Göttinger Predigten
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2. Advent, 12/05/2010
Sermon on Matthew 3:1-12, by Frank C. Senn
We're in a new church year. I always look forward to a new church year (in fact, to any kind of new beginning) because it is an opportunity to make changes, especially in myself. And I look forward to the season of Advent because of its message of hope. The hope is that change is possible.
The presupposition is, of course, that change is needed. I can't imagine anyone who is so content with their life or with the world in which we live that they don't think anything needs to be changed. And yet as I look back over all the new church years in the past and all the Advent seasons I have lived through, I realize how difficult change is, especially in myself but also in the community in which I live and in the world itself. Change is difficult because of the weakness of the flesh, no matter how willing the spirit is, and because there are things going on in my life (like my schedule) and in the world over which I have little control.
Now that could lead me to despair. I could just resign myself to the situation and assume that the changes I would like to make in my life are not possible. I could give free rein to the flesh, to my desires, and get whatever pleasures and benefits I can out of life without worrying about the effects on me or on anyone else. If I cannot overcome my own weaknesses, or fight the forces in the world around me, I might just as well acquiesce to them.
Or, alternatively, I could respond to this recognition of my own powerlessness by entrusting my future to another whose power is greater than mine, and live in anticipation of the changes which will be wrought in me by the other. Now that is nice and easy to say in theory. The challenge is to make sure that I'm not kidding myself with this talk about entrusting myself to God even though I'm really succumbing to despair and a life of selfishness.
I guess the first thing I need to decide is whether I or we could do without any change. Certainly the economy is not what we would like it to be. Many of us are living in an unsustainable indebtedness, and that includes most units of government. And the earth itself needs care that it is not receiving if life as we have known it is to continue, let alone be the world God created it to be. We entrust many of these issues to our political leaders, but I don't have a lot of confidence that any of our elected leaders have the will to do the unpopular things that will address our precarious situation. We may be at the point at which the situation is so politically intractable that we need a messianic ruler such as the one Isaiah envisioned, "a shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse" (Jesse was King David's father), on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests; someone whose rule is so beneficial that the creation itself is at peace with itself-"wolves lying down with lambs" and all that.
Short of messianic intervention, how are we to respond? Even if we don't scale up all the way from the personal to the cosmic, we find the same challenge at various levels and in various institutions. You would think that the Christian Church would have the resources in its message and mission to harness forces of change, but the Church in the western world is itself in a desperate situation and in need of change. Congregations big and small and denominations and even world wide communions operate with entrenched cultures that make them powerless to bring about the changes that are needed to make relevant ministry and mission possible.
The problems at these various levels of reality are somewhat inter-related. Part of the reason the churches are so ineffective is because so many of us church members use Christian worship and fellowship to soothe our own spiritual and psychological pains rather than to present an alternative vision of the world. We talk the talk of putting our trust in God for the salvation of the world and of our souls, but for most of the week we are desperately trying to save ourselves by holding together the growing demands of our jobs (or finding another job) and the family (or picking up the pieces of a shattered family) and paying the mortgage and maintaining the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed, and running on the treadmill of life ever faster and harder because we are sure that if we fall behind we will slip through the widening cracks in the fabric of our society and slide into the hell of redundancy or total breakdown.
Our Advent readings speak a message of hope against these frightening scenarios, but it is a hope that doesn't remove the challenge. It is a hope that continues to call us to entrust ourselves and our world to God and then to actually live on the basis of that hope, rather than talking the talk while living in despair.
The Apostle Paul tells us that the scriptures which were written in former days, were written for our benefit, so that by their encouragement and by steadfastness we might have hope. And the example we have heard today of the scriptures written before the time of Paul to encourage us and give us hope, the passage from the prophet Isaiah, gives us this extraordinarily utopian vision of a world of such peace and harmony that a snake pit becomes a safe place for children to play. There is no hurting or destroying in God's holy place, and the world is full of justice and righteousness and wisdom and understanding. What can we say before such a vision but "Come, Lord Jesus, Come!", because we know who this messianic ruler is whose coming Isaiah proclaims.
