We have to be aware of how things work and, in our world, how we are connected. The law is a pointer in the right direction.

The law tells us how to live good. It is a rudimentary but fundamental set of instructions. We need to know this stuff and pay attention to it.

The reason the crowd responds with eagerness and not with anger or dismay is that what John is saying is calling to them. That—a calling—is the root of the word “exhortation” in this passage. The people are ashamed. They—we—know this deeply. We are called to act, moved by what we already know deep within us and from the conscience of our traditions. We are given instructions, which are a gift to us.

These words are good news—gospel—not so much, or not only, because they are a summary of what John has just said. But because they are an introduction to the story about to unfold.

This expectation of a coming guide, a trustworthy companion, and an unfolding of a new world, is what makes Mary and the shepherds and the kings we are about to encounter in the next ten days so joyful. In times of trouble and shame, they represent a hope that we are at the beginning of a new way to live.