May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Christmas
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish
DATE: December 24 & 25, 1997
TEXT: When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about his child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.
ISSUE: It is important to emphasize that what the story means is far more important than whether or not the birth of Jesus actually happened in this way. Significant to the story for Luke is the adoration of the shepherds who find the ‘Lamb of God’ who becomes the ‘Good Shepherd’ of all shepherds at the manger. Having found the Christ their ministry of a shepherding people begins. They go and proclaim that goodnews of what they have seen and heard: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We gather again as the faithful to worship the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We gather again to contemplate and meditate upon this beautiful story that Luke so artfully tells about the birth of Christ. It is a story that was never intended as a literal presentation of Jesus’ birth, but rather a story that is something of a prelude, or overture, that reveals in a poetic way what the child, Jesus, the Christ child shall become.
The story is essentially the story of the birth of a peasant child born to a carpenter father, Joseph, and unwed mother. The political powers of the time are badly manipulating the lives of the poor. These leaders were supposed to be the shepherds and leaders of God’s people, but for a long long time they had failed miserable at being shepherds of the people. Joseph must travels to Bethlehem to transact some kind of business, related perhaps to some kind of taxation or census. His betrothed, Mary, will give birth to the child, but the houses with guest rooms in this quite small town of Bethlehem are full, so the child is born in at a manger like so many other peasant children. Peasant homes only had one room and a manger was a part of the room where animals were brought in at night, and peasant women gave birth to their children.
Yet Luke weaves together such a poetic story as to reveal that his baby Jesus was truly the Savior and hope of the world. Born in Bethlehem as the child of Joseph who was of the lineage or ancestry of Israel’s greatest King David. David, who was a shepherd boy in Bethlehem, and least among the sons of Jesse, became a great King and a charismatic leader. Luke is telling his readers that once again our of this tiny town a new king is born of humble birth, who will also become a most unusual King of Kings and Lord of Lords and indeed a leader with great charisma.
Luke enhances the story with the angels. At the birth of a boy child in these times the town’s musicians would come and sing for joy. But the very simple humbleness, the peasantry of Jesus’ birth in the manger is without music. Luke, then says, angels come and sing the Glory of God in the highest. The implication is that the birth is of God. God the Father has provided the musicians for the birth of his Son.
As in Matthew’s gospel account, a star leads the wisemen, Luke has the angels direct the shepherds to the manger site. Shepherds out in the fields are terrified by the vision of Luke’s angels. But they are consoled by the angels who tell them they have nothing to fear, but that in the little town of Bethlehem the Savior of the world is born. The shepherds become themselves curios and go to Bethlehem to see this wonderful thing that has come to pass.
In Luke’s narrative, the shepherds are indeed very important characters in the drama. Although the life of shepherds was sometimes romanticized in this period, they were not considered honorable men. They spent so much time away from their wives and families that they were considered to participate in a dishonorable occupation. Their work prevented them from adherence to the laws and rituals of Judaism. They were often thought of as thieves, for they trespassed frequently on other people’s properties. They were avoided and condemned. Their lives were difficult, living in dangerous wildernesses and among wild beasts that attacked the sheepfold, and fending them off. They were a humble lot of peasants but also a tough breed.
The shepherds around Bethlehem raised sheep that would be used in the Jerusalem Temple, not far away, that would be sacrificed in the Temple. The angels, then, telling the shepherds of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is quite significant. The shepherds are sent, you see, to see the real lamb, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. They are sent to see who the real sacrificial lamb is who takes away the sins of the world, the one whose life will be sacrificed on a cross.
What’s more, the shepherds who are keeping watch over their flocks by night come to see the one, the Lamb, who himself will grow up to become The Good Shepherd. He is the Good Shepherd who will lead his flock to greener pastures and living waters. He is the Good Shepherd who will care for and love God’s people. He too will be tough, and not always able to keep the rituals, and will leave his family. He too will not always be honorable, nor perceived as honorable. He is also the shepherd who will be rejected and condemned. Yet, He will walk through the valleys in the shadows of death. He will live and die for them. He will show the way and lead them back home to the love and forgiveness of God. He is the shepherd who will give meaning to people’s lives, revealing to them the way one lives as a person of God.
The shepherds returned home according to Luke telling what had been revealed to them, and amazing other people around them. Already they begin to feed the sheep who are the people of God with the message of hope and salvation, and meaning in their lives. Just as Jesus had told his fishermen disciples that he would make them fishers of men, and called Peter to feed the sheep; the shepherds begin their ministry revealing the glory of God in the saving Christ.
Christmas is indeed special for all of us. It is a time when we make a concerted effort to be focused on the birth of Christ and this season of peace and joy. That it is. Yet, so much more. Christmas is more than just a commemoration of a sweet little baby Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem so many years ago. It is a call to renewed faith commitment, to embrace the Christ as our Lamb, The Lamb of God, who dies on a cross and who has taken away our sins and separation from God. He so vividly express his love on that cross. It is a time to be renewed in the understanding that Christ is our tough Good Shepherd who sees us through the difficulties of our lives, and calls all of us to partnership in his shepherding of the lost, the least, the last, the lonely, the broken and fallen. In Christ God has come among us as sacrifical Lamb and Good Shepherd, that we too may be a sacrificially loving devoted people, and particpate in the feeding of his flock whoever and wherever they may be.
