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But Am I Saved?
by Captain
Michael Ramsay
Luke 3:7-14,
A Revolutionary Text [1]
John, ‘the Baptist’ as he was called, was a celebrity preacher
in 1st Century Palestine. He was on a speaking tour through
all the country around the Jordan (Luke 3:3). People were
making an effort to see him. In order to see John in those
days you couldn’t just drive, catch a bus, hail a cab or get a
ride from someone. You had to walk, by and large, and you had
to walk a long way; you probably had to take at least one day
off work to get where you were going.
Picture this scenario with me. Pick some famous person you
want to see; they are coming to a city near you and you have
been given free tickets. You take time off work or cancel your
plans for the day to go see them. Now imagine that they are a
celebrity preacher. Danielle Strickland, not that long ago,
was named one of the most influential Christian speakers.
Imagine she comes to a town near you. Big crowds come to see
her and not just Salvationists but all kinds of us. Let’s say
we all walk there or better yet we get a bus full of people
and we take the day off work to go hear her. We are among
hundreds or thousands of people who take the time and make the
effort to travel to see her. Now imagine that when we get
there she says (cf. vv.7-9), “All of you who have come to see
me… you are a bunch of snakes! Why are you here!?" "Who told
you, you could be saved!? You need to start acting like
Christians! And don’t tell me you’ve been a Christian since
you were six or you had this life changing moment when you
were eleven or your great grandmother was saved through
William Booth himself on the streets of London 100 plus years
ago. Don’t tell me you don’t need saving because you are
already a child of God. I tell you the truth God can raise up
children from these rocks here if He wants to; if you say you
are His children you need to start acting like it!”[2]
Can you imagine? How would you feel? What would you think?
This is what it would have been like for people in our text
(Luke 3) who had taken a whole day or two off of their lives,
walked for maybe up to 100km and made this effort to go hear
John in the desert; he addressed the crowds in much the same
way, telling them that if they think they are children of
Abraham they’re really not unless they start acting like
children of Abraham. In today’s colloquial vernacular, many
who went to the desert may have ‘thought they were saved’ but
John said, ‘are you so sure about that?’ This is quite a
greeting!
It is effective though.[3] Luke recorded voices
seeking salvation in the disparate crowd calling out to him,
“what should we do then?!” (v.10). John told them, in essence,
if you think you are saved, and if you really are a part of
the ‘Kingdom to Come’, then, Verse 11, “Anyone who has two
shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who
has food should do the same.”
How many people here have two shirts – or more? How many
people in our world have none? How many people reading this
will eat today? How many people in our world won’t? I know
that most of us who are reading this are good at sharing with
our friends who need food, clothing, and other items –
individually and through The Salvation Army. I know there are
many regular JAC readers who would give the shirt right off
their own back to someone in need. John, the Baptist, says
that that is because you are a part of the Kingdom of God. I
love it when we study the Gospel of Luke because Luke, like
the Army's spiritual grandfather John Wesley, is crystal clear
in presenting the Gospel as a social justice gospel:
Christians will not acquire and hoard wealth while others are
in need.[4] The Baptist says, quite the opposite,
“produce acts in keeping with repentance” (v.7).
But there is more to the story than just
this. After John answered these cries from the crowd about
what should anyone do who wants to be saved from the coming
wrath (v.7), tax collectors who are part of this crowd said in
essence, “yes, we all know that: everybody who is saved, who
is part of God’s Kingdom, will give food and clothes to those
in need. But what specifically should WE, saved tax
collectors, do when we make this public confession through
this baptism that we have come here to make today?”[5]
Verse 13, “Don’t collect anymore than you are required to,”
John told them. Now this sounds easy but let’s look at the way
things ran back then. It was not all that different from the
way things run today. These tax collectors were probably
Jewish toll booth operators working for the Romans. Their job
was to collect tolls and they made their money from surcharges
applied to the tolls. The Romans used an early franchise-style
system of sorts to collect these taxes.[6] They
pseudo-privatized their toll booths. Much like well-known fast
food restaurants, big chain stores, and other corporations
today; they used a franchise-style system. Judean business
people would buy a toll booth franchise or a number of toll
booth franchises (such as in the case of Zacchaeus; Luke 19);
they would collect the money to cover the fees from their
clients and everything else they made after they paid their
overhead was profit. This is similar to the way many or most
chain stores, franchises, fundraising catalogues, contemporary
manufacturers and most big businesses in general are run
today. They collect what they are required to for head office
or whomever and/or to cover the cost of inventory already paid
for and then the rest, after expenses, goes to profit.
