Seek ShalomSýnishorn

SHALOM WITH OTHERS

I loved Show & Tell as a kid. You could bring just about anything you wanted to school, and there would be a time in the morning meeting to share it with the class. I remember classmates who brought toys, stuffed animals, vacation photos, and even the occasional pet hamster or turtle.

In fifth grade, I remember bringing my new pocket knife to school and being allowed to open the blade and carefully show it to the rest of the class. (I don’t recommend taking a knife to school for Show & Tell these days!)

The pocketknife required no explanation. It spoke for itself, drawing oohs and ahhs from my ten-year-old peers, followed by a flood of questions about where I got it and what kinds of things I would do with it. It was always show first, tell second.

I have found this to be true of our Christian witness as well.

If our Gospel only leads us to shalom with God and His creation but does not also prompt us to pursue the flourishing of others, we have failed to absorb the whole of Scripture.

John the Baptist challenged the crowds who gathered for baptism to “prove by the way that you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.” In other words, the evidence of our relationship with God should be demonstrated by how we live out our relationships with everyone around us.

We need to be good at Show & Tell. I believe that would be John’s message if he were delivering it today.

Live it before we lecture it.

Works before witness.

Show and tell.

John says, “Every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit will be chopped down” because the ax of God’s judgment is ready to sever the roots.

If the fruit isn’t good, then judgment happens at the roots. Why? There is an organic connection between the roots and the fruit it produces.

The fruit reveals the root.

If a farmer finds bad fruit on a fruit tree, it isn’t enough to only get rid of the bad fruit. To ensure good fruit the next time, the farmer must change the root system.

In this same way, our words and actions reveal what is in our hearts.

If we don’t like what we see and hear in our relationship with God or with those around us, it’s not enough to try to change our behavior. We must start at the root level. We need a change of heart.

The fruit reveals the root.

The crowd present hears these words from John, and they come forward and begin to question him, trying to gain clarity about his true intention, asking, “What should we do?”

Isn’t that our nature, too? We hear the challenging words of Scripture and immediately want to ask, “Yes, but what are we actually required to do?” We understand the aspiration of the Gospel message, but we also tend to look for an easy way out - "Surely, it doesn’t mean what it says."

John doesn’t tell them to go to church, pay their tithe, or lead a small group. He doesn’t tell them to sing songs or pray harder.

John tells the crowd that if they have two shirts to give one away, and if they have food, they should share it with those who are hungry. The crowd wants to know what it looks like to live in a way that proves they have turned to God, and John gets downright practical in his advice.

Use your more-than-enough to help another’s not-enough.

How do we help others to flourish? We give out of our abundance to meet a need.

We can live generously because we know that if we give it away, God will provide more of what we need.

The corrupt tax collectors come and ask what they should do. John tells them not to collect more taxes than the government requires. Some soldiers come next and ask what they should do. John instructs them to stop extorting money and making false accusations.

Tax collectors were Jews who were tasked with collecting taxes from their people on behalf of the Roman government. These tax collectors were often corrupt, and they would add an extra charge to a Jewish man’s tax bill to keep the money to line their own pockets. And the Jewish people had no recourse to the Roman government. That’s just how the system worked. There was nothing that could be done about it.

In that day, soldiers could accuse innocent people of false charges and then force them to pay money to clear their name and avoid further punishment. Again, it was an accepted practice, and there was little that the Jewish people could do except pay the charges.

So when the tax collectors and the soldiers approached John and asked, what should we do? John makes it plain: stop cheating and extorting others, even when the system says you can.

Do the right thing even when the wrong thing is acceptable.

John exhorts the crowd to live justly.

Dr. Tony Evans, speaking to the NRB in 2021 said, “We cannot dismiss the Gospel by calling on the content of the Gospel that gets us to heaven while we skip over the scope of the Gospel, which ought to change how we relate to one another on earth.”

Show & Tell.

The evidence that we have repented of our sins and turned to God is shalom with our neighbor.

Pursue peace with others.

REFLECTION

What does it mean for you to pursue shalom with others? What are the challenges of that in today’s world? How can you help someone else to flourish?