Wednesday, December 24, 1997
Sunday, December 14, 1997
Advent 3
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Advent 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 14, 1997
TEXT: Luke 3:7-18 - “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. . . . . ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy spirit and fire. . . . . . So with many other exhortations, he (John Baptist) proclaimed the good news to the people.”
ISSUE: On this “Stir up” Sunday, taken from the Collect of the Day, John Baptist is indeed stirring up the people. He calls them to repentance and gives specific examples of exactly what he means. He calls for changed lives among the common and powerless people in preparation for a new age, when God’s Anointed will come among his people and increase the power of the Holy Spirit within them. While John may well appear coarse and threatens judgement, it is in repentance and open preparation for the coming of the Christ that people have good news. In their brokeness there is new hope; Christ comes again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This third Sunday of Advent is the one we refer to as “Stir-up Sunday.” Its title comes from the Collect of the Sunday that God will stir-up his power and come among us, because we are so hindered by our sins we need God’s presence and help. We are in desperate need of God’s help and deliverance according to the prayer.
Incidentally this is also the Sunday that we light the rose candle on the Advent Wreath as a remembrance that there is great joy in the anticipated coming of the Lord. For some of us this is sort of mixed message. It is hard to be joyful when you are under judgement for your sins.
In this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke, John the Baptist really comes on strong. People are piqued by his preaching and curios about whether or not he is the anticpated Messiah. They go to see this peculiar man preaching in the desert. wilderness. When they find him they are met by what seems to us to be an insulting message. To them it was a terrible insult to their honor. “You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.” Eugene H. Peterson’s paraphrase from his book, The Message, gives a more graphic picture: “Brood of Snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river. Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s you life that must change, not your skin. . . . .” John calls for real repentance and change in the lives of these people. For him their biological ancestry does not matter. What matters is their moral courage and the courageous faithful devotion to God. Descendents of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life Is it green and blossoming, or is it deadwood for the fire? (Peterson)
Well, the crowd begins to ask John what they should do. What are the expectations to be made of them? John replies with some specific advice. John goes on to say to these people that if they have two coats, then give one away. This time was one when goods and supplies were in very limited supply. If someone had two coats it was likely that someone else had none. If someone has too much food, it was likely that someone was going without. John calls for an end to being greed. It was not honorable in this society, nor in any other I would suggest. Among these very poor folk who had come out to John, there were few if any who were rich or particularly well off. At the time to be generous to your neighbor did not mean to be kind to strangers. In the culture of this time, your neighbor was your kinsman. The broader idea of neighbor does not come until Jesus expresses a wider appreciation of neighbor in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What John saw in his time was a people who were not even very sensitive to the needs of their own kinsman. Self gratification and self-centeredness was his concern. John is addressing the issue that change begins with his own, right close to home. He begins to make them sensitive to needs outside themselves. If they are to be a people who will be washed and baptized and immersed into the new Kingdom of God, it will require a personal change.
Tax collectors we are told also come to him. Poor dear tax collectors. They were a mess. Actually they were toll collectors who collected tolls at bridges, or a borders, or on certain roads, at gateways and landings. These were men who could not get jobs anywhere else. They were not particularly liked as the tolls eventually went to the Romans. They were sort of losers of the time. They were considered unclean persons, because they had to examine and root through and touch things that might have been considered unclean. Furthermore in order to get the jobs, they often had to put large sums of money up front and hoped they could collecrt enough money to break even, and hopefully to make a living. It was a system that was open to abuse and they were not profitable. Few tax collectors were rich. They were just part of the dispossessed and among the really poor and rejected.
These were the poor souls who came out to John, looking for a Messiah, new hope, a new way, a new Kingdom. But according to John, the way to that Kingdom and hope was to be converted and changed. In a society were there was a lot of lying and cheating and deception to maintain whatever honor you might have, these tax collectors were expected to be honest, and to exact the fair tolls and taxes. They were to be honorable not just in the sight of man, but in the sight of God. They were to be ready for a new Kingdom that is God’s kingdom.
And there were also some soldiers there. These soldiers that went out into the wilderness were Jewish soldiers, or a kind of police force. Again, they were not loved by their fellows. They were controlled by Herod; they worked for him. Herod was a puppet king of the Romans. So they had little real respect and affection among their own people. They enforced the Roman occupying power. They had the power to blackmail, report their fellow citizens to Roman authorities. They could extort money and they could be brutal. Again it was a position which probably did not have much respect or honor attached to it. These soldiers who go after John in the wilderness are themselves searching for something better. What should they do? “Well,” says John, “be changed, and different. No blackmailing, bullying, or extortion. Be satisfied with your wages. Be ready for the kingdom, and be ready for the coming of the Annointed Messiah. And everything that is false will get thrown into the trash and burned.”
John’s baptism is about being cleansed and ready for something grand. Luke and the early church is making it clear that John the Baptist is not the Messiah, but the forerunner, the one who is preparing the way and calling people to a genuine preparedness for change. Those who are ready will receive renewing life giving Holy Spirit that will lead them on to God’s Kingdom.
