This sermon is from Del Glick, senior pastor at WCF and was delivered on December 13, 2009. The birth imagery was hard for me to hear given our own recent and tragic birthing story, but I found it also to be a powerful image which Del draws from near the end of the sermon. And while I may take issue with the potential for reductionism in the midwife's phrase in the story from Elizabeth Myer Boulton ("This is what you were created to do") I don't think it needs to be read that way.

Advent III, December 13, 2009:  Bursting in and breaking out! Rejoice!  God turns us around.
Scriptures:  Isaiah 12:1-6, Zephaniah 3:14-20, Luke 3:7-18, Philippians 4:4-7
Sermon title:  What should we do?
Del Glick, senior pastor

INTRODUCTION

I invite you to stand with me . . . and if you are physically able, I would like for each of you to turn around and face the back of the church.

The Lord be with you . . .
And also with you!

Listen to these words from Ann Weems in her book, Kneeling in Bethlehem:
When the Holy God is born into our hearts
there is a rain of stars   
a rushing of angels
a blaze of candles
this God burst into our lives.
Love is running through the streets.

The season of Advent is so much like Ann describes . . . life coming at us very, very fast with stars raining, angels rushing, candles blazing, songs reverberating, shepherds worshiping, kings gifting and parents caring . . . this loving God who initiates and orchestrates this awesome event sets love loose and running through the streets and into our hearts.  Advent is a God burst.  God breaks in at Advent. 

The Advent season, as I reminded us last week, highlights a God who allows us to start over, again and again, as God’s truth bursts in and God’s grace breaks out.  This Advent God intersects our human stresses and sinful conditions.  This God of Christmas walks the pain of sickness and surgery and the unknown and shares the joy of birth, health and the future reign of the kingdom of heaven.

So rejoice my sisters and brothers . . . God calls us to repent, to walk the path of peace and to live God’s dream of justice, shalom and righteousness for our redemption is near!  But God calls us to turn around!  And you may do that now . . .

The Lord be with you . . .
And also with you.

You may be seated.

If we thought of this Advent season, or any Advent season, as same old, same old . . . we are in for a shocker.  Advent, probably more than any other season of the church year, is so full of surprises, twists and turns and the unexpecteds.  Only if we wake up and are alert can we grasp the revolutionary nature of the coming of God into our stables and streets as a baby.

Back to Ann Weems:
Even now we simply do not expect
to find a deity in a stable.
Somehow the setting is all wrong:
the swaddling clothes too plain,
the manger too common for the likes of a Savior,
the straw inelegant,
the animals, reeking and noisy,
the whole scene too ordinary for our taste.
And the cast of characters is no better.
With the possible exception of the kings,
who among them is fit for this night?
the shepherds:  certainly too crude,
the carpenter too rough,
the girl too young.
And the baby!
Whoever expected a baby?
Whoever expected the advent of God in a helpless child?
Had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory
of a legion of angels wielding golden swords,
the whole world could have been conquered for Christ
right then and there
and we in the church—to say nothing of the world!—
wouldn’t have so much trouble today.
Even now we simply do not expect
to face the world armed with love.

But I’m jumping too quickly ahead to Christmas because the story of Zach and Liz last Sunday is still setting the Advent stage in the birth of their John who is the preparer of the way of the Lord.  Hold on to your theological socks and hats this morning because John’s way of preparing is not what any of us expected!

For a few moments let me direct my comments to the thirty women or so in this congregation who are mothers and who have experienced child birth . . . those of us who are fathers know a minuscule slice of what that looks and feels like and the rest of us need to use our best imaginations.  I tell this experience from the first-hand perspective of Elizabeth Myer Boulton, minister for discipleship at Old South Church in Boston.  But for the moms here this morning, it may well duplicate your birthing experience.

Pregnant women preparing to give birth do a lot of breathing through their teeth:  “Hee, hee, hoo.  Hee, hee, hoo.  Hee, hee, hoo.”  The birthing instructor said this breathing would help mitigate the pain of labor, and it does, until women hit that thing called transition, the most intense phase of labor when even the strongest women momentarily lose faith in their ability to bring new life into the world.

I was no exception, says Elizabeth Boulton.  After six solid hours of labor, transition arrived and I grabbed my husband by the collar of his shirt, pulled him close and groaned loudly, “I can’t do this anymore!”  Then I took hold of the midwife, “It’s too hard.  I can’t do it!”

