Weasel, worm, sloth, slug, vulture, snake, pig, rat, dog, cow, chicken, fish, shark, monkey, wolf, dinosaur… That’s just a tiny selection of animals used to describe people. We use them to express our tender affection towards those we love or to express our dislike of others. Sometimes we use such phrases to vent our frustration or to clearly show our rejection of someone’s views, attitudes or actions. Often, we strengthen the message by adding adjectives and then we have ‘a stupid cow’, ‘a cheeky monkey’ or ‘a filthy pig’. Such expressions can be intimately affectionate or deeply offensive and insulting. Why do we use animals to call or label people in the first place?
For millennia we’ve lived alongside wild animals; in many parts of the world, it’s still the case. We’ve developed a certain perception of animals called ‘anthropomorphism’; in other words, we’ve ascribed certain human traits to animals’ appearance and instinctive bearings; through such a ‘human lens’ we interpret – often wrongly – their behaviours. In fact, in many primitive cultures, there were beliefs that by eating certain parts of the animal its strengths were transferred to the warrior.
St John the Baptist in today’s gospel called a certain group in his audience the ‘brood of vipers’. We sense he didn’t mean a tender affection towards those people; we know it was a rather unpleasant ‘welcome’. How unpleasant? We need to look closer at the ‘anthropomorphic’ perception of the viper and, secondly, at who the recipients were.
In the Semitic world snakes, vipers or serpents were cunning, deceptive, fatally dangerous; its split tongue reflects its duplicity. In the Bible, the serpent symbolises the ultimate enemy, Satan. So, calling someone ‘brood of vipers’ was deeply offensive, effectively calling them the offspring of the devil. Who did John the Baptist call ‘the brood of vipers’? ‘A number of Sadducees and Pharisees’. Who were they? They were two different Jewish religious factions, elites of the Jewish society and exemplary devotees of Judaism. They genuinely strived to keep their religious and Jewish identity unspoilt and unaffected by worldly values, trends and fashions. So, people who in their own opinion and perceived by many as exemplary Jews are called by John the Baptist ‘the brood of vipers’. Honestly, to say that it was deeply offensive is to say nothing. It must have been absolutely shocking to hear such a welcome!
Based on my experience, I doubt that John the Baptist wanted to shake the Sadducees and Pharisees; having offended people you never make them listen to you attentively; they either leave or start a fight. The real recipients of John’s rebuke were all the others in the audience. I can imagine all those ‘lowly people’ holding their breath on hearing such an insult thrown at those they admired and were inspired to follow. Suddenly they started listened closely to John the Baptist. As should we.
What was John’s message then? He performed a baptism of repentance in preparation for the imminent arrival of the Messiah. As with any sectarian movements, John’s Jewish audience developed a sense of superiority simply by being ‘children of Abraham’. John shatters such a belief, because ‘God can raise children for Abraham from these stones.’ John made it clear that the baptism of repentance he performed was worthless if it didn’t produce the fruit of repentance. Belonging to a certain religious tradition or nation wasn’t a guarantee of participation in the forthcoming kingdom of the Messiah. That should be a stern warning to any of us, proudly Catholic but complacent with our worldly attitudes and compromised moral stances.
John the Baptist then announced the arrival of the Messiah; in the minds of many 1st-century Jews a mighty warrior who would come to crush the foreign powers and to establish the Jewish kingdom. John used the powerful image of clearing a crop after the harvest; the valuable grain is kept while the worthless chaff is blown away and burnt. It was a very attractive vision when misinterpreted as the Jews being the grain and the pagans being the chaff. But the division line between the grain and chaff didn’t run along ethnic or religious boundaries; in John’s mind, the division line runs right through one’s heart. The good and the worthless fill our hearts. Their proportions depend on you. This time of Advent is as good as any to have a closer look and to check which one prevails.
In the everyday hustle and bustle, in chasing your dreams, it’s easy to fill your heart with things, desires and cravings that on the face of it look valuable and worthy, while imperceptibly you can turn into a greedy dog, or insatiable shark, or dirty pig, or any unpleasant creature (symbolically). Every now and again each one of us must stop, let the word of God work through our heart and reveal what’s hidden. Today’s first reading describes what happens when we let God into the shadowy and dark crevices of our lives: ‘The wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion feed together, with a little boy to lead them. The cow and the bear make friends, their young lie down together. The lion eats straw like the ox. The infant plays over the cobra’s hole; into the viper’s lair the young child puts his hand. They do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain, for the country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea.’ This is not a description of improbable development in the animal world. You and I, we are the wolf and the lamb, the panther and the kid, the lion and the calf… You and I are called to let Jesus tame the wild animal within. The way to world peace starts in and leads through our hearts. When it’s achieved, ‘that day, the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples. It will be sought out by the nations and its home will be glorious.’
Image by Sarah Richter from Pixabay