Notewell what is going on here. John’s message is not to the elite, the rich and the powerful, and those of great honor. John’s message is to the poor, the dislike, the disenfranchised, dispossessed, the powerless. Yet at the same time he is making them aware that indeed to be changed to realize that being good to one another, caring for one another, sharing with one another, working together in community, not cheating or beating up on one another, they will gain begin to receive a power and a new hope that comes from God. Therein is the goodnews, the joy and the hope. They have to stop seeing themselves as victims. They have to stop saying, “Ain’t the world awful because of all those nasty Romans.” The power to change, the Spirit of God is ready to be within them. When the Christ comes, the Anointed One, they will be ready to follow him and be led to the Kingdom of God. John is very pro-active. He calls the down trodden to be ready to realize their power that is within, and that will come and lead them, deliver them to a whole new way of life.
I hope we get the point in our time. I hope this passage speaks to us as well. There are times in all honesty that we recognize our need for the mercy, grace, and help of God. While we might not like to dwell on it, people can be a brood of snakes. We may not be terribly comfortable with that kind of talk in our time. It may be okay for the 1st century but for the 21st century it seems a bit harsh. Fact of the matter is there is a lot of cruelty and pitiful behavior going on in our world in which we participate. We can be extraordinarily cruel in our thinking toward the poor, toward people of other religions, people of other races, and to one another in our own families as we allow old feuds and hatreds to persist from generation to generation. Honest people know they are in the need of God’s redeeming grace and that we are under God’s awesome judgement.
What then shall we do? Maybe when we have more than we need would could share some of it around in a meaningful way.
Men could start spending more time with their children. Men could love their childrens’ mother in a deeper more appreciative way. Men could control their wandering eyes and build a stronger more loving nest at home.
I’m not a woman, so I won’t presume to venture what women per se should do. My guess is that each of you who are in families know what would build stronger family life.
All of us need to question just how much individual self expression is necessary and consider concentrating on what we need to do for the common good of our families, of our church, of the other important areas of our lives.
In our church we could get a grip on caring more and establishing relationships with the shut-ins, so that they don’t become merely lost and ignored from our community. We need to talk to new people and share ourselves with them and what this church has meant to yourselves and what it may come to mean to others. We must stop being so infatuated with the fact that we are a small church and isn’t that wonderful. The underlying message is we are concerned for this generation only and our own complacent selves and the message to baptize all people in the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them can go to hell. We rely on Episcopalians to come from other churches and join our parish. Somehow or another we see that as church growth. It’s not. It simply robs Peter to pay Paul. The Christian vacumn in our cities is a potential for doom. We could all work to make the church financially stronger so it can do its work in the world.
We could and must be more regular in our worship and study of the story of our great faith so that it will impact our lives and encourage us in our ministries in our lives.
All of us need to look for opportunities and people who are different from us. We need to search for opportunities to create friendships with people of different races and religions. Without understanding and appreciation and love of things different from ourselves we shall be come isolated and suspicions and misunderstandings and all that they can lead to abound.
There are needs around us everywhere, particularly the environmental concerns. Without some pro-active participation, the world is threatened.
For the sake of good health and a witness to our children some of us need to put out our cigarettes once and for all and to watch carefully the amount of booze we are consuming. These are destructive habits and they effect our children and future generations. It is not merely a matter of it being good for me; it is good for the future.
The list of how and what the snakes in the nest need to do could go on and on. At the same time we might be overwhelmed by it all, and see the future as hopeless. Not so with John. He saw people, common ordinary people for who they were. He dared them not to be whiners and to condemn the powers that be in Rome. He dared them to accept the power within themselves and do what they could to be changed. And what they alone could not do, God would come to them and baptize and empower the community to redeem, strenghten and renew it in all that by itself it could not do.
Christ came and died for the sins of the world. Christ rose. And now Christ comes again. Indeed we are under the judgement, but at the same time those who will turn and dare to change will see him come again with Glory and with power to renew and buy back the world.
SEASON: Advent 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 14, 1997
TEXT: Luke 3:7-18 - “Bear fruits worthy of repentance. . . . . ‘I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy spirit and fire. . . . . . So with many other exhortations, he (John Baptist) proclaimed the good news to the people.”
ISSUE: On this “Stir up” Sunday, taken from the Collect of the Day, John Baptist is indeed stirring up the people. He calls them to repentance and gives specific examples of exactly what he means. He calls for changed lives among the common and powerless people in preparation for a new age, when God’s Anointed will come among his people and increase the power of the Holy Spirit within them. While John may well appear coarse and threatens judgement, it is in repentance and open preparation for the coming of the Christ that people have good news. In their brokeness there is new hope; Christ comes again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This third Sunday of Advent is the one we refer to as “Stir-up Sunday.” Its title comes from the Collect of the Sunday that God will stir-up his power and come among us, because we are so hindered by our sins we need God’s presence and help. We are in desperate need of God’s help and deliverance according to the prayer.
Incidentally this is also the Sunday that we light the rose candle on the Advent Wreath as a remembrance that there is great joy in the anticipated coming of the Lord. For some of us this is sort of mixed message. It is hard to be joyful when you are under judgement for your sins.
