Advent III Year C
Dec. 15, 2024
Luke 3:7-18
Well, today is the third Sunday of Advent! The third candle we light is for joy. It is pink historically representing Gaudete Sunday, meaning rejoice! And nothing says rejoice like being called a brood of vipers! John the Baptist is not warm and cuddly, and a really odd character with whom we have to interact every Advent. But, we just can’t dodge the man in a camel hair shirt, eating locusts, and calling to us from the desert before we can celebrate a newborn baby.
What are we to make of the “stones” out of which “God can raise up children to Abraham,” or the “ax… at the root of the trees,” or “unquenchable fire”? Where is joy in that? But what John was preaching caught a lot of people’s attention. The crowds responded to him, not just the disciples, not just a few faithful Judaists, but crowds of people came to hear what he had to say. And what he had to say apparently hit a nerve and caught their attention. John seems to be a bit surprised by their response, too, because he asks them, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Why did you come out here in the desert to be baptized? How did you know this was important?” And he goes on with the warning–”Look, if you are serious, you’ve got to bear fruit WORTHY of repentance.” You don’t just say, “Sorry, and carry on the way you were.” Your repentance MUST affect the way you live.
You’ll remember from the Way of Love course we did last Lent, that repentance doesn’t mean wallowing around in guilt and self-pity, it means getting yourself together by admitting you’re headed the wrong direction and TURN AROUND. The only way anyone will know you have truly repented is that you are going in the opposite direction from where you were headed, and the difference is noticeable.
Also, recall that folks from the Old and New Testament eras understood themselves not as individuals, but part of a whole–a community, a people, a nation. This individualism of the modern West, and especially in the United States, could not have even been comprehensible to Middle Eastern culture and quite frankly, is still foreign to the way most people in other parts of the world understand their society. We Americans have lost our understanding that we are a part of something–we are not little silos only answerable to ourselves.
So when John the Baptist addresses the crowd, he addresses the collective. Individual ears hear his words but they understand the call for the nation to turn around, and they must do their part to get the ship headed in the right direction.
The preacher from the desert addressed the crowd–the Jews, the Romans, tax collectors, and soldiers–with an uncompromising demand for fairness and justice. These were folks that did not want to be rubbing shoulders together, tax collectors were traitors to the Jews, Roman soldiers were part of the occupying empire, which executed cruelty and kept the poor in poverty. And here we have a picture of all of them standing together, understanding that unless they got things turned around, none of them were going to survive the wrath to come.
You don’t hear the crowd saying, what am “I” to do? Their response is “what are WE to do.” Generosity and unselfishness were the proper “fruit” of repentance. This is nothing less than metanoia, a mental and spiritual U-turn. For the Baptist, repentance had less to do with how fervently one prayed or how faithfully one attended the worship service; instead, it had everything to do with how one handled riches, executed public service, and exercised stewardship. How they participated in the society they lived in as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Understanding that on the surface they are citizens of the Empire, but John is calling them to live more deeply in the midst of it as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
We are all being called to bear fruits that are worthy of the gift of repentance. The New Living Translation of the Bible breaks John’s words down for us,“Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don’t just say to each other, ‘We’re safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.’ That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones.” (Luke 3:8)
So on this Sunday of Joy, how is this message the Good News, how is it joyful? It seems this message is not even consoling. Or is it? Is it not Good News that we learn the proper way to prepare for the Advent of the Humble Servant, The Deliverer, to let the divine ax cut off our greed, self-indulgence, egoism, hypocrisy, and the like and throw them into the unquenchable fire of God’s judgment? That is the chaff that God will strip us of and burn it away so it is no longer a part of us, individually and collectively.
While we are waiting to celebrate the incarnation of the divine One in the Christ child, Advent points us past Christmas to the Second Coming when all will be made new. We are preparing and waiting for the advent, the coming, appearance, and arrival of something new, something unexpected.
John the Baptist is not tame, he is not a well-dressed, clean cut preacher man. He is wild and his whole presence, the way he appears and the way he lives, is to stir things up. Did you notice the first words of our Collect this morning? Some preachers have called this “Stirrin’ it up Sunday!”
Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us;
John stirred up people’s complacency and got them to listen, to pay attention, and I really love how surprised he was that some folks did just that! That’s when it’s the Good News, when we respond and actually do ask, “What then shall we do?” And we do it!
It is also important to remember that God is the agent in all of this. Not us. We don’t bring about the Kingdom of God, we participate in what God has already set in motion. We live and act and move about in this world as citizens of the Kingdom, who repent of our aversion to justice, our selfishness, our apathy, and our fear which makes us greedy.
We need to recognize that the crowd gathered there with John on the edge of the wilderness, is us. John calls out apparent “we are better than they are” hypocrisy. The religious were claiming, “We have Abraham as our ancestor!” “Ha.God can call up children for Abraham from these rocks,” is the reply. We are the crowd. We are the tax collectors—dependent upon unjust structures for our livelihood. We are as the occupying army—caught in a culture of exploitation and violence. We often feel superior but we are all equally in need of this repentance. Repentance is an integral part of the Christian life. Repentance is not a onetime act of confession or a onetime recital of a certain prayer or creedal statement. It’s the way we stay on the path, the Way of Love.
The ax lies at the foot of the trees. We are to be trees that share our coats, our food with those who have none–without discrimination. The tree that is rooted in fairness, equity, and justice. We are to be a fertile tree, bearing fruit that can be seen. Fruit worthy of repentance is sharing, caring for others, participating in fair treatment for all. The One we are bound to is not just the One that waters the tree, it is the One that is the life giving force of that tree.We are being called back to integrity, self-reflection, mutual confession, and openness to the One who puts in us our Advent hope and joy.
That is why the other scripture passages this Sunday are full of rejoicing. In Zephaniah, I love the way that it’s this wonderful sort of outpouring of joy, but then it’s, I will save the lame and gather the outcast, change their shame into praise. That’s a huge thing in the ancient world, in the shame culture, turning that burden people bear into praise and renown in all the earth. Those that have been publicly humiliated and shamed and will be exalted. It’s their joy of being lifted up that Zephaniah is talking about.
And we are to participate with God in bringing about this joy. We are sorely hindered by our sins, but God will stir us up, we anticipate the Lord’s return with great might, and God’s bountiful grace and mercy will deliver us. Rejoice! Your Deliverer is coming! He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Magdalena's Musings 