But what are we actually to do with such a vision? How is it to be anything other than a cloud of fantasy to stick our heads in when the harsh realities of this life threaten to overwhelm us? Because, after all, we are completely powerless to bring it about. Our best efforts are seldom enough to get the members of our own families to lie down in peace, let alone wolves and lambs, or Democrats and Republicans, or Catholics and Protestants, or Israelis and Palestinians.
All our evangelism and social welfare initiatives and political activism and United Nations conventions and conflict resolution workshops have not seemed to make a dent in the tide of hatred and hostility and despair that inflicts our world. What are we to do with a vision that so successfully eludes our best efforts?
The answer, according to John the Baptist, is "Repent". Now to many people that sounds like beating yourself up. The language of repentance has come to be caricatured in cartoons in which some guy in a long beard wearing a long robe and sandals is holding a sign that says "Repent." Repent of what and do what? The sign doesn't say. But because we know we haven't done the best we could, the mere word might make us feel guilty or even ashamed.
"Repent" doesn't sound like good news. But John's message of repentance must have sounded like good news to those who came out into the wilderness to be baptized by him, because they came in droves. Oh, to be sure, John was not popular with the entrenched hierarchies, so perhaps when he said "Repent" they heard it differently than the people who came out to hear John. The word "repent" simply means to turn around, to change direction; and entrenched powers never like change.
"Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven has come near," says John. This is not "repent" as in "give up everything that's good in life." This is "repent" as in "don't miss the boat. Don't miss the opportunity of a life time. The Kingdom of Heaven is near, so don't get left behind when the Messiah comes." This is not being "left behind" on the earth while all Christ's people get snatched up to him in the rapture. This is not being left out of Christ's administration when he comes to judge the living and the dead and rule the world.
So repentance is not a matter of being naughty or nice. It's about altering our expectations and realigning our lives so that we are in line with an alternative reality that is coming into the world-the kingdom of the returning-in-glory Christ. This is about reorienting our lives because we have encountered one who has risen from the dead and thus blown away all our previous expectations of what might be possible. This is about placing our hope in Christ, here and now, and beginning to live accordingly.
But if by "hope" we just mean a vague wish that one day everything might change for the better, then we'll probably be back to kidding ourselves; talking the talk while still living in despairing slavery to the dominant lifestyles of the society around us. The "hope" to which we are called is a much more powerful and life reorienting thing than that. We are called to a hope that is a bold and forceful protest against the cynicism and callousness and greed of our society. We are called to a hope that refuses to be sucked into the dominant ideology of capitalism with its constant message that we dare not entrust ourselves to anything but what we can manufacture and purchase and control.
This is not so much about looking forward to the day when all will be well as about living now in anticipation of that day. John does not say "Repent for the kingdom of heaven will come near." He says, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near." In Jesus the reign of God in the world has begun. In the resurrection of Christ, the powers of death and despair have been broken. In the pouring out of his Holy Spirit, we have been set free to live under the new order. In bread and wine at this table, we taste the first fruits of the coming joy. The kingdom is now, and the fact that we still live surrounded by the unwitting subjects of another defeated kingdom need not deter us from celebrating the victory of our coming king here and now.
And celebrate we will. Another Christmas is coming and we will celebrate the Word of God made flesh and dwelling among us full of grace and truth against all the false advertising of the material things we need to make our lives complete. We will celebrate because we know that we are powerless to turn the world around or even take a stand against the hostile takeover of Christmas by consumer capitalism, but in our celebration we will show a better way and a better world and maybe even save capitalism in the process. We will celebrate because we are being turned around by the One who is turning the world around as we hear the gospel stories. We will celebrate because next to the resurrection of the crucified one, the lion laying down with the lamb is a piece of cake. We will celebrate by loving one another and resisting the script that says we should see one another as competitors. We will celebrate by joyously refusing to live in fear and isolation and desperate selfishness. We will celebrate not because we are under any illusion that by our efforts we can make ourselves better or make the world a better place, but because we are greeting the coming of the One who can and will.
Christ is born. Jesus is risen. The Spirit is poured out. The banquet of the kingdom is served. And the new creation is realized among us. Amen.