In this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke, John the Baptist really comes on strong. People are piqued by his preaching and curios about whether or not he is the anticpated Messiah. They go to see this peculiar man preaching in the desert. wilderness. When they find him they are met by what seems to us to be an insulting message. To them it was a terrible insult to their honor. “You brood of snakes, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.” Eugene H. Peterson’s paraphrase from his book, The Message, gives a more graphic picture: “Brood of Snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river. Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s you life that must change, not your skin. . . . .” John calls for real repentance and change in the lives of these people. For him their biological ancestry does not matter. What matters is their moral courage and the courageous faithful devotion to God. Descendents of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life Is it green and blossoming, or is it deadwood for the fire? (Peterson)
Well, the crowd begins to ask John what they should do. What are the expectations to be made of them? John replies with some specific advice. John goes on to say to these people that if they have two coats, then give one away. This time was one when goods and supplies were in very limited supply. If someone had two coats it was likely that someone else had none. If someone has too much food, it was likely that someone was going without. John calls for an end to being greed. It was not honorable in this society, nor in any other I would suggest. Among these very poor folk who had come out to John, there were few if any who were rich or particularly well off. At the time to be generous to your neighbor did not mean to be kind to strangers. In the culture of this time, your neighbor was your kinsman. The broader idea of neighbor does not come until Jesus expresses a wider appreciation of neighbor in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. What John saw in his time was a people who were not even very sensitive to the needs of their own kinsman. Self gratification and self-centeredness was his concern. John is addressing the issue that change begins with his own, right close to home. He begins to make them sensitive to needs outside themselves. If they are to be a people who will be washed and baptized and immersed into the new Kingdom of God, it will require a personal change.
Tax collectors we are told also come to him. Poor dear tax collectors. They were a mess. Actually they were toll collectors who collected tolls at bridges, or a borders, or on certain roads, at gateways and landings. These were men who could not get jobs anywhere else. They were not particularly liked as the tolls eventually went to the Romans. They were sort of losers of the time. They were considered unclean persons, because they had to examine and root through and touch things that might have been considered unclean. Furthermore in order to get the jobs, they often had to put large sums of money up front and hoped they could collecrt enough money to break even, and hopefully to make a living. It was a system that was open to abuse and they were not profitable. Few tax collectors were rich. They were just part of the dispossessed and among the really poor and rejected.
These were the poor souls who came out to John, looking for a Messiah, new hope, a new way, a new Kingdom. But according to John, the way to that Kingdom and hope was to be converted and changed. In a society were there was a lot of lying and cheating and deception to maintain whatever honor you might have, these tax collectors were expected to be honest, and to exact the fair tolls and taxes. They were to be honorable not just in the sight of man, but in the sight of God. They were to be ready for a new Kingdom that is God’s kingdom.
And there were also some soldiers there. These soldiers that went out into the wilderness were Jewish soldiers, or a kind of police force. Again, they were not loved by their fellows. They were controlled by Herod; they worked for him. Herod was a puppet king of the Romans. So they had little real respect and affection among their own people. They enforced the Roman occupying power. They had the power to blackmail, report their fellow citizens to Roman authorities. They could extort money and they could be brutal. Again it was a position which probably did not have much respect or honor attached to it. These soldiers who go after John in the wilderness are themselves searching for something better. What should they do? “Well,” says John, “be changed, and different. No blackmailing, bullying, or extortion. Be satisfied with your wages. Be ready for the kingdom, and be ready for the coming of the Annointed Messiah. And everything that is false will get thrown into the trash and burned.”
John’s baptism is about being cleansed and ready for something grand. Luke and the early church is making it clear that John the Baptist is not the Messiah, but the forerunner, the one who is preparing the way and calling people to a genuine preparedness for change. Those who are ready will receive renewing life giving Holy Spirit that will lead them on to God’s Kingdom.
Notewell what is going on here. John’s message is not to the elite, the rich and the powerful, and those of great honor. John’s message is to the poor, the dislike, the disenfranchised, dispossessed, the powerless. Yet at the same time he is making them aware that indeed to be changed to realize that being good to one another, caring for one another, sharing with one another, working together in community, not cheating or beating up on one another, they will gain begin to receive a power and a new hope that comes from God. Therein is the goodnews, the joy and the hope. They have to stop seeing themselves as victims. They have to stop saying, “Ain’t the world awful because of all those nasty Romans.” The power to change, the Spirit of God is ready to be within them. When the Christ comes, the Anointed One, they will be ready to follow him and be led to the Kingdom of God. John is very pro-active. He calls the down trodden to be ready to realize their power that is within, and that will come and lead them, deliver them to a whole new way of life.
I hope we get the point in our time. I hope this passage speaks to us as well. There are times in all honesty that we recognize our need for the mercy, grace, and help of God. While we might not like to dwell on it, people can be a brood of snakes. We may not be terribly comfortable with that kind of talk in our time. It may be okay for the 1st century but for the 21st century it seems a bit harsh. Fact of the matter is there is a lot of cruelty and pitiful behavior going on in our world in which we participate. We can be extraordinarily cruel in our thinking toward the poor, toward people of other religions, people of other races, and to one another in our own families as we allow old feuds and hatreds to persist from generation to generation. Honest people know they are in the need of God’s redeeming grace and that we are under God’s awesome judgement.
