St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church
Year C, Advent 3: Luke 3:7-18
Jonathan Hanneman
12/16/2018
“And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’….tax collectors…asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’….Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’
Advent is a strange time of year. It doesn’t really fit into the secular calendar at all anymore. The church calendar isn’t a whole lot better about it—after all, we just celebrated the reign of Jesus on Christ the King Sunday four weeks ago. Now we’re preparing for another coming? Even the lectionary readings seem to be of a split mind about the season. Today we heard a whole lot of “Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!” followed immediately with a pretty harsh “Repent! Repent! Repent!” That conflict seems to sum up the dueling faces of the season.
So what is this season about? Should we rejoice? Or should we repent?
Unfortunately, as is often the answer when faced with two disparate choices, our response ends up being a questioning, “Yes?”
Because Advent, although one season, really does have two faces. We are preparing for something: the coming of the King. And that leads to rejoicing. But I can think of at least two kinds of rejoicing. In one kind, we celebrate the good that’s happening: Jesus is coming! The King is coming! “The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.” “Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.”
Then there’s the other kind of rejoicing, the one that looks forward to seeing others get what they deserve, the kind that looks back to our Old Testament passage and focuses in on “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time,” imagining a variety of ways that they’ll get theirs.
And that kind of rejoicing, that sort of halfway malicious glee, although familiar to all of us, is a big part of the problem. In fact, that sort of rejoicing is going to end up in major disappointment, because the King who is coming for Christmas isn’t really that kind of king.
Last week Fr. David talked about the calling of John the Baptist and John’s subsequent call for us to join him in the wilderness. And join him the people do, crowds and crowds of them. They’re all expecting something big. The Bible tells us that “the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah.” They’ve heard the call. They’ve followed John into the wilderness, but what kind of hope are they looking for? It turns out they’re not looking for the Way of Love. Instead, they seem to be expecting the Way of Power, the kind of deliverance that comes when someone bigger and stronger shows up to beat up the bully. They want a Messiah, but they want a particular kind of Messiah—one who fulfills their desires, who will be a warrior for their definition of “God,” who will demand justice and will impose peace upon the world, whether or not anybody wants it.
How often is that our own expectation of Jesus? How often do we follow God because of what we think we’ll get out of it—particular answers to particular prayers or the heavenly life God promises to the faithful? Or maybe we’re among those who hope that, as the obvious good guys (we are on God’s side, after all), we’ll finally get to see the bad guys get their punishment. Are we too preparing for the wrong Messiah?
No matter our stance, John has the same message for us today that he had for the people back then: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” John knows what the coming of the Lord is like, and it isn’t necessarily something to look forward to. You see, John paid attention to Israel’s earlier prophets. He heard Joel announce, “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” He saw Amos nod in worried agreement, “Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?” Even Zephaniah, who gave us today’s beautiful Old Testament passage, said, “That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
The people have followed John into the wilderness, which is a good thing. But they, like us, may have come for the wrong reason. They came to see justice served, but instead they’re receiving a warning. They came hoping for victory, but now John is giving them a simple yet surprising message: repent.
Repent!
Repent?
“And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’….tax collectors…asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’….Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’”
Repent.
It’s a word we don’t like to hear—a word that conjures up images of strange people with signs about the end of the world or maybe the ones at the Westlake Christmas tree lighting shouting hateful things through their megaphones. But “repent” doesn’t need to be a dirty word, not even for Episcopalians. Because you know what it means? It isn’t something dramatic and exciting. It isn’t about screaming and wailing and yelling out your sins so that everyone and God will know how bad you’ve been. You know what it really means?
“Turn around.”
That’s it, just “turn around.”
The people have come to the wilderness, “fleeing the wrath to come.” But now John is telling them to turn around.
“And the crowds asked him, ‘What then shall we do?’”
Turn around.
“Tax collectors asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’”
Turn around.
Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?”
The answer is the same: turn around. You want to flee the wrath to come? Turn around—and look at your neighbor. Because John knows a simple fact about the Kingdom of Heaven, the coming Kingdom of Jesus. God’s Kingdom, God’s economy, doesn’t work like ours.
In our economy, people hoard up money and possessions. But what does John tell the people who come to him? “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” In our economy, people press for the best, even cruel, deals and call that “winning.” But John tells the tax collectors, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” In our economy, we’re always struggling to get ahead, always needy, always greedy, always wanting more. But John says to the soldiers, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” That’s what repentance looks like: turn around and see your neighbor. Share what you have. Charge a fair price. Be kind, and be content. Do you want to participate in the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you want to flee from the wrath to come? Then don’t just hide in the middle of nowhere waiting for the apocalypse to pass you by. Return to your house. Return to your neighborhood. Return to your city. Then live out what you’ve learned in the wilderness. Live justly. Live humbly. And live kindly. Live the Way of Love.
I’m often proud of St. Dunstan’s and the good work you all do. My classmates are impressed when I bring our church up in case studies. (Because despite being away for two-and-a-half years and seeing a whole bunch of new faces here today, you’re still our church!) You’ve responded to John’s call, maybe before you even knew you heard it. You feed the homeless and the hungry. You welcome your lonely neighbors. You show the genuine love of Christ to the community. But I wonder what more we can do—what else God is calling us toward together. From a distance, it’s hard for me to say. But in this time of Advent, in this time of preparation for the coming Kingdom, maybe that’s our call. We’ve been to the wilderness. Now we can bring back even more of the Way of Love to our houses, our neighborhoods, and our cities. Let’s all turn around—let’s all continue to repent—together. We can continue to share. We can find even more ways to be fair and generous. We can keep being kind to those around us.
Now that’s the kind of repentance that leads to rejoicing.
*****
Almighty God, who called John the Baptist and the people of Israel into the wildness, and who continues to call the Church today: give us the will again to repent; help us to turn to our neighbors, giving of ourselves in kindness and love; let us live as the citizens of your new Kingdom that we are; give us the strength to love and serve you in new and imaginative ways; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, lives and reigns in truth and mercy for ever and ever. Amen.