Orville, Wilbur and John
Luke 3:7-18 - 12/14/2003
If people picked baby names on the basis of historical importance, the world today would be full of Orvilles and Wilburs. But it’s not.
Still, few people have changed the course of history more than the Wright Brothers of Dayton, Ohio. One hundred years ago this week, these bicycle-making brothers soared into space with the Wright stuff at the command of a small, bi-wing airplane, achieving an altitude of perhaps 30 feet. In the process, they developed steering techniques that are still being used in 21st-century airplanes, spacecraft, submarines and robots.
On December 17, 1903, Orville took off from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, near Kitty Hawk, and flew the gasoline-powered Wright Flyer for 12 seconds. That same day, Wilbur piloted the plane for 59 seconds, covering a grand total of 852 feet, the two of them thus becoming the first flyers ¾ first famous flyers, first famous frequent flyers. And thus, too, the advent of the age of aeronautics.
On this day, people started to think differently. What had been impossible was now possible. Worlds that before December 17 were inaccessible were now accessible. Bill Gates puts it in perspective when he says that “The Wright Brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages ideas, and values together.” As I researched some facts about the famous Wright brothers, I discovered they were the “middle children” of five. Their father was a bishop in the church, in fact, it was a Church of the United Brethren of Christ, so we can even claim being “related” to the Wright family as Brethren.
Not many such days come along in history when people from that moment on start to think differently. We’ve had a few in our own time. The day Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak jerry-rigged a computer in their garage…the day atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki …the day terrorists bombed the Twin Towers…those are the ones that come to my mind. The day a baby was born in Bethlehem was one of those days. With his birth, everything changed. Here we are, 2,000 years later, still discussing the meaning and impact of that life that came into the world one night so long ago.
There was yet another such day, about 30 years after the birth of Jesus, and it was the day that John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Luke 3:16).
There was more, of course, including a call to repentance. “John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Luke 3:7). He blasts these baptism-seekers, comparing them to a nest of poisonous snakes slithering away from a fiery doom. Like the prophets before him, John speaks of divine judgment and the wrath of God, predicting that an overpowering force from heaven will come to destroy the wicked of the world.
This shocked those who heard, because these people had, for generations, relied more on their family line than on their faith for their standing with God. For them, religion was inherited. But a personal relationship with God is not handed down from parents to children, is it. Everyone has to commit to it on their own. It’s the one thing we can’t give our kids.
But John is a world-shaker, he’s not there to assure the people. Like the Wright Brothers of Dayton, Ohio, he’s not interested in staying home and tinkering with the bicycles of his friends and neighbors. Instead, he turns his back on the comforts of community life and takes off in an unexpected direction. He powers up his own prophetic flying machine, stunning the people of God with a radical call to repentance.
When John yelled at this crowd of people, telling them their God-loving ancestors wasn’t enough to save them, the people ask, “What then should we do?” John is all over this. He knew the reason they wanted to be baptized by John was so they could escape eternal punishment—hell. And he knew that they only had half of the truth, because they didn’t turn to God for their salvation.
“Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” John thunders (v. 8). He knew that God expects faith to be motivated by a desire for a new, changed life, not just a vaccination against possible disaster. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” And when the people asked, “Well, then, what should we do? What are ‘fruits worthy of repentance’?” John got very specific. Luke 3 verses 11-14: “In reply he said to them, whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” And to the tax collectors, he said “collect no more than the amount (you were told to collect).” And when the soldiers asked, John said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
What would John tell each group of us today, the farmers, the teachers, the preachers, the factory workers, the retired? Turn yourself around and get yourself in line with the righteousness of God. If you are a salesman or a business owner, collect no more than what is right. If you are a politician or police officer, don’t use your authority to threaten or falsely accuse or take money from the people.
And for all of us, if you’ve got two coats, give one to a person who doesn’t have one. And be content with your wages and all you have. That’s righteous and ethical living, says John, and you better start practicing it if you want to escape divine judgment (vv. 10-14).
How might the world be different if we started to think about bearing fruits worthy of repentance, and in this season of new things, actually repented of what is hurtful, harmful and hateful? Of what is petty, demeaning and belittling? Is today the day we start to think and act differently? Can you go home, open that closet door, see the many coats hanging there, and give half of them to the Salvation Army so they can give them to those who have no coat?
The bottom line for John is that we’ve got to conform our lives to the will of God. Confession, which then should lead to repentance, is inseparable from a changed life. A strong spiritual heritage and a righteous religious résumé are not the wings upon which we can pull up and away from the fire of divine judgment. “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’” warns John; “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (v. 8).
