Third Sunday of Advent Sermon

It just may be that some of you aren’t exactly clear just which “John” our church is named for. Is it St. John the Baptist who we just read about – the one who cried out, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Or, is it St. John the Evangelist, one of Jesus’ apostles, who assures us that “God is love” and repeats again and again, “Little children, love one another.” And the good news for us, is we’re the parish of “St. John, the Evangelist.” Little children, love one another. Which isn’t to say we’re excused from the message of John the Baptist. He was, after all, the one sent by God and approved by Christ, to be Jesus’ opening act (so to speak). It was John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus. And today, on this third Sunday of Advent, as we wait again for Jesus’ coming, I’d like us to spend a little time hearing John’s message afresh. John was actually Jesus’ cousin (or second cousin, or something like that). We don’t know how well they knew each other growing up. The Bible just doesn’t tell us. But they were about the same age, and when they were around 30 years old, they each began a public ministry. John’s ministry came first. And as we’ve said, the whole point of John’s ministry was to prepare people for Jesus. Or – more precisely – to prepare them for the Messiah. You see, Israel had lost its political sovereignty about 500 years before. But there was a prophecy that a Messiah would come – literally, “an anointed one” – that God would send and empower, to deliver them from their oppressors. And a coordinating prophecy said that, before the Messiah came, God would send Elijah to prepare the way. And when John began publicly preaching in the area around the Jordan, everything about his behavior and appearance made people think, “This may finally be the one.” And, if he really was the one they’d been waiting for, they knew his job was to “prepare the way.” That is, his job was to get Israel ready for the Messiah to appear. And what is the best way to prepare for the righteous Messiah to come, but to become righteous yourself. If Gordon Ramsey is coming to your house for dinner, odds are, you’re going to prepare the best meal you’re capable of making. If Martha Stewart is coming for an Easter Egg hunt, you’re going to make really beautiful Easter eggs. If the Messiah is coming to restore Israel to its rightful condition as the sanctified people of God, you’re going to get your house in order. Which is why John’s principal message was to repent! “Get it together, people. Stop living these wishy-washy lives of mediocre faith.” And as a sign of their repentance, John baptized them in the Jordan. It was like a bath for the soul. Let their former ways be washed away and carried off downstream. And let the one who emerged, dripping from the water, be ready to live a restored, reformed life. In modern-day terms, we’d call this a revival – like the Great Awakenings in the 18th century, or the Billy Graham crusade – a spiritual reckoning that was pervasive throughout society on the eve of Jesus’ ministry. Now, if you’re like me, you never think much about the consequences of this revival. We just lump it in as part of the necessary lead-up to Jesus’ ministry: he gets born and grows up, John does his baptism thing, there’s the temptation in the wilderness, and then Jesus starts his ministry and that’s when all the important stuff begins. But from God’s perspective (and that of each of the gospel writers), this precursor – this revival – was absolutely necessary. And honestly, it was only in preparing this sermon that I’ve begun to wonder for the first time that maybe the whole reason people were able to respond so positively to Jesus’ ministry, was precisely because so many of them had recently repented and been baptized. Think about it: as a society, they were right on the heels of a significant spiritual awakening with a renewed commitment to righteous living. So when they heard Jesus’ message of God’s upside-down kingdom of healing and compassion and generosity and forgiveness, they were able to receive and welcome this as the good news it truly was. Compare it to our own lives, when we’ve had a significant moment of spiritual clarity and renewal, just how energized we are – what fertile ground we are (at least for a little while) – full of hope and vitality and purpose, excited to go further. Which makes it all the more noteworthy that the ones who didn’t get baptized by John were the same ones who would end up resisting Jesus, and eventually having him crucified. And not only that, but taking the formerly enthusiastic, repentant crowds down with them. And that’s the pharisees and the religious experts. Later in Luke’s gospel, he’s quite explicit on that front: All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John (Luke 7:29). It’s fascinating. But this, then, begs the question for us: If it is repentance that cleanses our spirits to be able to receive Jesus’ good news as truly true and genuinely desirable, what exactly does that repentance look like? What does an ‘intention to live righteously’ actually entail?” Big picture, “righteous