But John said to them, ‘don’t collect any more than you
are required to [by the head office].” Don’t make a profit the
laissez-faire capitalist way, charging what the market can
bear in order to make a profit… Well, who would want to be a
tax collector then?! Can you imagine if the Baptist told the
franchise owners or others today that they were not to make a
profit off their customers? Can you imagine if he told the big
name companies that they were only allowed to charge what they
are legally or otherwise required to charge, what would they
do? ... Well, just maybe John, Luke, and even Jesus IS saying
just that…just take what you need. Luke is a revolutionary
text. Luke's is a gospel to the poor. Luke is the social
justice gospel.
Luke’s not so subtle condemnation of this
1st century expression of a prototypical market economy that
made the rich richer and the poor poorer is as radical then as
it would be now if we applied the gospel to our own society.[7]
We recently moved from Toronto and previously we have lived in
Victoria and Vancouver. Anyone who drives regularly in these
city knows that the parking meters all collect different
amounts of money for the same amount of time: a dollar fifty
here, $3 there; $8 for a parkade here, twenty dollars for a
parkade there. And grocery stores owned by the same person,
the same corporation, the same company – you buy the same
product at a different outlet and it is a totally different
price simply because they know they can get more money from
you at that location. This is Adam Smith and Ayn Rand's
version of capitalism; this is the free market.[8]
But what John is saying to the owners of the Roman tax
franchises in the first century is seemingly quite the
opposite; he says, “don’t collect any more than you are
required to.” And this I think is what Luke is telling us
today: poor people in the Kingdom of God should have the same
access to life as wealthy people, so do your part, “don’t
collect any more than you are required to;” don’t make a
profit at the expense of others. Luke’s is a revolutionary
text. Luke’s is a social justice gospel. Luke's Gospel, as
Jose Miranda and John Wesley remind us, is good news, gospel
for the poor.[9]
Now after these tax collectors/toll booth franchise owners get
their answer, the soldiers who have also come here to be
baptised are eager to know what is required of them. Like the
tax collectors, the soldiers know they need to give food and
clothes to the poor - but they don’t own toll booths; they
don’t own franchises. They aren’t rich. Quite the opposite:
while the tax collectors were apt to get rich from this 1st
century expression of a prototypical market economy, the
Judean soldiers were likely to get poor from it; so, what
should they do when they are saved from the impending wrath?
What should they do as citizens of the Kingdom of God? Verse
14, John says, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people
falsely—be content with your pay.”
This sounds easy enough: don’t extort money from people; don’t
falsely accuse people and be content with your pay. Easy?
Maybe. These soldiers weren't Romans; they were Judeans just
like the tax collectors and just like most of the rest of the
crowd. These soldiers worked for the Romans just like the tax
collectors but these soldiers were very poorly paid. They
didn’t have the freedom of the toll booth operators to set
their own wages so they resorted to other ways to make money -
basically stealing. But that was okay, they convinced
themselves, because ‘everyone was doing it’. But that is not
okay.
I remember when we were living in Vancouver, there were many
stores in our neighbourhood which would charge you less if you
paid in cash because then they wouldn’t have to declare the
money as income. I have met many people who are paid 'under
the table', who deliberately do not claim income on their
taxes – after all they don’t make very much and the government
doesn't need their money. When I worked at a military base
pre-9/11, one co-worker allegedly regularly used to take
discarded copper home to sell for extra money, after all he
only made minimum wage; the government didn't need more money.
