Advent 3C, December 16, 2018; Luke 3: 7-18; Philippians 4: 4-7; Zephaniah 3: 14-20: Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM
Repenting,
rejoicing, and giving are the themes for this Sunday. Zephaniah did speak words
of comfort, but the people were in exile, refugees of an Old Testament kind. He
said peace and modest prosperity would return but only after the proud and
arrogant who flaunted their accomplishments and self-sufficiency against God were
removed. The words of rejoicing were spoken to the poor.
And Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from prison, encouraging them to rejoice and to be generous to all. Joy and generosity. Opening our hearts and lives to the peace of God which passes all understanding leaves no room for pettiness about possessions, control, and status which are the basis for most of our worries and tensions.
And then we get John the Baptist blasting away out there in the stubble-covered desert, surrounded by tinder-dry brushwood and rocks calling the people a brood of vipers, where if a spark started a desert fire, the snakes would slither out of their crannies and hiding spots and flee in fear of the flames.
The Jews thought of themselves as safe from judgment because of their status as the God’s chosen. But John said no! Reminiscent of last weeks words, this week we hear strong images: fire chasing the snakes from their hiding holes; axes chopping down trees; and a flat, wooden, shovel-like tool tossing grain and grain dust into the air, sifting and separating the useless from the worthy. Once again, we reminded that the love and the judgment of God go together. God doesn’t allow us to be worthless but will instead purify us. For love’s sake God is relentlessly stern with everything in us that is self-centered.
Rejoicing might be easier if John the Baptist’s words were not so very concrete. Most of us, after all, have a lot of shirts, and money in the bank to buy more. Six years ago, I preached on this text in another congregation. I asked the people what would happen if those of us who had two cars rushed out to give one of them to family who needed one. I asked, “What would happen if those who have a second home were motivated by the Baptist’s words to find a homeless family who might be settled there? Let your imaginations go wild…” I challenged. “What would it be like to give away the clothes from our closets, the food in our cupboards and our freezers? Would we find a peaceful simplicity and a full and true rejoicing? According to John the Baptist, then we would be ready for the day of the Lord.”
I can’t tell you how stunned I was when the next week when a woman shared with me, privately, what she and her husband had done. They owned a rental house in a small Minnesota town that was vacant. A friend of her sister’s had lost her job and was living in a shelter in Minneapolis. They moved her into their vacant house for the winter. And there was a different kind of joy that season. It was a tempered joy—because the homeless woman’s challenges continued and the solutions were not easy—but there was joy.
I read a story in the Christian Century Magazine this week by Austin Crenshaw Shelley. He wrote about growing up with his grandparents in a 500 square foot home in South Carolina. His grandpa reviewed all expenditures, except the grocery shopping which was entirely up to his grandma. Though they never went hungry, there was good reason to be frugal.
Every Saturday Austin went with his grandma into town and pushed their cart up and down the aisles while she carefully selected food in duplicate—two boxes of cereal, two jars of peanut butter, two bags of flour—until as he said, “our cart looked like an abstract rendering of Noah’s ark with its produce and nonperishable food items arranged two by two.”
Afterwards they drove straight to the town’s food bank, where his grandmother would donate exactly half of everything she’d just purchased. She bought his silence each week with a small candy bar, which was not immune to her rule: one chocolate treat for him, one for the food bank.
He remembered on one of these grocery trips, when he was eight or nine years old, he asked for a name-brand cereal he’d seen advertised. “We can’t afford that one,” she replied without looking up from her list. “We can if we don’t buy two of them,” he grumbled. Grandma met his eyes, put her list down so she could place her hands firmly on his shoulders. She measured her words carefully: “If we can’t afford two, we can’t afford one.”
Was their weekly grocery run a direct response to John the Baptist’s words? “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, whoever has food must do likewise.” Austin reflects: “Given my grandmother’s tendency to interpret scripture more literally than I, the odds are favorable that John’s exhortations laid an unavoidable claim on her heart—a claim that required her obedience through concrete action.”
It’s all too easy to rationalize the claim of the gospel on our lives. Like John the Baptist’s hearers who relied on God’s covenant with Abraham, we lean heavily on Jesus’ promises of forgiveness and grace, often ignoring our responsibility to love our neighbors. “What shall we do?” ask the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers in this passage. We try to wiggle our way out of those demands for ethical living by claiming a figurative reading of the text. Or we abstract the prophet’s words from the reality of our lives and the lives of others. We talk a good game. But most of us, myself included, buy a single box of the more expensive cereal.
The question at the heart of this text is not “What shall we believe?” It’s– “What shall we do?” John’s response is clear. Repentance has to do with ethics, with action, with the Holy Spirit’s compelling us to be God’s hands and feet in the world—with attention to the needs of others rather than preoccupation with our own salvation.
Austin Crenshaw Shelly concludes his article with these words: By the world’s measure, my understanding of John’s preaching is more nuanced than my grandmother’s. But no advanced degree in theology will ever come close to her faith. “What shall we do?” the people ask the prophet. Sometimes we like to pretend the answer is complicated. Sometimes it really is. But buying two bags of flour is a good start.
I think he’s right. God asks us to
share what we have been given, not to share more than we have been given. This
is something I know I need to relearn again and again.
Everything we have is a gift from God, even the gift of life. And these
gifts have been given to us to use and then to give away. That’s how true rejoicing
comes. John says that those who have two coats or more food than they need
should give to those who have none.
Rejoice in the great goodness of our God, who uses peace and joy and love to win us. Let’s live in the light of that joy. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice! Amen.