Christmas is coming.    The season  seems to come round quicker with every passing year.   The story is so familiar to us all we almost know it off by heart from the carols and lessons  
" Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King...In those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. ..  
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host....
The story so familiar, so much part of us that we tend to treat it almost with too much familiarity. 
Then there's the other side of Christmas, the shopping, the overeating the debt.... 
Not going to bang on about that either....
Need to look beyond Christmas, and make Christmas the occasion for looking beyond.
Birth changed the world and the season can change us too.  WE can leave the babe in a manger and rededicate ourselves to what Jesus the adult stood for. 
That is what John the Baptists was talking about in our gospel reading today.   
Admittedly it is unusual for people to turn up for baptism and be greeted with criticism and described as a nest of vipers.  I'd be put out if the vicar was as rude as that to me. 
Strangely John seems to be wondering why the crowd had gathered for baptism.  Fleeing from the wrath to come ? Well who told them that ?   Was this a divinely inspired message?    Or had the crowd gathered because of John's reputation as a blood and thunder preacher,  gluttons for punishment gathering   Ian Paisley like  - teeth will be provided.  
Or was it an insurance policy for the crowd. ? 
John decries the idea that Jews were Ok in the sight of God as they had Abraham for their father is of no importance.  It's a bit like saying that I've been an active church member all my life so I should be OK when the last trumpet blows.   I'm alright God. 
John points out that it not sufficient.  Children of Abraham are a dime a dozen as the Americans  would say.  And God can create many more where they came from .
If you don't make the grade you'll be discarded.  But compare that pretty ruthless approach with the later parable of the fig tree where the gardener pleads for a second chance to water and fertilise it
The fig tree got a second chance.  That is my preferred interpretation of John's message of repentance.  But how are we to get that chance is the question? 
 As the Gospel  says  the crowd ask " what shall we do ? " 
Give stuff away seems to be the answer Make sure the Air Ambulance bag is full of our clothes
   Jesus tells us in another passage  "Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" 
In our ever acquisitive, debt burdened,  society that's not possible.  Sharing food and clothing and living frugally within our means does not necessarily make one a good Christian  But if we believe in Christian principles, in the love of God and of Jesus in our lives, then the rest will follow naturally.  
Interestingly John does not tell the crowd to be "religious" -  
Pharisees et al. 
"I'm not religious" but..... how often have you heard that ?   A kind of Desert Island Discs comment.    What to do in church? 
Tax collectors / soldiers told to carry on in their occupations but to act differently from others.
To me the answer is  what we do together that helps us to follow Christian principles, rather than just giving stuff away as individuals..   
That's what we can do in this Benefice.  
So Christmas a time for re-assessment of our lives, looking ahead guided by the principles that developed form that babe in the Manager.  
