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Advent 3_2009
| 14.12.2009, 19:20 | |
| Rev. Tatiana Cantarella Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:1–6; Philippians 4:4-9; Luke 3:7-18 3rd Sunday of Advent JOY AND RESPONSIBILITY A common theme that flows through Scriptures today is joy, joy over what the Lord has done and will do. But it is not a giddy, senseless type of joy, unaware of the harsh realities of the human situation. Rather, it is a joy that is anchored to an acknowledgment of God’s love and presence in human life. Zephaniah whose book contains the gloomiest passages in all of the Old Testament now says, "Sing aloud! Shout! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!” (3:14). The reason that joy has overcome deep despondency is simple: "The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst” (3:15). Joy is possible because God will do great things for His people and is already in their midst. Isaiah also sings for joy, for while he has seen much of his people’s waywardness before God, he also sees the consequences of God’s presence in the nation’s life. And this joy compels faith and trust; it insists that the people wait for the gracious outpouring of God’s mercy. "Rejoice” is also the fist word that we hear in the Epistle to the Philippians. This joy also results from the presence of the Lord that changes and reorients the life of the believer. The mood of the 3rd Sunday of Advent can be compared to an expectation of a birth. I think all of us are familiar with this feeling. Some of us from our own experience, others from our friends’ lives. It’s a feeling of inexpressible joy and anticipation. Almost always, the first thing we say to the expecting parents is "congratulations, we share in your joy, what a great new it is!” isn’t it? In the same way – joy is the essential part of Advent expectation. The good new of Advent is that God is coming to his people, He is drawing near to you and to me; He is already in our midst. And in His presence God’s promises are being fulfilled. We are called to joyfully wait, believe and open to God. It is not surprising. But then, we read the Gospel and everything changes. It’s so hard to see in the words of John the God of mercy who is coming to bless his people, hard to see a reason for joy. Where is the good news here? In John’s words, God seems to only be the Judge who will bring His judgment. Listening to these words we find ourselves at the Jordan River together with those who came for one or another reason to be baptized by John. John doesn’t say: "rejoice”, he says, "Repent”. Paul told the Philippians not to fear; John says to his listeners: "you have a reason to fear because you are trying "to flee from the wrath to come”. And those who hear him ask: "What are we to do? What needs to change, so that we can withstand everything that will come in the future? His baptismal greeting is "You brood of vipers!” and "now the ax is lying at the root of the trees” and "the fire is ready to burn the chaff”. How can one rejoice in all that?! However, if we think well, there is no contradiction and everything makes perfect sense. Just like a birth of a child any other great gift does not only bring joy but also some difficulties, doesn’t it?! Fear and worry is an equal to joy part of preparation and expectation, because the expected coming of the Lord changes everything. The Lord offers both new life and new responsibility, offers them together, simultaneously. New life means that the old life cannot continue as it was, for His coming changed all things. Then we accept the gift of the Baby; accept it with joy but also with understanding that everything in our life from now on, the goal and the direction, will be different. And it cannot be otherwise. Think, what is another thing that is often said to the expecting parents besides "congratulations, we rejoice with you, what a great news it is!?” We also say to them: "That’s it, hold tight! Boy, are you in for it!” Great gift and responsibility it brings are inseparable. The gift of a baby completely changes life, with his/her arrival things will never be the same again. Life cannot continue as it was. You must view life and live it differently. That is exactly what John meant when he said: "repent”, let change happen in your life. Everything must change with acceptance of the gift of the Child; everything changes in the time of expecting the return of our Savior. Zephaniah is right saying that we are to rejoice, to praise God and sing. But John is also right saying that this great Gift will bring judgment upon life as it is. John's harsh and vivid terms portray his listeners as fleeing from "the wrath to come” as snakes scurrying before a spreading fire. John’s call here is for a moment of truth, a call to abandon all devices used to maintain our illusion of innocence. Their "we have Abraham as our ancestor” is neither a valid claim for exemption nor an acceptable excuse for failure. John reminds us that it’s our life and deeds, not our ancestry (or belonging to church) count before God – after all an ax is raiser over the fruitless tree however well breed it was initially. We said last week that repentance means change of direction of our life. And today John shows that it’s not something just religious or magic – but generally looks much like OUR lives now, OUR LIFE but life that is transformed. We, like the crowd at Jordan River, stand in anticipation, burdened by judgment and saying, "what are we to do?” They implicitly acknowledge their guilt but also open the door for instruction, for a religion void of moral and ethical earnestness is exactly that – void! John says, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” When it comes to sharing, share what you already have and do not wait until you have more or when you can have what you