I remember as a janitor when I was a teenager, colleagues who
would take food or office supplies from the buildings where
they were working: they’re only going to throw it out anyway.
Why would they miss this food from their coffee room? They
have lots of money to buy more. Luke says, “Be content with
your pay.”
I remember too, we used to be able to make more money by
working more hours so we would ask to take on extra hours
cleaning extra buildings. I – like my fellow janitors – loved
that. This is where you could get overtime pay without ever
working one hour overtime. It was late at night and we often
worked alone so some of us could do 16 hours worth of cleaning
in just six hours without anyone noticing. The buildings were
clean (thus no one complained) so we would write 16 hours on
our timesheet even though we only worked six; ‘no one cared,
everyone was doing it’ and that way we would not only get paid
for 10 hours of work we didn’t do but we would even get
time-and-a-half or double-time for some of those hours. It was
an easy way to make an extra buck or two. Get paid for hours
you don’t work, take food and supplies no one will miss which
‘everyone else is taking anyway’.
I remember one security guard at a building where I worked for
a while. I would chat with him about God, among other things;
one day he asked me, “If you are a Christian, why are you
leaving early?”
“My work is done.”
“Are you getting paid?”
“Yes.”
“So, do more work.”
“Everyone just leaves when they are done, we’re expected to”
“Isn’t that stealing?”
The baptiser, John, said to those of his day who weren’t paid
necessarily a ‘liveable wage’, “be content with your pay.”
Luke says to we today who may be tempted to pad our hours, not
declare our income, or manipulate our wages, “be content with
your pay.” It is always interesting looking at Luke. Luke is
the social justice gospel. It is a revolutionary text. Luke
tells us what the impending Kingdom of God looks like. It is a
place where the poor will have equal access to life and
liberty as (or more than) the rich and everyone who is a part
of God’s Kingdom will deal openly and honestly with each
other. Luke’s is a revolutionary text and the Gospel is a
revolutionary Gospel.
And honestly, this revolution is important. We, as Christians,
are called to be holy. We, as Christians, are called to be the
advance guard of a just society where the poor do have the
same access to life and forgiveness as the rich. The middle
class and the elite - like the tax collectors - are not to
make a profit at the expense of the poor and those just barely
eking out a living; we are to do it honestly. And all of us,
rich or poor, are to be content with our wages for God will
provide for us as He provides for the birds of the air and the
lilies of the field (Luke 12:27, Mt 6:28).[10]
Everyone, as we are a part of God's proleptic Kingdom, we are
to love our neighbour and as they are in need we are to
provide for their need just as our Heavenly Father provides
for our needs.
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[1] Adapted from Luke 3:7-14: In the Advent of Revolution.
Presented to TSA Corps 614 Regent Park, Toronto, Ontario on 20
December 2015 and Alberni Valley Ministries on 16 December
2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay
[2] Cf. N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville, Kentucky,
USA: WJK, 2004), 34
[3] Cf. Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation: Louisville,
Kentucky, USA: John Knox Press, 1990), 48.
[4] Captain Michael Ramsay, Analysis of 'The Use of Money':
Sermon 50 by John Wesley (Presented to William and Catherine
Booth College, Summer 2008)
http://sheepspeak.com/reviews_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Use
[5] Walter L. Leifeld, The Expositor's Bible Commentary,
Pradis CD-ROM:Luke/Exposition of Luke/III. Preparation for
Jesus' Ministry (3:1-4:13)/A. The Ministry of John the Baptist
(3:1-20), Book Version: 4.0.2
[6] R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.:
Abingdon, 1995), 84
[7] N.T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville, Kentucky, USA:
WJK, 2004), 36
[8] William Hendricksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to
Luke (NTC: Baker Academic: Grand Rapids Michigan, 2007), 208
[9] Cf. Jose Miranda.
Marx and the Bible: a Critique of the Philosophy of
Oppression. Trans., John Eagleson. (New York: Orbis Books,
1979), 250
[10] R. Alan Culpepper, Luke (NIB 8: Nashville, Tenn.:
Abingdon, 1995), 85.
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