The midwife looked at me with a clear, steady gaze and spoke in a voice as ancient as Shiphrah’s and Puah’s:  “Elizabeth, you ARE doing it.  Right now.  This is what you were created to do—and you’re doing it.”  So we breathed and I pushed and after some of the most painful, difficult hours, a slippery little baby came into the world.  We took one look at him and fell in love.

Elizabeth continues with her story:  I was proud of my body when I was pregnant.  “I’ve gained 60 pounds,” I’d say to strangers and friends alike, “and no stretch marks! Can you believe it?  I weigh over 200 pounds and no stretch marks!”

Well, vanity has a way of catching up with you.  After that little baby slipped into the world and my stomach was as empty as the tomb on Sunday morning, I saw them:  bright blue stretch marks hiding on my abdomen and, to my horror, creeping down my thighs.

TEXT

In Luke 3, John the Baptist is calling for a change as radical and potentially challenging as childbirth.  Can you see him?  He’s the red-faced, bearded preacher standing thigh-high in the waters of the River Jordan, yelling at the crowds who came out to be baptized, “You brood of vipers, you bunch of snakes!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce fruit in keeping with your repentance!”

That event would be very similar to several youth and a number of adults coming to me wanting to be baptized and I would go into this tirade, “What a brood of snakes you are!  What do you think you’re doing slithering up here to my office wanting to get baptized?  Do you think a little water on your snake skins is going to deflect God’s judgment?  It’s your life that must change, not your skin.  And don’t think just because you grew up here at WCF or have parents that have been members for 20 years gives you the inside track.  WCF members are a dime a dozen.  God can make members from stones if he wants.  What counts is your life.  Is it green and blossoming?  Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”

This is not the emotional, misty-eyed, altar-call style of repentance most of us grew up with as a child.  This is a call to metanoia, the Greek word for a fundamental change of heart, soul, mind . . . and behavior.  It’s a 180 degree turnaround like we all executed at the beginning of this sermon.

For John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord, meant preaching true repentance which “bears fruit” in lives patterned after the God who, in Zephaniah’s song of restoration, “saves the lame, gathers the outcast and transforms shame into praise.”  What’s more, John insists, the stakes are high, for every tree that does not bear this kind of fruit will be “cut down and thrown into the fire.” (vs. 9)

Our response is the same today as it was for those in the crowd 2,000 years ago:  What then shall we do?  What should we do?

Well, let’s start with where we are.  ‘Tis the season of mobbed malls, traffic jams, credit card debt, stress-filled busyness, exhaustive to-do lists, dysfunctional relatives and clothes that used to fit.  How can we slow down?  How can we simplify?  How can we start “turning around” when we Americans spend $450 billion on Christmas every year?

John’s answer is simple:  “Whoever has two shirts or coats must share with the one who has none; and whoever has food must do the same.”

Didn’t we all think that preparing the way of the Lord was more about right doctrine, sound theology and faithful discipleship?  Come on John, you’re avoiding the real issues of the in breaking of the kingdom of God!  But John’s answer is profoundly and paradoxically simple:  share your extra garments and your surplus food.  Yet it’s not so simple.  I don’t know about you, but I have more than one coat.  In fact, I have more than two!

Something deep down inside of me doesn’t buy it when, in an impressive gesture of Christmas generosity, I drop off a coat and several shirts and other clothes (which no longer fit or I no longer like) at Goodwill or the Salvation Army.

John’s preaching, remember this is preparatory preaching (!), cuts like an ax to the bone.  Jesus is no picnic either.  Can you see him, that preacher/rabbi standing among baskets of leftover bread and fish, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  (Luke 9:23)  Can you hear him, counseling not only that rich young ruler but you and me, “Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  (Luke 18:22)

The tax collectors on the banks of the Jordan ask the same question to John the Baptist as do the crowds, “what should we do?”  As do the soldiers.  Interestingly, John does not tell them that they must leave their professions.  We might expect this advice in light of the generally radical nature of John’s language and message or of his dad’s prophetic hymn of being guided in the path of peace.  But this is not the case.  Instead of leaving their vocations, they are, within the parameters of their occupations, to move toward practices of justice and non-violence.  Converted tax collectors are not to use deceit or extortion in their collection of taxes.  They are to collect no more than they have been assigned to collect.  Tax collectors were required to pay Rome in advance and then recoup their payment plus expenses.  The system was ripe for corruption.  Although John does not directly attack the taxation system, he effectively undermines its excesses and potential for misuse.

