Coming Soon

Matthew 3:1-12    (NRSV) 

3 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 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.’”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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It is Peace Sunday.   At least, in our tradition the 2nd Sunday of Advent is called Peace Sunday.  In some others it is Faith Sunday.  Considering the number of Christian traditions and denominations, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are a number of different understandings and traditions around what these four Sundays should be called, what we should emphasize on that day, and how they should be observed.  I am grateful that our observance of Advent is not like the Eastern Orthodox, who abstain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil from November 15 until December 24.  And of course, some Christian traditions do not observe Advent at all because it is not mandated by or even mentioned in the Bible.  These differences in culture and tradition help explain why the Gospel reading chosen by the Revised Common Lectionary Committee to be read on this day is somewhat less than peaceful - John the Baptizer calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees, and any who are arrogant in the belief that they are the Chosen People of God, sons of Abraham, and that therefore they have nothing to worry about.  John speaks a different truth, trying to get their attention.  

When the order of the books of the Bible was determined - about 400 years after Christ - it was decided to place the book of the prophet Malachi as the last book of the Old Testament, right before Matthew’s description of the birth of Jesus.  God says through Malachi, ”See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.”  and,   “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.”  Matthew’s description of John the Baptizer can easily be seen as a fulfillment of prophecy, God’s messenger, Elijah returned.   So when John saw the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to be baptized, and thundered, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”, we only have to look back a few pages to Malachi to find the answer.   God speaks a warning to Israel, 

“Look, the day is coming,  burning like an oven.

All the arrogant ones and all those doing evil will become straw.

    The coming day will burn them,

says the Lord of heavenly forces,

        leaving them neither root nor branch.

But the sun of righteousness will rise on those revering my name;

        healing will be in its wings

            so that you will go forth and jump about like calves in the stall.”

Malachi speaks of the coming messenger as one who will purify the people, refining them like silver or gold are refined, in fire, so that all the impurities are removed.  John speaks similarly, of people treated like grain on the threshing floor, where the wheat is separated from the chaff and saved, while the chaff, that part of the grain that isn’t good to eat, is burned away by the fire of the Holy Spirit.   

Both of these prophets - Malachi and John - speak of need for repentance. Not just by those who are sinful in the eyes of the world, you know, the tax collectors and so on, but even and maybe especially, those who consider themselves religious people and therefore better than other people, like the Pharisee in Luke 18, who prayed ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”   Or like the woman who turned to her husband after saying goodbye to her guest with whom she had been happily gossiping about everyone for an hour or so, and said to him, “I know she is a good Christian woman, but I believe I am closer to God than she is.” Her husband replied, “I don’t think either of you are crowding him none.”  

Both John and Malaki make it clear that they are speaking to and about those who believe their position, their obvious religiosity, make them immune to punishment. Malachi says, “He is surely coming . . . but who can endure his coming?  He will purify the Levites, the ministers of God, refining them like gold or silver.” John gets even more direct, saying “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”    And we know this is true, because Christian consider ourselves to be the adopted children of Abraham.  As Paul said to the Romans, “not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants;  . . .This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.”  (Romans 9:6, 8) We are the children of the promise. 

Malachi counsels the people to “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.”  John calls the people to repentance.  He knows the Messiah is coming and he knows that it is not enough to give lip service to God.  It is not enough to be obedient to the 631 laws if the heart is filled with arrogance and judgement, and lacking in love for the other.   I heard the other day that some legislator has proposed a law that would make it a federal offense to feed the homeless.  If that were to become the law of the land, would we obey it?   Because I think that sometimes obeying the law is a greater sin than breaking it.  There already are laws against feeding the homeless in many cities around the country, and they are being disobeyed regularly by Christians who would rather follow Christ’s commands than humanity’s laws.  Because the higher law is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

Although we typically do not think of Advent as a time of repentance, there’s a reason this passage was selected for this particular Sunday instead of one of the stories leading up to the birth of Jesus.  The coming of the Christ, this gift from God, requires that we have space in our hearts to welcome the Child.  John and Malachi thunder at us, urging us to change our ways, to remove the impurities from our hearts, to give up all of those things which can separate us from the love of God.  

At this time of the year some of those things can be hard to give up.   We might not even think of them as sinful.  Gift giving is a good thing - unless it makes us behave in ways that are unhealthy.  If we are so focused on giving people gifts that we spend the rent money (which I have done), or max our credit cards (which I have done), or are so focused on shopping that we stop paying attention to our families and our jobs, this is not good or healthy.  If we are giving for the wrong reasons - because they gave us a gift last year and we think we need to give something of equal or higher value back - because we are worried about what people will think of us if we don’t - because we think giving gifts will buy their affection - this is not good.  And then of course there are all the holiday parties and foods. We over eat.  We eat things that are bad for us. Some may drink too much.  And afterwards we face health consequences, not to mention the annual New Year’s diet.   Again, not good or healthy.   All of these things cause stress and anxiety, and rob our hearts of peace.  

Advent is a time to repent, let go of these things - of greed, gluttony, fear of judgement, overspending, people pleasing.  Advent is the time to cast out all of those things so that we may receive the peace of the Lord.  It is time to prepare a place, to make room for our long expected Savior, for the Christ Child is coming soon.