What then shall we do? Maybe when we have more than we need would could share some of it around in a meaningful way.
Men could start spending more time with their children. Men could love their childrens’ mother in a deeper more appreciative way. Men could control their wandering eyes and build a stronger more loving nest at home.
I’m not a woman, so I won’t presume to venture what women per se should do. My guess is that each of you who are in families know what would build stronger family life.
All of us need to question just how much individual self expression is necessary and consider concentrating on what we need to do for the common good of our families, of our church, of the other important areas of our lives.
In our church we could get a grip on caring more and establishing relationships with the shut-ins, so that they don’t become merely lost and ignored from our community. We need to talk to new people and share ourselves with them and what this church has meant to yourselves and what it may come to mean to others. We must stop being so infatuated with the fact that we are a small church and isn’t that wonderful. The underlying message is we are concerned for this generation only and our own complacent selves and the message to baptize all people in the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teach them can go to hell. We rely on Episcopalians to come from other churches and join our parish. Somehow or another we see that as church growth. It’s not. It simply robs Peter to pay Paul. The Christian vacumn in our cities is a potential for doom. We could all work to make the church financially stronger so it can do its work in the world.
We could and must be more regular in our worship and study of the story of our great faith so that it will impact our lives and encourage us in our ministries in our lives.
All of us need to look for opportunities and people who are different from us. We need to search for opportunities to create friendships with people of different races and religions. Without understanding and appreciation and love of things different from ourselves we shall be come isolated and suspicions and misunderstandings and all that they can lead to abound.
There are needs around us everywhere, particularly the environmental concerns. Without some pro-active participation, the world is threatened.
For the sake of good health and a witness to our children some of us need to put out our cigarettes once and for all and to watch carefully the amount of booze we are consuming. These are destructive habits and they effect our children and future generations. It is not merely a matter of it being good for me; it is good for the future.
The list of how and what the snakes in the nest need to do could go on and on. At the same time we might be overwhelmed by it all, and see the future as hopeless. Not so with John. He saw people, common ordinary people for who they were. He dared them not to be whiners and to condemn the powers that be in Rome. He dared them to accept the power within themselves and do what they could to be changed. And what they alone could not do, God would come to them and baptize and empower the community to redeem, strenghten and renew it in all that by itself it could not do.
Christ came and died for the sins of the world. Christ rose. And now Christ comes again. Indeed we are under the judgement, but at the same time those who will turn and dare to change will see him come again with Glory and with power to renew and buy back the world.
Sunday, December 7, 1997
Advent 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Advent 2
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 7,1997
TEXT: Luke 3:1-6 - He (John the Baptist) went into all the region of around Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
ISSUE: Luke is specific in identifying the important work of John the Baptist. He is the last of the great prophets that calls for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John’s repentance means “change of mind,” or “broadening of horizons,” or more dramaticially “genuine conversion.” Members of the church, like the Jews of John’s time become settled and complacent. But the coming of Jesus Christ triggered dramatice changes in the religious complacency. It was a soul searching recognition of religion that was sometimes empty and exclusive, lacking in conveying the love and marvelous works of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Advent Season is a very important one in the life of the church. Much of the world, I’m afraid does not value its importance. Preparation for the coming of the Savior, for the coming of God, is simply a matter of cleaning house, buying many presents, and getting out some of the same old stuff with which to decorate the house, with an occasional new set of Christmas lights or decorations thrown in. The Advent Season of preparation for us involved in the church are confronted and challenged by the season to be ready to get on the high what that leads to the Glory of God in our lives. Getting onto the highway that God is building where the valleys are lifted up and the high place made plain requires some serious attention to the road maps of our lives. Otherwise we remain lost on the back roads that lead to nowhere.
Our attention today is on the Gospel of Luke who tells of the ministry of John the Baptist. Let me begin by saying that we need to be some what careful about our interpretations and understandings of the gospels. The gospels are not specifically historical. They are interpretative of the ministry and the great meaning of Jesus Christ and the lives and ministries of the people around him that we find in the gospels. They proclaim the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry as God come among us. In and through him we feel and know the presence of God. However there are some attempts in the Gospels to make them specific in terms of the time that something occured in order that we might grasp its importance and its significant meaning.
In today’s account, Luke is giving an historical setting. John the Baptists ministry was going strong during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pilate was governor in Judea, and Herod was ruling in the province of Galilee, etc. Annas and Caiahaps are the high priests of the period in the Jerusalem temple. Suddenly God begins once again to make a profound effect on human history. John the Baptist, who is a rebellious type of priest, and the son of the priest Zechariah, is profoundly moved by God to be a prophet. John is presented in the scriptures as a very dynamic prophet who calls for a people to be baptized into repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. He is a forceful character with charisma, patterned on the much beloved Elijah the prophet. Elijah was a prophet who took on the powers of his time, King Ahaz and the wicked Queen Jezebel. He challenged the paganism of his time when he humiliated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. So Luke’s Gospel account is kind of saying, ‘Here we go again.’ Now in this time of Emperor Tiberious, God through John the Baptist is calling his own people to the giving up of their sins and taking on a time of repentance through a baptismal ritual.
