2021 12 12 Sermon

Sermon for December 12, 2021 Advent 3 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church Luke 3:7-18; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

When I was growing up in New York City, you would find Christmas trees being sold on sidewalks all over the city at this time of year. The reliable Christmas tree spot in my neighborhood was Budd’s Bar. So you’d walk the few blocks up to Budd’s and start looking at their trees. Pretty soon someone would come over to see which one you were interested in. “That tree is $40” he’d say, “but for you, I’ll make it $30.” And you’d respond, “Well, I was really looking to pay no more than 20 bucks.” And he’d say, “Tell ya what. Twist my arm, and I’ll give it to you for $25.” Deal. When you went Christmas tree shopping you never expected to pay full price.

Then when I became a pastor and moved out to my first church in the mountains of Pennsylvania, I discovered “cut your own” Christmas tree farms. There was a simple sign on the corner of a road just outside town, with a giant arrow pointing “that-a-way”, and a simple message: “Cut your own Christmas Tree. 5 miles. $15.” I was curious, so I drove the 5 miles of twisty country roads, then turned up the dirt driveway, and knocked on the door. “I’d like a Christmas tree.” “OK, here’s a saw. Just put your $15 in this bucket. You can cut any tree, as big or small as you want, same price.” So I walk through the snow, admiring row after row of Christmas trees until I find the one I like. I cut it down, drag it to my old Ford Taurus and pop open the trunk. The tree is too big to fit. So I put down the back seats. It still won’t fit. What am I going to do? I think and think, until it comes to me. I roll down the back windows and pull the tree through—so the tree trunk is sticking out the driver side, and the tip is sticking out the passenger side.

When I get home I realize that the tree won’t fit in the living room. So I cut off some branches and a good length of trunk. It’s still won’t fit in the tree holder, so I cut off some more. After a few more tries, finally, it fits, and after decorating it and breathing in the fresh piney aroma, it brought life and light and joy into a dark corner of the living room, even if it was bigger and more trouble than I expected.

Expectation. Advent is the season of expectation. But what we expect doesn’t always match up with reality. We hear in today’s gospel about crowds of people making a difficult journey down the dry and dusty road out of Jerusalem into the desert to be baptized by John and hear what he had to say. Why did they go through all of that trouble? Because they were expecting a Messiah—a savior sent from God to renew the covenant, to rescue them from the troubles of their current times, to begin a new age of freedom. And many of them expected John to be it! When they made their way out there, out in the country, they heard John’s simple message. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Yikes. These were urgent times, and John needed to catch their attention. And besides, the people had endured a lot more hardship than simply being compared to snakes. They felt that their current situation was unsustainable, and they wanted things to change. But change is hard, and the path to get there takes time.

So John moves right into his core message: “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” If you want things “out in the world” to change, first you’ve got to start with what’s “in here”. Begin with asking yourself, “What do I need to change within my own heart and soul?” What do I need to let go of? What do I need to pay more attention to? What are the broken things that I have within my ability to make right—or at least to get closer to being made right?

I wonder if John overheard conversations from the crowd, people unsure if they should take him seriously. Like, “Hey, I didn’t cause the problems we’re living with, John, so why should it be my responsibility to repent?” To which John replied, “Just because you’re a child of Abraham doesn’t mean everything is going to be alright. Yes, God will always be faithful to you. But will you also be faithful to God? Will you follow where God leads? Or just leave it as someone else’s responsibility?”

Well, now he did have their attention. And their curiosity: “What then should we do?” John gives practical answers about what repentance looks like in real life; about what life would look like when God’s light shines into the dark places—whether that is a dark corner of my heart that needs to be renewed, or a difficult experience someone is going through and they need some help to go in a new direction. “If you’ve got two coats, share one of them with a person who is out shivering in the cold. If you’ve got plenty of food, share some of your resources with people who struggle to put food on the table.”

Tax collectors came to see John, and back then were particularly despised, because they not only collected taxes for the king, but took extra money from people to line their own pockets. John tells them: repentance looks like living with integrity and not taking advantage of people. What good is it for the rich to keep getting richer if the poor keep getting poorer?

And the soldiers who came to see John—they had a hard and dangerous job, and didn’t get paid much to do it, so they used their authority to extort money with threats and false accusations. John tells them to live instead with a sense of honor and duty to the people they are meant to serve—don’t go around abusing the privilege of your position.

As John taught it, repentance was always a practical matter that resulted in providing for the needs of everyone in the community. When these practical ways were not followed, the consequence was that people lost trust in their neighbors and in the institutions that were supposed to help society flourish. But when they were followed, these ways built a sense of shared responsibility for one another, and for the well-being of society as a whole.

What might John’s preaching sound like if he were here in 2021? What then should we do, John? Maybe he would say: Give food and financial support to hunger ministries. Send presents for the kids’ Christmas party at Despensa. Provide housing for the homeless; help the Afghan refugees to get resettled and back on their feet. Work in your jobs with integrity, and find ways to build a sense of community in your neighborhood. Seek racial equity and listen to the stories of people who have lived with discrimination their whole lives.

John the Baptist always made clear that he was not the Messiah—his job was to get people’s attention so they would expect the Messiah to be coming. The repentance that John taught was to get people ready, so that when they realized that the Messiah finally was in their midst, they would have the space within their hearts and souls to follow Jesus and to know the full measure of his love and grace in their lives.

Like I needed to do with my Christmas tree that was too big for my car and too big for the living room, John the Baptist teaches us that we need to take an honest look at ourselves, to see which parts we need to keep and grow, and which parts we need to cut away and let go of, so that what remains can bring life and light and joy to the world around us.

Jesus the Messiah came into this world—and is coming again—and actually is already here—to lead us in the way of light and life and joy. We know that he gave all he had to accomplish this, all the way to giving his life on the cross. The gift he received back from his Heavenly Father was resurrection, which opened the way to our salvation. Amen.