SERMON FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT, DECEMBER 8, 2019 TEST: MATTHEW 3:1-12

Last week an email on the listserv described Enfield as the “little town with lots going on” this holiday season. There was the tree lighting and Christmas party for the kids Friday and yesterday’s Hometown Holidays and the brilliant display at the shrine running nightly through the month of December. It seems there is a craft fair every weekend with numerous opportunities to feed your face. There is snow crunching underfoot and crowning the decorations along Main Street to sparkling perfection. Preparing the way for Christmas — “prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

Oh my, what if John the Baptist had shown up by the banks of the Mascoma River in the midst of the festivities, challenging us to a Christmas countdown with acts of repentance? That would have made for a memorable article in The Valley News. It’s hard to imagine him finding a place in our Hometown Holidays activities. Yet John the Baptist is center stage in the scripture readings for the season of Advent — he’s the one coming to town and making the people keenly aware of who’s naughty and who’s nice. “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

I remember the anticipation of Christmas as a child. It couldn’t come fast enough. I counted down those days in December with the help of multiple Advent calendars. My brother Ralph by contrast stayed in the moment. By Christmas Eve I was so excited I could barely hold it together. That night Ralph and I slept on cots in our parents’ bedroom, having ceded our rooms to our visiting grandparents. I was such a hot mess I couldn’t fall asleep while he z’d off effortlessly. I was wide awake and ready to rumble before the crack of dawn. Ralph slept until I couldn’t stand it any longer and hounded him out of bed. He might be content to wait, but enough was enough!

Over the years I have come to appreciate my big brother’s ability to be patient rather than antsy, to be ready rather than hasty. It is the church’s way of approaching Christmas. The lectionary texts for Advent urge us to watch and wait, to be prepared and to repent. For despite the flush of celebration that surrounds us from Black Friday on, the church moves through Advent as a penitential time, akin to Lent. Both liturgical seasons advance with gravitas, restraining us from jumping too easily to the saving mysteries awaiting us on the horizon — the incarnation of our Lord, his crucifixion and resurrection. Both seasons require us to hold up and hold back, taking time to reexamine our lives in the ever-advancing light of God’s grace. That’s why John the Baptist shows up now. We have our eyes on a gentle nativity scene, humble Mary and her holy infant so tender and mild. John reminds us who that baby is: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 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." So you better watch out, you better not cry, and it won’t do you any good to pout. Get with the program, and bear fruit worthy of repentance. This is your wake-up call. Make this your come-to-Jesus moment.

John is right. Moreover, his aggressive, passionate appeal with its shades of hostility and threat, was obviously effective. “Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” But to my ears, anyway, John’s approach does not do repentance justice. It hardens it to a command and an obligation, when it is just as much an invitation and a gift. Repentance is not the thing you have to produce to keep God satisfied; it its God’s possibility for newness of life that you can make your own. It is more about living into divine love than avoiding divine wrath. John’s no-holds-barred proclamation gets your attention. His urgency is compelling. And there is no denying the need to be honest with ourselves and God about the fruit our lives are bearing, or not, as the case may be. Fire and brimstone can be energizing; they can also be paralyzing.

I remember the oral examination that followed the five written qualifying exams for my doctoral degree. I sat across from a panel of senior faculty members, men schooled in the art of academic assault. They asked questions, interrupted my answers, interrupted each other. The volume and intensity of the volley kept increasing. I could feel myself freezing up, panicking like a wee mouse surrounded by yowling cats. When challenged on some theological issue and pressed repeatedly to tell them what I thought, I finally did. “I think if you all would stop yelling at me and give me time to think, I would be able to answer.” So I hear John the Baptist’s cry. Then I step away from the crowd surrounding him so that I can repent out of hope, not fear. For God is not alone in wanting me to amend my life. I long for it too. But where to begin and how?

The word came to me this week from the voice of one crying out of a different wilderness, and the speaker was much better dressed than John the Baptist. It was indeed the Speaker who gave me direction, The Honorable Nancy Pelosi. As she was leaving the podium, after announcing that the House of Representatives would be voting on articles of impeachment, a reporter called out, “Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?” This part of her response opened the door for me: “And as a Catholic I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that was always a heart full of love and I always pray for the President. I still pray for the President. I pray for the President all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

I pray for people I care about, people I worry about. I pray for all kinds of people around the world I don’t even know. But I confess I do a poor job of praying for them “that despitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), as Jesus commands us to do, or for those who offend my sense of human decency, and who, frankly, I despise. So I’m trying an experiment this Advent, one change to prepare the way of the Lord in my life that could bear good fruit and bring needed healing. I come before God in prayer at least once a day with an unwelcome companion in mind. And I ask God to surround us with his peace and use us both in his wisdom to accomplish his will on earth. It is not a lot, but it is a step in a new and life-giving direction. That is often how repentance begins — a tiny mustard seed that then grows into a majestic tree (Matthew 13:31-32).

”Come to me, all you that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,” says Jesus. What burden do you carry that you would gladly lay down? Here is your chance. Now is the time in this season of preparation, as the star begins to ascend over Bethlehem. Amen.