Advent 3, Year C: Vipers, and Water and Fire, Oh My
Laurel Dykstra
While most preachers and teachers are unlikely to go hard on climate justice on Advent 3, and John’s identity as wilderness prophet somewhat muted in this week’s gospel, the readings this week nevertheless convey: the sanctity and precariousness of water, interconnections between social, economic, and ecological justice as well as the way that relationships with the more than human world, particularly cultivated plants -fruits and grains- pervade the gospeller’s moral imagination.
It takes some committed mental gymnastics to engage Luke’s Baptist without addressing wilderness, water, fire, arbor and agriculture, not to mention snakes. Any of these are would make a powerful preaching focus, but could also serve as a homiletic detour or aside to keep ecological concerns alive in an incredibly busy season when it is a challenge to balance the prophetic and the pastoral.
Commentary
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In his Earth Bible commentary on Zephaniah, Nicholas Werse argues that while its worldview is androcentric, the book begins and ends with the land, systematically reversing the creation language and imagery of Genesis and drawing on the earlier prophets’ depiction of the destruction of Jerusalem as the undoing of creation.
Most of Zephaniah promises cosmic destruction, a removal of all life from the land as judgment for the sins of Israel, particularly the religious elite; God acting with violence to restore justice. This final oracle (3:9-20) shifts dramatically in tone and content: instead of the anticipated judgement, it is mercy that gives new life.
Modern readers celebrating the shift to mercy and rejoicing should also critically consider: 1) the false equation of harm to aspects of one’s own society or species or phylum for the destruction of the whole of creation,
2) the gender politics that call “daughter Zion” to rejoice
3)the ableism that makes it remarkable that the lame and outcast are “renowned and praised.”
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Isaiah has many references to wild species from outside the urban environment and the greatest number of references to vines and vine-culture in the prophets. In Isaiah wilderness is an ambiguous place that is not always hostile. Hilary Marlow says that in Isaiah, non-human creation has a separate identity and an inherent positive value, in some cases God prioritizes the non-human world over humans.
Verse 12:3
Draw water with joy from the springs of salvation
Water in Isaiah has many meanings. Here the necessity and goodness of water in an arid environment is equated with God’s salvation and blessing and the association between water and joy is evocative. This is a striking contrast with the chaotic powers of the sea in the preceding chapter.
Reflection on this verse should consider that on a global scale it is most often women and children who draw water. -
Ched Myers has done excellent work on John as wilderness prophet in the lineage of Elijah.
The passage continues directly from last week’s. John’s urgency for repentance, metanioa -change of heart in the Greek is conveyed in powerful images from the more than human world, and human relations with that world through arboriculture and agriculture.
Verse 7
You brood or children of vipers. Addressed to the crowds seeking baptism. Notice the implication of poison and cowardice. The insult, children of snakes resonates with the children of stones in the following verse
Verse 8
Bearing good fruit is a recurring image in Luke (Luke 6:43-45) (Luke 13:9) (Luke 8:15)
God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Emphasis on an inanimate, non-generative understanding of stoneVerse 9
Axe, root, tree, fruit, fire
The non-productive tree will be thrown into the fire.
This verse is an arboricultural parallel with 3:17 where the same fate is promised to non-productive agriculture.Verses 10-14
The crowds, tax collectors and soldiers -obvious colluders with empire, ask in turn “what should we do?” what does repentance look like? And John offers specific practical actions. -a Kingdom primer of sorts.Verses 15-16
Speculation about John’s identity as messiah connects Jesus with both the water of baptism the Holy Spirit and somewhat ambiguous “fire,”
Verse 17
In parallel with verse 9 -a tool is used to consign a non-productive plant or plant part to fireThese verses form a chiasm surrounding the repeated “what should we do?’ sequence. And the baptism of water and fire.
Verse 18
Given the name calling and promise of fire there is some irony to this “good news”
Teaching and Preaching Ideas
Let Heaven and Nature Sing
The call to rejoice is clarion in the first three readings. Zephaniah says, “rejoice and exult with all your heart,” Isaiah says “Sing praises, Shout aloud and sing for joy” and the epistle calls us to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” Each of these exhortations following or in contrast to fear, sorrow, punishment.
This repeating theme connected to the carol Joy to the World with the line “Let Heaven and Nature Sing” provide a chance to explore questions around joy. How do we rejoice? Do we openly and unreservedly feel and express joy? Repeatedly in scripture all of creation is enjoined to praise our maker. How does the more than human world, our creature companions, the skies and waters rejoice? How do we notice that rejoicing? How is that song muted or changed by mass extinctions and global climate change?
What can our tradition teach us about joy in a time of crisis?
