Sermons

Preparing a Way
December 8, 2013
2nd Advent (Year A)
Matthew 3.1-6
   In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
   “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'”
   Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
  Sarah and I spent the weekend with our kids searching for a Christmas tree; and then buying a Christmas tree and then decorating our Christmas tree.

Like many of you, perhaps, we have a varied collection of ornaments gathered over the years from the different places in which we have lived.
Some are gifts from family. We have ornaments from the various churches we have served.
Some hold special significance: there is a beautiful and delicate ornament from Mexico, a tiny wooden crèche inside a lacquered eggshell, from Sarah’s time working with women and children in Juarez.
There is an ornament from Lesotho, a replica of a traditional round house with a thatch roof. And many, many more, to go along with the traditional lights and cranberry strings.

We spent the afternoon decorating the tree.  We had our traditional tree-decorating meal of pizza and chicken wings at the foot of the tree. We suffered an argument over who got to place the angel at the top of the tree.

When it was all done, we stood back and admired our work.

And 9:00pm, our cat pulled the whole thing down, breaking several ornaments and reminding us (in a way we could probably have lived without) that Christmas is not really about the tree.

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We all know (and some lament) that Christmas has become much more than a religious holiday.

So much more, in fact, that its religious significance has been largely eclipsed by its cultural dimension  …  which leads to predictable hand-wringing every year about the need to save Christmas (there’s a website).

And apparently the simplest way of saving Christmas from the demons of secular humanism would be to allow manger scenes on the lawns of government buildings and put Christmas trees back into our public schools.

If only it were as simple as saving Christmas. If only our common salvation were as simple as public crèche scenes.

The reality is that Christmas does not need to be saved.

We need to be saved; which, if memory serves, is really the whole point of Christmas.

We need to be saved. And the question that remains is how we prepare our hearts and our lives to receive the saving act of God that we celebrate this season.

This morning, part of the answer comes to us in a sermon delivered by an angry, bearded, camel-hair wearing, locust-and-honey-eating prophet coming out of the wilderness … who summons his congregation to worship by calling them a brood of vipers.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Revised Common Lectionary, the calendar of scriptural passages that walk us through the bible in yearly cycles drops this story in our laps about this time every year … and while we might be tempted to look away, there is something strangely compelling about this prophet-mad man who announces the coming of Christ in language that leaves us alternatively offended and terrified.

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John the Baptist is not the prophet of the Christmas tree, or even the prophet of comforting nostalgia of remembered people and places from our past.
He is perhaps the prophet of the adventurous cat, who brings all our careful preparation down and forces us to reshape our priorities and reorient our expectations of what exactly this mysterious event means to us.

And raise up new Christmas Trees.

John comes out of the wilderness … the desert, the place of wandering but also a place of renewal … and offers a word mixed with promise and judgment, of good news, to be sure … but not good news without cost.

John invites preparation … repent, he proclaims, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near!

William Hertzog, a New Testament scholar from Andover-Newton Theological School, suggests that we see John as ‘a peripheral prophet’ … one that speaks from the margins of his society. He wears the clothing of the poor; the camel hair smock of the Bedouins. He eats the food of the poor; locusts made somewhat palatable by wild honey.

This prophet from the margins drew out the people of power and privilege to the wilderness to hear a message of renewal and restoration, of promise and good news.

And people poured out to listen … perhaps not all of Jerusalem, or all of Judea, but much of it. And they brought their religious leaders with them. And it is to this authority … to the Pharisees and Sadducees … that John directs his scorn.

You brood of vipers. Who warned you of the wrath to come?

Repent … but then bear fruit worthy of repentance.

John’s focus is not on repentance alone; instead he is concerned with what the Sadducees and Pharisees symbolize … expectations of privilege based on their status and authority.
The Pharisees and Sadducees crafted their own expectations about who God was … and how God would act … and how the world should look and act as a result.

It is an impulse we all share, that deeply human desire to have things look like we want them to look … to set the terms for our relationships … to determine our own criteria for salvation.

We expect things to go our way; because we have done the necessary preparation to insure that they do.

All well and good, of course, except that so often life does not fall neatly in line with our expectations. Jobs do not work out. Children do not behave. Parents do not listen. The cat knocks down the Christmas tree … spilling water, shattering ornaments … confounding expectations and easy assumptions about how things ought to work.

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Perhaps we need this encounter with John at this time of year, when our expectations are perhaps at their highest … and not surprisingly when our anxiety and stress rise to meet them.

We need this encounter with John as a reminder of where our priorities lie.

We need John, because as harsh as his words might seem, as unpleasant as our image of him might be (he’s eating bugs after all), he bears a message of great hope.

John reminds us of that great, central Christmas truth: someone is coming to save us.

That is good news.

And not only to save us … you and me … but the whole world.

The kingdom of heaven has drawn near!

Repent, John says, and then bear fruit worthy of that repentance.

Repentance raises all sorts of issues and images for us in the church. For many, it conjures memories of guilt-inducing sermons and Sunday school lessons about how we are never good enough for God or for anything else.

Banish the thought.

If Christmas reminds us of nothing else, it affirms that in the eyes of God, we are all good enough … worthy enough to share the life of God.

Repentance is not a call to self-criticism … to flagellating ourselves over bad choices and mistakes.

Repentance … as preached by John … is the first and essential act of preparation to receive the presence of God born in Christ.

To repent is nothing more than the faithful act of turning ourselves towards the God who turns towards us in Christ. It is not a singular act of apology … but an ongoing commitment to orient our lives towards God.

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There is good news here; but it is good news that needs an open heart … a willing and receptive life … in which to dwell.

It is the purpose of this time, this season, to practice preparation … to make a place for the God who comes to us.

It is the purpose of Advent to enact and receive small moments of grace … to prepare our hearts to receive the singular gift of grace born to us again this Christmas.

There is good news in John’s message; but it is good news that requires our participation to fully bloom and flourish in our lives and in our world.

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The crowds that came out to listen to John the Baptist brought with them a host of dreams, hopes, expectations … about how things ought to be and ought to work.

The prophetic word that met them in the wilderness invited them to cast aside all expectations in the deep hope that God was about to do something that would forever change to way they saw the world.

Prepare a way for God.

That is the word that meets us here today.

Prepare a way … repent, reorient, renew and receive the good news that will reshape our lives, and transform our world.

And perhaps raise up a new Christmas Tree. Amen.