Sermons

Dec 9 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - Second Sunday of Advent

2 Advent Dec. 9, 2007
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

This season of Advent is such a time of contrasts: the darkness of the winter solstice and the light of Bethlehem; the busy external preparation for the holidays and the quiet inner preparation for the holy child. Our readings from scripture today reveal this contrast.

On the one hand, we have comfort. From Isaiah, we hear of God’s intention for this world: the wolf shall live with the lamb, the lion and the calf shall lie down together, and a little child shall lead them. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

St. Paul echoes the theme in the second reading, calling the Christian community in Rome to live out God’s intention for them: May God grant you, he says, “to live in harmony with one another...may the God of peace fill you with all joy and peace.., so that you may abound in hope…” During the holidays we wish one another the same thing: harmony, joy, peace, and hope.

On the other hand, we have conflict. During this gentle season of Advent, this rude man, John the Baptist, always intrudes upon our calm. John came from a long line of Jewish prophets, and like the rest of them, he was loud and angry.
· He ate insects and wore animal skins, crying out in the wilderness, calling for repentance, daring to challenge the corruption of a local puppet king, and losing his head for doing so.
· John calls pious religious leaders a “brood of vipers,” who have no hope of fleeing from the wrath to come, for the ax is already sharpened, and the trees that bear no fruit – like them - will be cut down and burned.

Comfort and conflict; harmony and wrath; joy and a consuming fire. It’s all mixed up together in this complex season of Advent. So it should be, for the very meaning of the word “advent” is the approach of something new, and with God, new things always contain two dynamics: comfort and conflict. God is always loving and merciful, and God is always a burning fire. As it says in Psalm 85, Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other. With God, nothing new comes into being without both.

In the first advent when Jesus came into the world, he brought something new; he ushered in what he called the kingdom of God.
· This kingdom was a new way of looking at the Jewish religious life; it was a lifestyle where the poor - even the sinners - of the world were understood to have at least as much value as the wealthy and the upright.
· It was a way of life that placed every allegiance – to money, work, even to one’s own family - in a lesser place than one’s relationship to God.
· It was an outlook so grounded in God’s love and forgiveness that there was no point any longer in trying to appear better than one was.
· This kingdom was a place where every person was called to be a servant to the most vulnerable among us.
Now even though all of this was already an integral part of Jewish teachings, the way Jesus lived it out and communicated it was entirely new.

Jesus brought about this new thing partly with comfort, love and mercy. We like that side of Jesus. We know that he was gentle with the weak and merciful with sinners. We know that he healed the sick, assured people of God’s love, and reached out to children and outcasts. This is the Jesus of stained-glass windows, of Sunday school, of hymns like Jesus loves me, this I know.

We seek Jesus’ comfort in prayer, in the sacraments, and in many of our ministries.
· Right now, in addition to pastoral care that our clergy offer, we have Lay Eucharistic Ministers that go forth from this service to bring communion to elderly and sick parishioners;
· every day there are Intercessors who pray for members and family and friends of members in need;
· we have a Pastoral Care Guild that finds various ways of easing the burden for those in crisis, providing food, phone calls, and company.
We are well aware that all of this is central to both our individual faith life and the ministry of the church. And this is one part of Jesus’ advent.

But in order to bring in his kingdom, Jesus also had to bring conflict. He had to be stern and demanding of those who were self-protected, of those who were well assured of their own righteousness. He was especially hard on those who had no room in their hearts for those around them who suffered. Jesus was, at times, a hard and angry man, like his cousin John the Baptist.

· He vowed to symbolically tear down the great Temple in Jerusalem and every oppressive thing it stood for, overturning money-changers’ tables in a fit of rage.
· He bluntly told those who were attached to the things of this world that they could not inherit his kingdom.
· He called religious hypocrites “whitewashed tombs,” all clean and presentable on the outside, and nothing but ugly decomposition on the inside.
· Once he even turned away from his own mother and siblings in favor of his disciples, because, at the time, they didn’t accept or understand what he was doing.

This side of Jesus is hard for us to embrace. How many stained-glass windows have you seen of Jesus cracking his whip in the Temple? I don’t remember any Sunday school classes where they taught me that unless I hated my mother and father, I couldn’t be a part of Jesus’ kingdom. I can’t think even one hymn where we sing that the insides of our religious leaders are like rotting corpses.

This broad omission affects us. It makes both our individual faith and our church life unbalanced and insipid. When we get angry, we feel guilty, imagining that if we were really spiritual, we wouldn’t have such negative emotions. We hesitate to confront one another, and are uncomfortable when this happens in a church meeting. And when ministries or sermons go this direction, we wonder what it has to do with our faith.

But we need to be both pastoral and prophetic. If we are to usher in something of Jesus’ kingdom into this world, if we are to be a part of this advent of something new, it requires both mercy and truth, peace and righteousness. We need a little less of Jesus the kindly shepherd and a little more of Jesus the angry prophet.
· We should be upset about the racism in this country that raises its ugly head every time immigration gets used as the whipping-boy for political debates.
· We need to be blunt about the insanity of a pointless war whose only result is daily horror for innocent people and ill will for Americans abroad.
· We are called to speak out when our brothers and sisters go without healthcare or housing.
· It is appropriate to express outrage towards our leaders who are indifferent towards global warming.

I’m glad that as a parish we care for our members who are sick and pray for friends in crisis. I’m glad that we offer support to one another and a warm welcome to those who come in our door.

But I’m also glad that some of you agitate at the state house in Santa Fe for equal rights, and that others stand downtown as witnesses for peace. Frankly, I’d like to see as much emphasis on justice as we have on charity around here. I’d like to see more of us stirring things up, acting like John the Baptist.

And in your individual faith lives, I encourage the same thing. Not all anger is holy, to be sure, but some of it is. There are times when the most godly thing you can do is to say “No! I don’t like this and I’m not going to stand for it!” There are times when division in a family or a community needs to happen so that the truth can come out. This, too, is a part of our spiritual life.

Just as the first advent was ushered in with both the promise of peace and the cry of John the Baptist, so it is with all advents, all new things that God brings into being. That new era of better international relations or greater equality in our state that you hope for, that vision you carry in your heart for a freer and happier self?

They will come about with a godly combination of mercy and fire. Before it can be birthed, God must bring both comfort and conflict. Comfort helps us to be patient, to endure with peace the pain and struggle of life. But conflict helps us to move forward.

I don’t pretend that this is easy. Those of you who know me well know that this is not easy for me; I can preach about it, but it is the last thing I usually want to do personally. Some of us are more comfortable with discomfort than others.

But all of us, in some measure, are called into the complexity of our faith, into the complexity of this Advent season. By God’s grace, as the psalmist says, mercy and truth shall meet together; peace and righteousness will kiss each other.