So, let me offer a very concise summary of our scripture reading for today. “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice - you brood of vipers!” Kind of a double message - isn’t it? Of course, it is a double message we get each year on this Third Sunday of Advent, with John the Baptist thundering away in the wilderness to “repent and prepare the way of the Lord.” Well, my hope today is to make this double message into a single message, and to help us hear John’s harsh-sounding “wake-up call,” as preparing a way in us that will indeed lead us to joy and to the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.
Now, first I do have to admit that John the Baptist is probably the last person any of us would want to invite to our annual Christmas party. But all four gospels witness to his essential role in preparing the way for One who is to come, preparing the way for the Kingdom of God, preparing the way, as he says, for “one who is more powerful than I.”
And from where John is looking, which is largely from the perspective of an Old Testament Prophet, the one for whom he is preparing the way, the one who is coming, is coming with fire and judgment. He is coming to separate the trees that bear good fruit from those that are merely dead wood. He is coming to separate the life-giving wheat from the worthless chaff. In other words, he is coming to judge the world. In Barbara Taylor’s phrase, “to judge between those who are on the way and those who are in the way.” I like that phrase. Are you “on the way,” truly walking a sacred path? He is coming to judge between those who are on the way and those who are in the way. In other words, he is coming to hold human beings accountable, to determine who is on the side of life and who is not, and to clear away those who are not, so that he and the ones who indeed are bearing fruit, that life-giving wheat, can get on with God’s work of feeding a starving world. And it is not that he hates the chaff; it’s nothing personal; it is not that he is out to get or to punish the dead wood. He is simply recognizing the truth, the fact, that they have no real life in them.1
You see, you and I have been put on this earth to bear fruit. We are alive in this moment! We have been given the gift of life, and this gift has been given for a divine purpose. We have each been entrusted with something very precious. Inside every one of us is something that is life-giving, something of unique and infinite value, and something that is needed in the world, something that truly is needed, in our family, in our church, in our neighborhood, our school, our workplace, our community. This something is the “wheat” we are meant to bring forth in our lives and to share as bread for one another and as bread for our hungry world. And John the Baptist’s message is simply that one day we will be held accountable for what we have done or not done with this life God has given us. And, at the conclusion of John’s fiery sermon, our lesson ends, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”
Good news - really? And why, according to scripture, would large crowds flock to hear such a message. Well, as one person put it, “It seems to me that sometimes good news must come dressed in rough clothing.”2 Sometimes the blunt truth must be spoken. Sometimes “tough love” is the kind of love that is truly needed. Sometimes the word “No” has to be spoken to clear the way before we are able to say a wholehearted “Yes.” I know people are doing a lot of entertaining this time of year and as someone observed, people have very different approaches to preparing for company. Some people actually clean house. Others are more inclined just to hide things in closets or under the rug and hope they won’t be found. John the Baptist wanted God’s people to clean house. And, one way or another, the crowds did flock to hear him. Largely, I think, because they must have felt, in the integrity of his message, an opportunity which they had sought for a long time. His was a message of judgment; but in the judgment was an opportunity. And this opportunity was wrapped up in the word repent.2
Because, at the heart of it, John’s message of repentance is a message of hope. John was telling people they need not remain as they were - telling us we need not remain as we are. We do not have to stay stuck in the same place, stuck in the same patterns. We are not finally held captive to our failures, our past, our inadequacies, our poor choices. For thanks be to God, we can repent. Frederich Buechner says, “To confess our sins to God is not to tell Him anything He doesn’t already know. Unless you confess them, however, they become the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the bridge.” We can repent. The good news is we can change direction. We can start over. Wouldn’t you hate to live in a world where there was no chance to repent? “In a sense, you could define hell as a place where there is no possibility of repentance. That’s what makes it hell; there’s no way out, no way across the abyss, no chance to get rid of the accumulated garbage of life and start over. Because, inevitably, every human life will accumulate a certain amount of garbage. No matter how faithfully and thoughtfully we try to live, we do indeed make mistakes, we make poor decisions, we get into bad habits, we say things we shouldn’t have said and do things we shouldn’t have done, we sin and we carry regret. But, the good news, thanks be to God, is that there is something better than regret. There is something better than regret. Repentance is a divine opportunity, a way to look the past in the eye, confess it for what it is, and leave it behind. Which is a way to take all that emotional energy of regret and remorse, all of that emotional energy that is tied up in the past, and bring that energy back into the present moment of our living - and make a new start. And perhaps this is why people flocked to hear the message of John the Baptist - and this is why it can be called ‘good news.’ (J.E. Kalas, paraphrase)
But apparently, it is not enough just to come to church on a Sunday and keep living the same old life Monday through Saturday. It is not enough to say, “we have Abraham as our ancestor.” It’s not enough to say “I was confirmed 30 years ago,” or “I’m a cradle Episcopalian,”or “my family has been part of the church for generations.” That is second hand faith, and that’s not the point. The only point, according to John, is to live it. First-hand. To practice our faith in our daily life and in our relationships. To bear fruits worthy of repentance. To bear fruits which give active witness to our living relationship with the living God.
