Prophets Are Terrible Dinner Guests

Does John really want people to repent?

by Danielle Shroyer

Gospel Reading: Matthew 3:1-12

For Sunday, December 5, 2010: Year A − Advent 2

Let’s all just admit it: nobody likes prophets. We pastors try to be reasonable about this by explaining that it’s hard when someone shoves our bad choices in our faces -- even though it’s probably good for us. Sometimes, this is true. But let’s be honest. We don’t like prophets because they are jerks. They are horribly pessimistic. They have the remarkable ability to be simultaneously pompous and whiny, which is an ungodly level of annoying. And they are almost always RUDE. (I mean all-caps rude, too. Can you imagine prophetic Twittering? ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. We’d hit the unfollow button without thinking twice.)

Here comes another one...

Case in point: John the Baptist in this week’s Gospel text. Here he comes, all decked out to prepare the way of the Lord in his weird get-up of camel’s hair and locust-honey trail mix. (Lest we forget, prophets have a way of being showy, too.) John is making the rounds in the wilderness giving the typical prophet speech about repentance and getting yourself on the right path with God, and then he invites people to come down and put their money where their mouth is by getting baptized.

How a prophet gets his name in lights

Now, you’d think the goal of prophet-ing would be to convince people to see things your way, particularly when you're claiming that your way is also God’s way. And I can only imagine, in those pompous prophet-brains of theirs, there exists some sort of hierarchy of targets on which a prophet would hope to be successful. There are your average follower-types at the bottom, the ones who will jump in line just because you told them to do so. Then above that, there might be the people who like to follow the most interesting new thing, and above that, the people who were inclined to believe what you’re saying but maybe needed one last push to get there.

After this, I'd imagine, it gets interesting. You get to the real converts, the people who were swayed by your words, and at the very top, at the pinnacle of prophetic success, the people you are directly speaking against, the people who most need to hear what you are saying and therefore will be most reluctant to accept it. If you can get those people, then you’re a shoe-in for the Prophet Hall of Fame, buddy. This kind of repentance makes the angels burst into song.

How not to treat the newly converted

Therefor, one could safely guess that if John was preaching about getting right with God, and a whole crowd of hypocritical religious folk came marching down to get dunked in the river, he ought to burst forth with happiness. They came, they heard, they repented.

But no. Our charming little prophet decides instead to call them all a "brood of vipers." And that’s not all, folks. If that weren’t enough, he then has the audacity to ask them, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come?”

Um, John, you did.

The Hardest Question

Does John really want people to repent? All people? Or only just the right kind of people? What kind of prophet invites people to come change their lives and then yells obscenities at them when they do?

Or maybe we should square the question more directly toward ourselves (the prophets would be so proud!): How long can we preach repentance in our churches when all we have for them when they show up is our wrath?