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Potawatomi botanist says “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
Fire and Water
The elements of water and fire are powerfully present in today’s gospel -signs of sacrament, repentance, power and judgement. With wildfires, floods, and storms these elements are increasingly among the ways that climate change is experienced. From Detroit to Palestine water is being used as a weapon to punish and control populations. What does it mean that Jesus, the savior we prepare for in this season is described in these metaphors, associated with these elements? How do these images contrast with more popular and palatable images of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild?” What does baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire mean? What are you on fire for as you wait for Jesus?
You Brood of Vipers
I am not sure a full sermon on snakes would be well received by most congregations ten days before Christmas, but the wilderness prophet’s interspecies name-calling is rich and evocative. At minimum it is worth remarking that humans seeking to avoid the consequences of their harmful actions or failure to act responsibly are very different from snakes, even venomous ones, being snakes, behaving as they were designed and created to do. Animalization, or likening humans to animals is often used rhetorically to indicate that those humans we speak of are not/less valuable. When we use other than human animals as a symbol or metaphor we are not treating them as selves. Dong Hyeon Jeong powerfully examines Jesus’ failure of solidarity with both another human and an other-than-human when he calls a Canaanite woman a dog. Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kapplan offers a beautiful and humorous take on the Genesis snake as a garden mentor who is trying to show Eve how to be a good snake.
What Should We Do?
Probably the most straightforward homiletic strategy for this week and certainly the one that the Gospel points to with its chiastic structure is John the wilderness prophet’s focus on just action. Schooled in the wilderness, immersing the people into that wilderness in the Jordan, the flowing lifestream of his people’s resistance, John’s interactions with the crowd and the notoriously unlikely candidates for baptism that he draws, insist upon action for justice as the core kingdom value.
What should we do? ask the crowds. Share what you have -economic redistribution.
What should we do? Ask (even) the tax collectors. Don’t cheat, don’t profiteer.
What should we do? Ask the soldiers. Don’t extort, don’t use threats and violence.
The repentance, the change of heart of John’s baptism retells Mary’s Magnificat, foretells Jesus Kingdom. And in that telling wilderness, vegetal wisdom, elemental forces and economics are all intertwined.
Sources and Resources
LeAnn Blackert, Into the Wilderness
https://www.salalandcedar.com/wildlectionary/2024-11-advent-2-year-c-into-the-wilderness
Victoria Marie, Transformation
https://www.salalandcedar.com/wildlectionary/2024-3-uh2bxahdp4148uc6dc1h67npfih8ji
Svinda Heinrichs, Of Vipers and Humans
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2018/12/13/wild-lectionary-of-vipers-and-humans/
Victoria Loorz, The Voice Crying, “Out in the Wilderness, Prepare the Way”
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2017/12/07/wild-lectionary-the-voice-crying-out-in-the-wilderness-prepare-the-way/
Bill Wylie Kellermann, The Wilderness in a Very Small Place
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2016/12/15/advent-the-wilderness-in-a-very-small-place/
Ched Myers, Water is Life: Re-Placing the Sacrament of Baptism
http://www.allcreation.org/home/re-placing-baptism
Jay Beck and Tevyn East, Song of the Baptizer
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2019/01/10/wild-lectionary-song-of-the-baptizer/
Tevyn East and Jay Beck, Baptized in Dirty Water
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2018/07/12/wild-lectionary-baptized-in-dirty-water/
Anne Stewart, Commentary on Zephaniah 3:14-20, Working Preacher
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-zephaniah-314-20-6
Nicholas Werse, Zephaniah: An Earth Bible Commentary, T&T Clark, Bloomsbury, 2024
Kim Redigan, From Downtown to the Desert: Voices from the Wilderness Call Out for Water Justice
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2018/12/10/from-downtown-to-the-desert-voices-from-the-wilderness-call-out-for-water-justice/
Ched Myers, Anchoring the Gospel Story in the Real World
https://radicaldiscipleship.net/2021/12/03/anchoring-the-gospel-story-in-the-real-world/
Dong Hyeon Jeong, Embracing the Nonhuman in the Gospel of Mark Atlanta: SBL Press, 2023.
Laura Duhan-Kapplan, Mouth of the Donkey, Re-Imagining Biblical Animals Cascade, 2021
Contributor Bio
Laurel Dykstra is the originator and curator of Wild Lectionary and the founding priest of Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community, a church that worships outdoors and seeks to help Christians in the lower Fraser watershed grow their skills for Climate Justice. Laurel’s latest book on interspecies loneliness, Wildlife Congregations is newly out from Hancock House.
Image description
A close-up photograph of a blue and grey coloured garter snake, the head is in the centre of the frame rested on a coil of the snake’s body. Individual scales are visible. In the eye of the snake the photographer is reflected against a blue and white sky. Photo by the author.