News for you!
...Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays at 10 am December 23 and our Christmas Eve service at 5pm. Archdeacon Bette Kauffman will be assisting Father Riley for the Christmas Eve service! Please join us and invite others.
…Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer Sunday at 10am Dec 30 and Jan 6. Father Riley will return to lead us in Holy Eucharist Sundays Jan 13, 20; 27th. Our annual congregational meeting will follow our service on Jan 20th.
ADVENT III - C - 18 LUKE 3. 7-18
I remember a cartoon I once
saw that showed a skeptic shouting up to heaven, ‘God! If you are up there,
tell us what we should do!’ Back comes a voice: “Feed the hungry, house the
homeless, establish justice.’ The skeptic looking alarmed responded, ‘Just
testing.’ ‘Me too,’ replied the voice.
Last week John Baptist was
introduced to us as the forerunner of Christ. In my homily, I remarked that his
mission was to herald the coming of the Messiah, to make the people ready to
receive him by straightening out the crookedness in their lives.
By setting the ethical requirements for one’s
entrance into the kingdom
of God
His warning in today’s
passage concerning the bearing of fruit worthy of repentance caused some of the
people to ask what they should do. In response, John gives them concrete
examples. If you have two coats share one with those who have none and likewise
food.
To the tax collectors he said
stop defrauding the people. Collect only what is required. Moreover, to the
soldiers who asked John what they should do, he told them to be content with
their wages and stop extorting from the people. To some, John sounded more like
the Messiah than a prophet and they were not bashful in letting their feelings
be known.
John was quick, however, to squelch such
ideas. I baptize with water, he said, but One who is more powerful than I is
coming. He will baptize with fire and separate the wheat from the chaff thus
dispensing the judgment of God. “So, with many other exhortations,” Luke tells
us, “he proclaimed the good news to the people.”
Well, we might say, I am
certain some of the people heard what John said as “good news, “while many
others did not and dismissed him and his message altogether and went about
their business as usual. This picture of Jesus, with winnowing fork in his hand
as the one who brings God’s justice to the world is not the picture that many
Western Christians want. A baby in a manger is more to our liking.
However, to ignore it is to
step outside of the biblical witness. It is one aspect of the truth we have to
take seriously. When Jesus comes again in glory, he will come to judge the
living and the dead as we proclaim each time we repeat the words of the Nicene
Creed. Judgment is coming. This is often the furthest thoughts from our minds
this time of year. Judgment, however, is evident in Advent.
The response of John is
simple and clear and if his commands were obeyed, they would demonstrate that
the people meant business. None of these things happens by chance. They only
occur when people have genuinely repented of the small-scale injustices that
turn a society sour. And then are intentional about changing their lives and
the life of the world around them.
Our world today and our own
society need to heed the prophet’s message. We don’t have to look vary far to
find greed and corruption in politics and business. Nor do we need to look vary
far to find hate and division among our own neighborhoods. Selfishness abounds
as demonstrated by the whole “me” movement without any regard to another human
being’s feelings, opinions, or needs.
As a student of history I do not
see that very much has changed in this regard from the time of Christ and
before to the present. Human nature being what it is, fallen, and unnatural,
things will only get worse before they get better. This is not to say that
there is no good in the world, or that are not any good people out there -
there are, and there is.
Unfortunately, the bad and
the ugly get all of the press. Moreover, with social media being so widespread,
bad news travels much faster than it ever has. Sadly, our society today cannot
seem to get enough of it. I wonder if it were any different in the time of
Jesus.
Perhaps as Christians we need
more than ever to take to heart Paul’s words of encouragement to the church at
Philippi rather than focusing on all of the bad that is constantly being held
up to us. That is, we need to rejoice in the fact that the Lord is near, nearer
than when we first believed, and stop worrying about everything, especially
that which we have no control over.
Instead in “everything by
prayer and thanksgiving let our requests be made known to God.” Maybe that is what we should do. Maybe God is
testing us to see if we will. What we are looking for, of course, is a sense of
peace in the midst of a world filled with commercial and cultural turmoil.
That peace is to be found in
our celebration of the birth of the Christ child and in our patient waiting and
watching for the Day when He shall appear again to judge the earth. Advent is a
time to prepare our hearts and minds to receive with joy the coming of the Holy
One not just the babe in the manger but the Son of the Living God in all of His
glory.
We cannot ignore the fact
that we live between these two Advents. None of us knows how many more Advent
seasons we have been given by God to prepare for the final one. Let us not
focus on the bad and the ugly, the darkness that surrounds us and often
threatens to permeate our own lives.
Rather let us cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light, looking with anticipation, and expectation for
the coming Day of the Lord. Let us make ourselves ready for his appearing by
following the exhortations of John: confessing our sins, repenting of our evil,
and sharing what we have with those in need.
For the peace, we seek in to
be found in Christ alone; a peace, Paul writes that surpasses all
understanding; a peace that will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus
and will keep us in His love until the Day of His appearing. Even so, come Lord
Jesus, come. AMEN+
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