In John’s time,. Jews themselves were not baptized. They were Jewish by virtue of their heritage and cicumcision. However, Gentiles who converted to Judaism did go through a ritual of baptism which symbolized the taking on of a a new life completely divorced from their old life of paganism and sin. To become Jewish and to be a part of the inseparable faith of Judaism was to put on a whole new life. In this event today, John is calling upon all Jews, all of his people to be baptized, to be totally repentant and receive forgiveness and begin a new life with God who is ready to come upon and to them. Obviously inspite of all the heritage of which the people boasted, John saw something lacking in their way of life. Their religion may have settled over them and was a part of their heritage, but the deeper issue of what was in the heart and what was manifested in behavior was quite different. They needed a cleansing immersion in to something renewing.
It is important to understand what “repentance” meant for these people. To repent meant to change your mind. It meant to broaden your horizons. It meant to turn over a new leaf. It meant - dare I say it? - to be converted. John the Baptist and prophet was about the business of calling men and women to a dramatic, dynamic, spirited conversion, significant change. By the time Luke was writing this account of the gospel, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, and never as it turns out to be rebuilt. God was now calling his people to repentance change and a readiness of something new. It was as if as Isaiah had prophesied every valley shall be filled in and every and every mountain shall be made low and all flesh, all people, shall see the coming salvation of God. Tough as John was, there was a message of hope in his preaching, but for John the hope could not be realized until there was a willing free repentace taking place, a willingness to be changed and converted.
In many instances today, pophetic types are not particularly popular. Our images of prophets today are sometimes taken from magazines, like ‘The New Yorker,’ which shows cartoons of prophets as these characters with beards dressed in long robes and carrying a placard which declares “Repent, the end is near.” The prophetic call is seen as humous, something weird out of the past. It’s funny in our technological and scientific age, which is, is it fair to say, largely unthreated by God, or at least an age not in fear of God. At the same time, the present post-modern age is not very taken with the Advent season which recalls the prophetic age of John the Baptist.
Yet, there are some prophetic things happening both in and without of the church. There are some people who believe that the Cursillo movement, which started in the Spanish Roman Catholic Church is a prophetic movement. It has touched many Christian people calling them to a deeper spiritual commitment and to a renewal of their appreciation of the Christian faith and their active involvement in Christianity. Another significant prophetic movement which we are hearing more about all the time is the Promise Keepers Movement. It is becoming very clear that manyt many men in our society have lost, forgotten, or abandoned having a genuine and sincere relationship with God and what that means. Some men are coming to their senses and recognizing that carousing unfaithfulness, drunkeness, is destroying their lives, humiliating their wives, and destroying their children.
Inspite of the fact that there is a church on nearly every other corner in this country, and inspite of the fact that we print “In God We Trust” on our currency, the real impact of a godly people seems somewhat lacking in our own society. There is a great deal of flirtation with paganism. While the churches are there and the motto stands, there is still a stepping outside the boundaries of religious faith and immersing ourselves into a godless secularism that implies a lot of quick easy cheap thrills. There is a certain pleasure and longing for a kind of soap opera existence, an invested interest in being beautiful people at any cost without any consequences. The consequences of unhealthy lifestyles are real. On TV, the show is over and we turn off the TV and go to bed. In reality smoking, excessive drinking destroy people’s health. Casual sexuality leads to awful diseases. Carrying guns and weapons around in our pockets leads to violence and death and real dead people don’t get up again. to be godless, to step away from God the Creator is too step into emptiness. The old old story of Adam and Eve eating the apple, a symbol of their falleness and desire to flirt with Godlessness had its consequences. They were outside the real garden and it wasn’t easy. There is a real need in the society of which we are all apart to be sensitive to our flirtations with emptiness of Godlessness, with a way that leads to Cain killing Abel and all that that imples. We are in need of repentance and conversion to our need for God.
Another example is the conversion we need in terms of our environmental issues. As human beings, and as Americans, we are consuming the earth’s resources at an alarming rate, and many species of animals all linked to the overall food chain and interlocked scheme of creation are being wiped out. Prophets are warning us, and they are not dressed in camel’s hair and carring placards but their message is clear. We need to be converted, immersed into another way of thinking and living simpler lives. God is calling us to salvation. We need to be prepared to follow along the road where the crooked places are made straight and the high places plain, or live with the barriers that keep us constrained in disaster and despair.
The institutionalized Church of God is not itself immuned to the need for conversion and repentance. Even the church today is suffering in its own crisis. But, it is often the citadel and the refuge for those who do not want to change or be converted. For many the church is a place of comfort and security from a changing and a difficult world. Yet repeatedly the national press tells us that the mainline churches are in crisis. The church is often seen as the place where only “good” people go. It is often seen as the place that is negative and is “against” everything. The church was once against the idea that the earth was round. The churchd was seen as against Darwin’s therory of evolution. The church today is often perceived as against abortion, against homosexuality, against divorce. What’s more for an extended period of time the church supported slavery, and still today struggles with the place of women in the church and the society. People have conveyed to me over the years that they don’t want to come to church and here the problems of the world talked about in sermons. Yet, living to ourselves escaping from the issues of the world, we may ulitmately die by ourselves.
