A few days ago I was scrolling Facebook – not always the most efficient, or most encouraging, use of time – and came across a reel shared by a Presbyterian pastor I know. In it, a young man in a green and red “Go Jesus – It’s Your Birthday” Christmas sweater announces:
“This is your annual reminder that the correct seasonal greeting for Advent is not Merry Christmas or, God forbid, Happy Holidays – it is – ‘You brood of vipers, repent!’”
(I’d be interested to hear how that goes if you try it out later this afternoon…)
The man in the Jesus Christmas sweater is the Reverend Joseph Yoo, who is an Episcopal priest in Houston, Texas, and he’s talking about the War on Christmas, this argument that pops up perennially over the trend of wishing folks “Happy Holidays” throughout the month of December instead of “Merry Christmas,” out of a recognition that not everyone celebrates Christmas… and perhaps some of us don’t celebrate Christmas until after Advent. I’ll get back to Reverend Yoo’s main point in a bit.
Because here we are at the second Sunday of Advent, navigating our way through a balance of commercialism and contemplation, Santa Claus and John the Baptist, preparing for a child who’s already born, died and resurrected, and is coming again… someday.
Today’s readings from Isaiah and the Psalms – and Paul’s letter to the church in first-century Rome – seem at first read to be about the church of someday, or the church of yesterday – if yesterday is a few thousand years ago – and they are about both of those churches, but they also are, and perhaps most importantly are, about the church of right now.
Yes, today’s readings give us a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, that holy mountain where the wolf shall live with the lamb and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but these scriptures were also written to show what that kingdom can and should be in this world, not just in some distant tomorrow but in the present time – whether the present time is centuries before the birth of Christ or centuries after. John the Baptist, in many ways the last Old Testament prophet, is in a world that is about to change with the coming of Christ. John the Baptist is the voice that reminds us that these scriptures are important lessons for all time, even if he does call us all a bunch of venomous snakes.
Repent, John the Baptist says, and his brand of repentance is a little daunting. We wonder, does he expect us to dress in camel hair, eat bugs and live in the desert? Theologian Lauren Winner writes that John reminded people, then and now, of “the last time God’s people had wandered in a wilderness.” People may have wondered if John was announcing the beginning of a new exodus, and in a sense, Lauren Winner says, he was. She writes: “The Messiah, whose way John came to prepare, would call us away from comfort and status; He would call us all to challenge our assumptions and the things we take for granted.”
John the Baptist and the Messiah that he announces do call us to a path in uncomfortable, unfamiliar land, this wilderness of Advent, this wilderness of the Christian life. As author Diana Butler Bass puts it in her reflection for this week: “”The Kingdom of God arrives in a wild landscape.” She asks her reader: “Have you ever experienced a miracle in a landscape?” Have you ever seen a miracle in the wilderness?
But John the Baptist doesn’t just call us names and throw up his hands in disgust. He challenges us – he calls us to repent, because he believes that we are capable of such a thing.
We attach a lot of negative ideas to the word “repent” – maybe because of John wore camel’s hair and ate bugs – but repentance is not about shame or self-blame. or suffering To repent does not mean to wallow in our sin, but to turn away from it. To turn away from self-centeredness and materialism and envy and anger – all the things we feel in our day to day, even and especially in this season focused on giving and receiving and expectations of generosity and good cheer. Turning away from these things that take us away from goodness and kindness – turning back towards God, towards peace, towards the world in love.
“Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” says John the Baptist, because he knows we can, and because someone is coming who will show us how. Repent and follow the path made straight, the voice in the wilderness that calls us into a new way of living in the world, a new way of being church in the world, a new way of living in relationship with God and each other. Every one of this morning’s readings point not just toward a kingdom of God where all are at peace and no one suffers any more, but toward a way of living in the world that was possible then and is possible now – a society that will bring righteousness to the poor and equity to the meek, that will, in the words of today’s Psalm, defend the needy, rescue the poor and crush the oppressor. This is the world that John the Baptist heralded and that Jesus Christ preached – not just a hoped-for heaven, but a model for how we can live in the world today – how we can live as church in the world today.
One of my seminary professors, Dr. John Yieh – you may have met him a couple years ago, when his daughter gave an organ recital here – in his book on the Gospel of Matthew, describes the church Matthew describes for us – the church as:
a community of faith, a community of hope, a community of love – faith, hope and love (sounds familiar). And, fourth, as a community of discipleship – a community of people following Christ’s path in the wilderness, and inspiring others to do so as well, by teaching and baptizing and modeling a Christlike approach to living in the world – being a community of faith, a community of hope, and a community of love.
That is who we are.
Back to Reverend Yoo’s Facebook video. Forget this argument over what we’re supposed to say during this confusing season, he says, and focus instead on what we’re supposed to do – the work that this season of reflection and reset invites us to do – to “feed the people who are hungry, give water to the thirsty, welcome strangers instead of fearing them, give clothes to folks who don’t have enough, care for the sick, show up for the people in prison” – to, as Reverend Yoo puts it, “live with a love that looks more like sacrifice than shopping. That is how Christ is put back into Christmas,” he says – “not through our outrage but through our actions..”
When Jesus said “love your neighbor as yourself” – when Jesus said “welcome the stranger,”“feed the hungry,” “visit the prisoner” – I do not think that he meant those words metaphorically.
So as we, over the course of these weeks, tell this Advent story, the story of Mary and Joseph and a child born into poverty, far away from the safety of home, under the threat of a powerful empire, holding the hope of all humanity – when we remember Jesus’ insistence on being born into the world as a human being, from birth to baptism to a death sentence that would not stick – when we remember Jesus’ insistence on loving every single one of us – when we stand with poor shepherds and with wealthy kings under the stars of a cold winter sky and listen for angels –
we are awaiting the birth of a child who would love the people others called garbage. We are awaiting the birth of a child who says let the little children come unto me. We are awaiting the birth of a child who knows what it is like to be homeless and a refugee. We are awaiting the birth of a child who forgives criminals and welcomes them home. We are awaiting the birth of a child who will heal the sick and respect the poor and spend his life with those at the margins and on the outside, not those at the centers of power.
And in this season of waiting and reflection and new beginnings, we are called to do the same. We are waiting for the Kingdom of God in the wilderness. We are called to see and to be the miracle in the wilderness.
Amen.