They were “children of Abraham.” It was a common refrain. It was like a free pass. Heaven? We’re children of Abraham. Judgment? No, we’re children of Abraham. Repentance? No need, we’re children of Abraham. Sort of like us clinging to the famous shirttails of the Wright brothers because they, too, were “Brethren”…
John was speaking to a generation that saw themselves as privileged, as exempt, as beyond repentance, and the parallels with our own times should be obvious — especially in a season when the baby is scarcely visible in the manger, when the Christ is almost invisible to the consumer, and when the season has no reason except office parties, consumer spending and gift-giving.
John says, “Forget Abraham! God could raise up children of Abraham from the stones on the ground. What God can’t find are people who bear the fruits of repentance!”
James tells us in his book that faith without good deeds, “works,” is worthless, lifeless. Jesus’ harshest words ever spoken were to the respectable religious leaders who didn’t want to change their ways. They wanted to be respected as religious authorities with all the perks that gave them, but they didn’t want to change their hearts and their minds. So their lives were unproductive. They missed the crucial teaching that repentance isn’t just a confessing of sins, it must go further and be tied to actions demonstrating a changed life or it isn’t real.
Now the people are starting to think differently! It’s an “Aha” moment. It’s a Wilbur and Orville moment. New ideas. New worlds. New possibilities. New territory. Following Jesus means more than saying the words, it means acting on what he says. The words come to mind from Blazing Saddles, a movie from the 70s, where the only black actor, the sheriff, says “Do what he say, do what he say!”
The call to repentance didn’t end with John the Baptist, or with Peter or James. It continues to this day. Just this week I read about a strange friendship between the former head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP and the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. They met debating each other, many years ago. The Klansman taunted the black man and called him names. The black man responded that nothing the Klansman could do would make him hate him. He responded instead with love.
Over a period of many years, the Klansman would call the black man and say, “Hello, nigger.” But in 1991, he called and said, “Hello, brother.” He went on to tell his friend that he had left the Klan, had accepted Christ, and was called to preach the gospel, and that his conversion was due to the example of the black man returning hatred with love. Today, they share a pulpit and together preach God’s love. A new life, a changed life. That’s repentance.
What John gives us in today’s passage is a kind of “Copernican revolution,” a radical new approach to the world that rivals what Nicolas Copernicus did in the 16th century when he suggested that the Earth moves around the sun.
Abraham, John says, is not the center of the universe. Get used to it. Get over it.
And then for those who were thinking John himself might be the promised Messiah, he introduces them to the Center of the Universe, the “one who is more powerful than I…(in fact), I am not (even worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (v. 16).
And this is what Advent is about. Meeting the Center of the Universe. Meeting the true Messiah. Meeting the Christ. Changing our thinking. Finding a new source of power, and then turning it into the mighty wind that God has blown across the landscape of human life.
Power and wind. Sounds like the formula for flying, doesn’t it?
Jesus the Messiah baptizes us with Spirit and with fire, and invites us to soar with him into a life of repentance and righteousness. With his mighty wind beneath our wings, we can ascend to a whole new level of living, one in which we are right with God and with one another.
Whether it’s 1903 or 2003, this is the right flight to take.
PLEASE PRAY WITH ME:
O Christ who comes, not only as the sweet babe in a manger, but also as Messiah of justice, baptizing with Spirit and fire, may we hear the words of your prophet. Let John’s passionate voice melt our hardened hearts and speak through us of the power of your coming. This Advent, transform the dead branches of our apathy into the good fruit of repentance. We ask this through you, whose coming is certain, even if not always in the ways we imagine. Amen
BENEDICTION
Let us live out this Advent, waiting for One whose coming will change our lives.
Know that God requires nothing less than to bear good fruit: to share clothes and food, to be content with that we have, to live with others in justice and compassion.
And as we wait for the coming of the Messiah, may God continue to bear fruit in you, strengthening you for all of the days ahead. Amen.
Sources:
Gates, Bill. Wright Brothers Web Site, First-to-fly.com/. Retrieved May 19, 2003.
“The Wright story,” Wright Brothers Web Site, First-to-fly.com/History/. Retrieved May 19, 2003.
Gary Bradshaw, “Wilbur and Orville Wright,” Wright Brothers Web Site, Wam.umd.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2003.
Robert M. Bowman, “A call to repentance,” December 20-21, 1997, United Catholic Church Home page, Rmbowman.com/catholic/s971220h.htm.