Clearly, John the Baptist was a prophetic voice of God crying in the wilderness of human sinfulness and emptiness. He called for the conversion and the reclaiming of God. When the mighty God came he wanted his people to be ready to be with God as he came down the four lane. He reclaimed the hope that they would indeed, by the help and presence of God, be a light to the nations of the world.
It is comfortable for us to come here, to gather in comfortableness to hear the prayers read and the music sung for us. It is comforting for some to remember that they grew up here in this old church and that they may even have been acolytes when they were little and old Mr. Parker was the minister here. It is comforting to have had family worship here in years past. It’s a good old place that has stood the test of our time. It’s a nice burial ground with lots of memories. It’s pretty. But is that the point? Is that what we are about? Does that kind of religious mentality in anyway resonate with the great prophets and teachers of the faith like John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? John called for a complete turn around, a conversion, a readiness for the God of sacrificial love and deep sensitive caring. Our only hope and salvation is in turning and surrendering to God and following God and taking direction from him, that we too may not be a group of staid and moldy folk Episcopalians enveloped in ages of religious masturbation. The fertile and creative Lord is coming to recharge, reshape, and renew us. He’s coming down the pike. And as he comes John calls for repentance, change, renewed minds, conversion that all flesh may see the salvation of God.
SEASON: Advent 2
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John’s Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 7,1997
TEXT: Luke 3:1-6 - He (John the Baptist) went into all the region of around Jordon, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
ISSUE: Luke is specific in identifying the important work of John the Baptist. He is the last of the great prophets that calls for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John’s repentance means “change of mind,” or “broadening of horizons,” or more dramaticially “genuine conversion.” Members of the church, like the Jews of John’s time become settled and complacent. But the coming of Jesus Christ triggered dramatice changes in the religious complacency. It was a soul searching recognition of religion that was sometimes empty and exclusive, lacking in conveying the love and marvelous works of God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Advent Season is a very important one in the life of the church. Much of the world, I’m afraid does not value its importance. Preparation for the coming of the Savior, for the coming of God, is simply a matter of cleaning house, buying many presents, and getting out some of the same old stuff with which to decorate the house, with an occasional new set of Christmas lights or decorations thrown in. The Advent Season of preparation for us involved in the church are confronted and challenged by the season to be ready to get on the high what that leads to the Glory of God in our lives. Getting onto the highway that God is building where the valleys are lifted up and the high place made plain requires some serious attention to the road maps of our lives. Otherwise we remain lost on the back roads that lead to nowhere.
Our attention today is on the Gospel of Luke who tells of the ministry of John the Baptist. Let me begin by saying that we need to be some what careful about our interpretations and understandings of the gospels. The gospels are not specifically historical. They are interpretative of the ministry and the great meaning of Jesus Christ and the lives and ministries of the people around him that we find in the gospels. They proclaim the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry as God come among us. In and through him we feel and know the presence of God. However there are some attempts in the Gospels to make them specific in terms of the time that something occured in order that we might grasp its importance and its significant meaning.
In today’s account, Luke is giving an historical setting. John the Baptists ministry was going strong during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pilate was governor in Judea, and Herod was ruling in the province of Galilee, etc. Annas and Caiahaps are the high priests of the period in the Jerusalem temple. Suddenly God begins once again to make a profound effect on human history. John the Baptist, who is a rebellious type of priest, and the son of the priest Zechariah, is profoundly moved by God to be a prophet. John is presented in the scriptures as a very dynamic prophet who calls for a people to be baptized into repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. He is a forceful character with charisma, patterned on the much beloved Elijah the prophet. Elijah was a prophet who took on the powers of his time, King Ahaz and the wicked Queen Jezebel. He challenged the paganism of his time when he humiliated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. So Luke’s Gospel account is kind of saying, ‘Here we go again.’ Now in this time of Emperor Tiberious, God through John the Baptist is calling his own people to the giving up of their sins and taking on a time of repentance through a baptismal ritual.
In John’s time,. Jews themselves were not baptized. They were Jewish by virtue of their heritage and cicumcision. However, Gentiles who converted to Judaism did go through a ritual of baptism which symbolized the taking on of a a new life completely divorced from their old life of paganism and sin. To become Jewish and to be a part of the inseparable faith of Judaism was to put on a whole new life. In this event today, John is calling upon all Jews, all of his people to be baptized, to be totally repentant and receive forgiveness and begin a new life with God who is ready to come upon and to them. Obviously inspite of all the heritage of which the people boasted, John saw something lacking in their way of life. Their religion may have settled over them and was a part of their heritage, but the deeper issue of what was in the heart and what was manifested in behavior was quite different. They needed a cleansing immersion in to something renewing.
It is important to understand what “repentance” meant for these people. To repent meant to change your mind. It meant to broaden your horizons. It meant to turn over a new leaf. It meant - dare I say it? - to be converted. John the Baptist and prophet was about the business of calling men and women to a dramatic, dynamic, spirited conversion, significant change. By the time Luke was writing this account of the gospel, the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, and never as it turns out to be rebuilt. God was now calling his people to repentance change and a readiness of something new. It was as if as Isaiah had prophesied every valley shall be filled in and every and every mountain shall be made low and all flesh, all people, shall see the coming salvation of God. Tough as John was, there was a message of hope in his preaching, but for John the hope could not be realized until there was a willing free repentace taking place, a willingness to be changed and converted.