consider a "worthy” offering. Begin with what you already have in your life and that is what will be "the fruit worthy of repentance”. To tax-collectors repentance means not taking more than is prescribed by Roman law, stopping to use their power to satisfy their greed and rip off the people. For soldiers repenting meant no longer abusing the people, stopping to victimize the public by threat and intimidation. For all of us it means doing justice where we already work, being just and compassionate in our everyday doings, in the life that we already have, with people whom WE meet on our way. Do not wait until you have a more appropriate situation where being just would be easier or where you just doing would be noted and marked with gratitude. Do not wait until you can be in a different place, doing a different job or being someone else. Begin with the way that is set before YOU, walk that way and allow God to transform YOUR life, the life you already have. John did not say to tax collectors and soldiers who were hated by others to become someone else in order to begin new life, he didn’t tell them to live somebody else’s life. In other people’s eyes they had the most difficult task of demonstrating "fruit worthy of repentance”, but he said to them, "remaining soldiers, do not hurt anybody and be content with your wages”, "remaining tax collectors, do not collect more than was prescribed to you”. John’s call to repentance and transformation of life was reaching well beyond the confines of Israel, it covered all who had ears to hear. Just as being a son of Abraham was no exemption from the call to repent, so being a tax collector or a soldier was no barrier to repentance, to change. Going to Church and considering ourselves members of God’s children is no exemption from the call to live our whole life in repentant spirit. And our life being far from God and seeming hopeless is not a barrier for our turning back to God in repentance. When we come to God in repentance, he transforms that life that we are already living. If you are still bothered by a harsh image of God’s wrath in John’s words and you feel that they contain no Good News or reason for joy but just what always scared you away from God, don’t be quick to dismiss them as something you don’t want. We are right to dismiss caricatures of divine judgment that portray Him as capricious, arbitrary, vindictive or sadistic. But what God's judgment is a purifying response to everything that dehumanizes us — political violence, oppression, religious fakery, economic exploitation, exile, famine, and war. Our moral judgment tells us that slaughters of other people should not go with impunity? Do we really want God to justify any human act of violence, injustice? In the depth of our hearts we want God to justly judge the evil, don’t we? But what about our own selves? Do I really want God to leave me to my own worst impulses of envy, greed, anger, and lust, or do I want Him to judge, rescue and purify me from them? And aren’t the most terrifying texts in the Bible not those of divine judgment but those that suggest that God gives me up to the consequences of my own sin, poor choices, and foolishness (cf. Rom 1:24, 26, 28). We need to pay attention at John’s statement that Jesus will baptize us with Spirit and fire. In Greek the word spirit and wind are one and the same. And the image here John paints is that of the winnowing – an act of the wind separating good wheat from chaff, and the useless chaff is then burned so that only good grain is preserved. When you watch the process you know that preoccupation is not with the burning of chaff, the primary purpose is to preserve the grain! So, this message of divine judgment is thus ultimately an optimistic one of human redemption. God's judgment is redemptive and not merely retributive. It is not a punitive end in itself but a means to our better end. God scatters, but He also "gathers” (3:20). Zephaniah announces impending doom, but he also issues an invitation and appeal. He beseeches us to seek the Lord "before” (3 times) the awful day of the Lord comes. He desires that our faith is not void and empty so that we'll end up burning like chaff, but that it is alive and productive so that we'll be preserved for life eternal. Divine judgment is not inevitable; it is not some immutable law of fate. When we repent, as John the Baptist invites us to do in this week's gospel, God eagerly restores, His presence in our life changes the core of our life, so that justice, compassion and integrity take the place of their opposites. Zephaniah envisions a day when God "takes away your punishment,” a time when "you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me” (3:11, 15). It is a day when He is "mighty to save,” a time when He "takes great delight” in us, a time when he will "quiet us with His love and rejoice over us with singing” (3:16–17). Echoing his prophetic compatriots, Zephaniah finally says that the day of the Lord is a day when "the nations on every shore will worship him, everyone in his own land” (2:11). A day is coming, he predicts, when "never again will you fear any harm" (3:15). Those who live transformed, reordered lives will not need to flee "from the wrath to come” (3:7) for they will be that grain that the Lord will be saving and this is clearly the "good news” of the coming Lord. Repent and rejoice – in all things, in the life that each of you already has, in the midst of your reality. That is the way to respond to the world that is often so confusing and to the fact that the Lord is coming. Accepting the birth of our Lord we receive both its joys and its demands. We rejoice, for what is coming is beautiful. We repent, because with the coming of Jesus Christ into our life, absolutely everything must be transformed. | |
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