living” could apply to every aspect of our lives. But from today’s story – from the gospel of Luke, from the ministry of John the Baptist – there’s just one, fairly explicit answer about how to repent. (Now, get ready, it’s about to get uncomfortable…) “What then should we do?” asked the crowds? And John replied: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none. Whoever has food must do likewise.” To the tax collectors he said, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” To the soldiers he said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” Every single example that John provided, of what repentance and righteous living looked like, involved money. The first two examples are explicitly about making sure the most vulnerable people in society have the basic necessities to survive. Share your clothes; share your food. John’s not saying we need to give it all away and become naked or hungry ourselves. But for God’s sake, it is unrighteous to keep filling our closets and pantries while others are shivering and hungry. The second two examples involve forgoing our professional advantage to get more money than we deserve. In John’s day, it was culturally permissible for tax collectors and soldiers to extort money from people. It was a professional perk. Which begs the question for us: What is the cultural equivalence in our society? How does our culture permit and encourage a disadvantageous accumulation of wealth? To put it more succinctly: Are we holding onto more resources than we need? Do our professions or social class give us an unfair, systemic advantage? And for most of us (not all of us – but many of us), the answer is clearly, “Yes.” The message of John the Baptist is fairly explicit: If we take our repentance seriously – if we take our spiritual lives and spiritual renewal seriously – it will almost always have financial implications. And significant ones at that. But if we’re not careful, this message itself can begin a form of extortion. After all, if the church adopts the message of John, telling you to repent by giving up your money, but then adds, “And while you’re at it, give it to us,” how is the church any different than the tax collector or the soldier? Which is why I want to be very careful here. Because, while I am responsible for overseeing the governance and sustainability of this church, I am more importantly your priest – a priest whose principal job is to proclaim and foster the upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God. Our natural inclination is always to protect and provide for ourselves. But Christ’s invitation is always to move towards a desire for and a participation in our neighbor’s well-being. Especially those who are most vulnerable. So if we are serious in our intent for Christlikeness (to “be like Jesus”), the action step will always invite us to a renewed willingness to lay down our lives” (our privilege, our security, our resources) to give life to the other. And let’s be clear, the question is not, “What must I be forced to do without?” (Although, admittedly, it can certainly feel that way, especially when we’re wrestling with a specific choice.) But rather, “How can I bring life to another?” Because that is the spiritual heart of the matter: we get to love (!) whoever God brings before us – practically and joyfully and tangibly! Like God, we get the honor of being included in people’s lives being restored! I think of someone in the church who’s involved in our English Language class and at FISH, and it’s when she tells me about her encounter with actual lives being impacted by these ministries that she herself becomes most joyful and alive. I can think of three families in the church this year who have given away a car. In each case, they could have sold it and kept the money, but they chose to give it away instead. Someone needed a car; they had one they no longer needed; and the potential little bit of savings they could have claimed for themselves, was instead translated into someone else’s ability to survive in this world that requires transportation. Here’s another way to think about this whole theme: It is natural in the first half of life, to be quite focused on building ourselves up: our reputations, our resumés, our homes and their furnishings, our families. We’re driven to establish our place in this world. But nothing is static. And as middle age ushers us into the second half of life, if we are maturing well, it is time to start giving ourselves away. Which lines up completely with the messages of John and Jesus. Because a maturing life increasingly believes that self-centeredness and self-gratification is lonesome and unsatisfying. The richer life is one discovering the power to bless: to regard what we have as resources to affirm and recover what is good and worthy in all those lives that intersect with our own. Our savings, our closets, our pantries, our calendars, and even our pride, are stocked with an abundance beyond our own needs. Our needs (it turns out) are actually quite modest, except – that is – our need to align ourselves with God and what God is doing: blessing, sustaining, and renewing the earth through love.