In many instances today, pophetic types are not particularly popular. Our images of prophets today are sometimes taken from magazines, like ‘The New Yorker,’ which shows cartoons of prophets as these characters with beards dressed in long robes and carrying a placard which declares “Repent, the end is near.” The prophetic call is seen as humous, something weird out of the past. It’s funny in our technological and scientific age, which is, is it fair to say, largely unthreated by God, or at least an age not in fear of God. At the same time, the present post-modern age is not very taken with the Advent season which recalls the prophetic age of John the Baptist.
Yet, there are some prophetic things happening both in and without of the church. There are some people who believe that the Cursillo movement, which started in the Spanish Roman Catholic Church is a prophetic movement. It has touched many Christian people calling them to a deeper spiritual commitment and to a renewal of their appreciation of the Christian faith and their active involvement in Christianity. Another significant prophetic movement which we are hearing more about all the time is the Promise Keepers Movement. It is becoming very clear that manyt many men in our society have lost, forgotten, or abandoned having a genuine and sincere relationship with God and what that means. Some men are coming to their senses and recognizing that carousing unfaithfulness, drunkeness, is destroying their lives, humiliating their wives, and destroying their children.
Inspite of the fact that there is a church on nearly every other corner in this country, and inspite of the fact that we print “In God We Trust” on our currency, the real impact of a godly people seems somewhat lacking in our own society. There is a great deal of flirtation with paganism. While the churches are there and the motto stands, there is still a stepping outside the boundaries of religious faith and immersing ourselves into a godless secularism that implies a lot of quick easy cheap thrills. There is a certain pleasure and longing for a kind of soap opera existence, an invested interest in being beautiful people at any cost without any consequences. The consequences of unhealthy lifestyles are real. On TV, the show is over and we turn off the TV and go to bed. In reality smoking, excessive drinking destroy people’s health. Casual sexuality leads to awful diseases. Carrying guns and weapons around in our pockets leads to violence and death and real dead people don’t get up again. to be godless, to step away from God the Creator is too step into emptiness. The old old story of Adam and Eve eating the apple, a symbol of their falleness and desire to flirt with Godlessness had its consequences. They were outside the real garden and it wasn’t easy. There is a real need in the society of which we are all apart to be sensitive to our flirtations with emptiness of Godlessness, with a way that leads to Cain killing Abel and all that that imples. We are in need of repentance and conversion to our need for God.
Another example is the conversion we need in terms of our environmental issues. As human beings, and as Americans, we are consuming the earth’s resources at an alarming rate, and many species of animals all linked to the overall food chain and interlocked scheme of creation are being wiped out. Prophets are warning us, and they are not dressed in camel’s hair and carring placards but their message is clear. We need to be converted, immersed into another way of thinking and living simpler lives. God is calling us to salvation. We need to be prepared to follow along the road where the crooked places are made straight and the high places plain, or live with the barriers that keep us constrained in disaster and despair.
The institutionalized Church of God is not itself immuned to the need for conversion and repentance. Even the church today is suffering in its own crisis. But, it is often the citadel and the refuge for those who do not want to change or be converted. For many the church is a place of comfort and security from a changing and a difficult world. Yet repeatedly the national press tells us that the mainline churches are in crisis. The church is often seen as the place where only “good” people go. It is often seen as the place that is negative and is “against” everything. The church was once against the idea that the earth was round. The churchd was seen as against Darwin’s therory of evolution. The church today is often perceived as against abortion, against homosexuality, against divorce. What’s more for an extended period of time the church supported slavery, and still today struggles with the place of women in the church and the society. People have conveyed to me over the years that they don’t want to come to church and here the problems of the world talked about in sermons. Yet, living to ourselves escaping from the issues of the world, we may ulitmately die by ourselves.
Clearly, John the Baptist was a prophetic voice of God crying in the wilderness of human sinfulness and emptiness. He called for the conversion and the reclaiming of God. When the mighty God came he wanted his people to be ready to be with God as he came down the four lane. He reclaimed the hope that they would indeed, by the help and presence of God, be a light to the nations of the world.
It is comfortable for us to come here, to gather in comfortableness to hear the prayers read and the music sung for us. It is comforting for some to remember that they grew up here in this old church and that they may even have been acolytes when they were little and old Mr. Parker was the minister here. It is comforting to have had family worship here in years past. It’s a good old place that has stood the test of our time. It’s a nice burial ground with lots of memories. It’s pretty. But is that the point? Is that what we are about? Does that kind of religious mentality in anyway resonate with the great prophets and teachers of the faith like John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth? John called for a complete turn around, a conversion, a readiness for the God of sacrificial love and deep sensitive caring. Our only hope and salvation is in turning and surrendering to God and following God and taking direction from him, that we too may not be a group of staid and moldy folk Episcopalians enveloped in ages of religious masturbation. The fertile and creative Lord is coming to recharge, reshape, and renew us. He’s coming down the pike. And as he comes John calls for repentance, change, renewed minds, conversion that all flesh may see the salvation of God.
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