Converted, baptized soldiers are told not to use violence to take goods from people or to make false accusations in the fulfillment of their responsibilities.  Furthermore, they are to be content with their wages.   These soldiers were not Roman soldiers since no legions were deployed in the region at this time.  Probably they were Jewish militia serving Herod Antipas.  Or they could have been mercenaries as verse 14 implies since Julius Caesar had exempted Jews from being required to serve in Rome’s armies.  Again, while John does not attack the practice of military service as such, he effectively strips it of its potential for those who might use it to bully people or indulge their greed.

All this interaction between the Baptist and the crowds and ultimately us who also gather in preparation for Advent is enough to make us start breathing through our teeth:  “Hee, hee, hoo.”  It’s enough to make bright blue stretch marks appear upon our soul because repentance is not easy.  Christian discipleship is not easy.  We hear Zechariah, the Baptist’s father, commanding us to follow the path of peace.  We remember Isaiah telling us to beat our swords into plowshares.  We listen to the words of Jesus insisting we take up our cross daily and follow.  We encounter John on the banks of the Jordan telling us to share generously our coats and food.  All those prophecies and compelling invitations haunt us during this Advent season.  But obviously, just giving away a coat or two doesn’t mean we have repented.  But generosity, according to our scripture for today, indicates that we bearing fruit in keeping with our repentance. 

In several moments, and every Sunday here at WCF, we have opportunity to confess . . . I see this worship ritual as most essential in keeping our faith and relationship with God and each other up to date.  Repentance, is about a re-orientation.  A complete turning around.  A reordering of priorities, beliefs, actions and thoughts.  It is truly a 180.  A new direction.

The sins and behaviors and attitudes that attract us or to which we have our face focused on are now at our back and we are walking away from them.  We are rejecting and saying no to patterns of inappropriate actions and negative thinking we get sucked into because we are pursuing our sinful nature.  John is no uncertain terms and language that repentance is turning our back on all of that.  Repentance is a complete turn around . . . brothers and sisters, these are hard sayings and even harder actions which require deep commitment.

Which means there will come times we find ourselves taking hold of John the Baptist by his camel-hair collar and groaning loudly, “It’s too hard!  I can’t do it! Repentance is too difficult.  I can’t turn around.  There is no way I can reverse my steps and start facing the other direction.”

But think of it this way:  before John slipped Jesus into the water, before the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, John proclaimed the good news to the people:  “you do not have to do this alone!  One is coming who is more powerful than I, and that one will be a midwife to all the nations.  When you find yourself saying, “It’s too hard!  I can’t do it!” that one will look at you with a clear, steady gaze and speak in a voice as ancient as Shiphrah’s and Puah’s:  “You are doing it.  Right now.  This is what you were created to do—and you’re doing it.  Keep breathing.  Keep pushing!”

The new baby is on its way.  Can’t you feel it?  All creation is groaning as if in labor.  God’s new world is slipping into being even now, and with the Spirit’s help, we can play our part, breathing through our teeth, letting our skin be stretched and throwing the doors of our hearts wide open to change, difficult though it is to turn around. 

But in that turning around, there is rejoicing . . . like the new mother and new father who can rejoice after the hours and struggle, pain and labor.  And with our struggle, pain and labor to be faithful to the call of Jesus and to experience the shalom of salvation, we are reminded by our scriptures today to rejoice. 

Zephaniah invites us to rejoice because the Lord has taken away the judgments against us.  Isaiah’s thanksgiving reminds us that the Lord’s anger is turned away.  Paul’s joy is a defiant nevertheless which draws strength from the gospel story and from laying our deepest concerns before God with thanksgiving.  Rejoicing follows repentance. 

This rejoicing is not the euphoria that vanishes with the aroma of the drying Christmas tree but is rather the basis of our lasting joy as followers of Christ.  We learn to rejoice in God’s presence, even or especially when there seems little visible evidence to support it or even when breathing through our teeth!

Rejoice then people of God for the God who invites us turns us around is also the God who is there on the other side of the 180!

CONCLUSION

(Moments of silence to reflect on what does or what will “turning around” look like or be like for you).