“What then should we do?” the crowd asks him. What then should we do? John’s answer is startlingly clear. He says, act your way into repentance. Don’t just talk your faith - walk it. Walk in love. Live your faith. Bear fruits worthy of repentance. And, as to specifics, after all the fiery rhetoric, John’s specifics are strangely moderate and practical. John the Baptist calls for simple practical acts of compassion, generosity, care and loving-kindness. If you have two coats, share with someone who has none. If you have more than enough food, share with someone who is hungry. Just live your faith in small, concrete acts of compassion, generosity, integrity, care and kindness toward the people around you in the context of your daily life. Love now. This is what repentance looks like. On a daily basis, in word and deed, loving God, loving those particular people God has given you to love, loving your neighbor as yourself. Loving now.
Notice what John does not say. He does not tell them to flee society or withdraw from the world. He does not demand that anyone leave the life they are presently living, even the hated tax collectors and Roman soldiers. He tells them, bear fruit in the life you have been given to live. Here and now. Sometimes people imagine that repentance would mean we have to quit our jobs, or move to Africa, or join a monastery, or move to the desert, or divorce all our current relationships and go find a whole new set of relationships in a new place. Perhaps, something in us wants to make a really fresh start in a new place with really fresh people. The only problem with this approach is that we have to take our “self” with us. It is to that “self” that John wants to speak.3 He says, “Repent yourself; turn your life and your heart in a new direction right here and now. Prepare the way of the Lord in the life you are living, prepare the way of the Lord to come among your own family, in your own church, your own neighborhood, your own workplace, your own community.” Bear fruit in the life you are living. Here and now. Change what you can change. Do what you can do. Embody God’s love in the present circumstances of your life. Make love visible in the world, through simple deeds of kindness, honesty, integrity, generosity, compassion and care, right here, in this life you have been given to live.
Some of you will remember the story of Rabbi Zusya, who said: “When I face the judgment of God, in the world to come, God will not ask me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ God will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” Why did you not fully live the unique and particular life I gave you to live? Why did you not bear fruit in the place I planted you? Why did you not fully love the people I gave you to love? Why did you not share the abundance I shared with you? Why did you not express fully the faith and the love I planted in your heart? Why did you not live fully the life I gave you to live?
Advent is a season in which we are invited to face ourselves, to stop being “half-hearted” about our faith and our life. To separate that in us which is wheat from that which is chaff. To face that in us which has prevented us from bearing the fruit God intends for our life - and to repent.
Some of you will remember Elizabeth O’Connor’s little essay entitled “The Hulled Heart.” She writes, “Early one morning, in a dream, I was addressed by a voice. It asked, ‘what are you doing?’ And in the dream I answered, ‘I am hulling my heart.’ The voice asked, ‘why?’ And I answered, ‘Because I believe God has need of a hulled heart.’ And when she awoke from the dream, she pondered that image, that metaphor, the hulled heart. She says, ‘I thought first of pulling green leaves off strawberries so that the fruit may be eaten. But hulling means more than that. We have to strip corn and grain of the hard outer husks in order to reach the fruit hidden within.’” Then she ask the questions that I hope all of us will ponder today. “What are the hard protective outer casings around my own heart that must be stripped away to reach the hidden grain? What are the outer wrappings that keep the essence of my life from becoming bread for others and bread for the world?”
Advent is a season in which we are invited to stop being “half-hearted” about our faith and our life. To separate that in us which is wheat from that which is chaff. To face that in us which has prevented us from bearing the fruit God intends for our life - and to repent. To confess the past and let go of that which burdens our hearts, to turn again toward God and to begin anew. To prepare the way. How better can we prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ coming than by clearing away the distractions, the trivia, the mistakes and troubles of past days, and open our hearts this day to make a clear highway for our God?
John the Baptist is right. At some point we will be held accountable for the life we have been given. Ultimately, the wheat will be separated from the chaff in us. We will be judged. But the Good News is that our salvation depends, finally, not on our own goodness but on the goodness of the one who is judging, who, in Christ, it turns out, is not a fearsome stranger, but a most intimate friend who loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love. And his fire, it turns out that his fire will not be the fire of damnation, but the fire of Divine Presence, the fire of Divine Love and the transforming flame of the Holy Spirit. And so, John’s call to repentance truly is Good News, because repentance is our great opportunity. Repentance is the very doorway - our heart is the doorway - through which God’s love in Christ comes into our life. And so this is our season of opportunity. And of course, we can repent at any hour, or every hour, but here we are at the best of all hours. Now is the time, here is the place, and this is the life God has given us to live. So, if you will, I invite you to pause for just a moment, perhaps close your eyes, and take a moment to acknowledge, confess and consciously let go of that in your heart which is “in the way,” say an ever-deeper “Yes” to God’s invitation to be “on the way,” open your heart and “prepare the way - prepare the way for the Lord “. Repent, and by the grace of God, begin again, begin afresh, begin anew. Thank God for the Good News of such an opportunity. And in the context of this good news, rejoice in the Lord, always; again I will say, rejoice.
1. Barbara Brown Tayler, paraphrase
2. J.E. Kalas
3. Borrowed