John 1:1-18: Let's Play "Guess the Present!"

Merry Christmas! I have a confession to make to you this morning. This is only the second time in my life that I have ever been to church on Christmas day. Yes, I know. It’s strange. A priest has only been to church one time on Christmas day. Well, my family custom on this day was to wake up, check out our stockings, eat our traditional breakfast, and then tear into our presents. Typically by this time in the day, as a child, I was well on my way to playing with whatever toy or game I had received. In that spirit, I actually want to play a game with you all this morning. I know. It’s strange. Playing a game in church on Christmas day. This is not why you came, but I think you might enjoy this.

Now, this game is actually an adaptation of another game. My friend, Nathan Carlson, a member of St. Thomas down in Birmingham, taught me his game a few years ago. Nathan is a teacher and soccer coach at Homewood High School. He’s creative, he’s funny, and he’s caring. The game he plays is called, “Guess What’s Underneath My Shirt!” As baffling as it might be, the game is simply played by guessing what is underneath Nathan’s shirt. He might hide a toaster oven and the objection of the game is to guess toaster oven. Maybe you get to keep the object, but probably you just get the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

Well, this morning I want to play the Christmas version of this game entitled, “Guess the Present.” I imagine you might already be pretty good at this. We all tend to look at the presents underneath the Christmas tree and we make a guess at what’s underneath the wrapping paper. Well, the game is played in much the same way. I will hold something up and you guess what is held within the packaging. If you guess correctly, then you have the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

Round:
1. Lamp shade

2. Clock

3. Mystery Present

In this third package it could really be anything. It just looks like a box. Who knows what it could be inside this mystery present? While we are thinking about what is held within this paper, I wonder why it is that we give one another presents at this time of year. Why do we give gifts at Christmas time?

Perhaps it has something to do with St. Nicholas. He was the 4th Century Christian bishop of Myra who supposedly would go around to poor families and pay their daughters’ dowries leaving money and sometimes food in a family member’s shoes that would have been left on the outside of the house. Some still celebrate the tradition in early December as they put their shoes out and wait for presents to fill them up. Actually if you leave out a stocking you are in some way celebrating St. Nicholas. Still I don’t know if this is the real reason why we give each other presents now. I wonder what is in the mystery present.

But why do we give each other presents? Maybe it is because we like each other. We appreciate one another, and we want to show that gratitude in giving one another a gift. Perhaps… Really, I have to know what is in this mystery box! If it could be anything, what do you wish it is? A picture of a beloved relative? A gift card? Keys to a new car? A check for a million dollars? Alright, I cannot stand it anymore… I am going to open this present!

There is nothing inside, just some gold paper. I wonder why there’s nothing in it. Sometimes we cannot sense with our sensory perception the gifts we are given. We may not be able to see, touch, taste, smell, or hear a gift, but that does not mean it is not given to us. I believe this is the case with the gift that we receive in today’s gospel.

The good news of John opens with a mysterious song that focuses upon the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehend it not.”

God, in His infinite abundance, goodness, and love created all things by speaking things into being through the Word. All of this that we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear has been made and made good through the Word of God. Yet, like a mysterious present that we cannot figure out, sometimes we do not understand this present that we have been handed. “He was in the world and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him,” John says. I believe that we give each other gifts at this time of year to take part in God’s abundant gift giving. We attempt to show one another our appreciation by participating in God’s gifting.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” The gift that we have been given is that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. When God came into the world through the Word of God we were given the clearest gift of God’s abundant love for us. Through God becoming incarnate all of creation and we ourselves were made holy vicariously.

God’s Word also brought true light into the world. “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” This light was brought into the world through the Word of God. It enlightens us all. In this the darkest time of year for us in the northern hemisphere we are reminded that the true light enlightens us all. We have this light within us. Each of us has this light within us. The Christ light burns inside.

So as we go forth from here celebrating Christmas, celebrating the Word of God made flesh and dwelling with us, let us also take with us the light of Christ. When we meet our family, our friends, and our neighbors that light burns within us, and it burns within them as well. Remember that all whom we meet have been made holy by God’s coming to be with us. Remember that God has given us all the gift of coming to be with us. Remember that we all possess Christ’s light within us. Amen.

Matthew 1:18-25: I Can't Do It Becomes I Can With God's Help

“I can’t do it,” said the little voice. I looked down at the six year old boy from which the words came. The genuine perplexity with which he said, “I can’t do it,” made it just about impossible for me to get upset. Of course, it was only the first day of camp. Pretty quickly though, I learned that whenever I asked this child to put on shoes, to get ready for pool, to make up his bed, to brush his teeth, or whatever else a hut leader asks her or his campers to do the reply was always the same, “I can’t do it.” By Tuesday my feeling that this was a cute child of God had melted into thinking that perhaps this was a Job situation and I was being tested by the God Almighty. Only 15 years old I did not yet have a grip on my emotions, so as the camper kept saying, “I can’t do it,” my patience wore thinner and thinner.  To top it all off though, not only was one camper saying, “I can’t,” the entire cabin of twelve 6 to 8 year olds responded to any request with the negative words.

Kevin Denson was the other leader in my cabin. We had been campers together for a few years. As we sat down on Tuesday night, he looked as tired as I felt. So I asked him, “What should we do?” His response was as malicious as it was brilliant, “Maybe we could use a devotion.” Of course, I thought, “We could turn to the Word of God to force misbehaving children into shaping up.” I know, I am not proud of what I did, but desperate times, like this, call for desperate measures.

That very same night we turned to a couple verses in Scripture to illustrate our point, namely God does not want us to respond by saying “No, I can’t,” rather we are to say I can… “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) and “For God all things are possible” (Mark 10:27). We hammered home our message by saying, instead of telling us I can’t do it, say I can. God helps us to do all things. Really, even though we had bad intentions the message was a good one. And, perhaps it was our brilliant message, but probably it was that by Tuesday all the activities (hiking, horseback riding, canoeing, swimming, games, and singing) wore the campers out such that they all fell quickly asleep. At least that is what Kevin and I thought happened.

Sometime around two o’clock in the morning, the boy who had been saying “I can’t do it” all week long came and knocked on my door. Half awake, I sat up in my bed. “Buddy, what do you need? It’s really late.” He responded, “I can. I can go to the bathroom.” By which, he meant I can’t go to the bathroom, at least not without a leader coming with him. I just about started crying there and then. He had tried his best to understand our message. He tried to stay positive and to say I can with God’s help, even if he could not.

So often we think of Advent as Mary’s season of “yes,” but today’s gospel depicts Joseph as a profound model of “I can do this” with God’s help. Joseph is a paragon of faith, an example of trust, and one righteous man! Yet to dig a little deeper reveals that this story is not just about Joseph affirming God’s call, it is about us all taking part in the YES!

Betrothal, like the one between Mary and Joseph was a legal and binding contract that was made between the elders of families. Mary and Joseph probably did not have much of a voice in this process. Then, when Joseph discovers Mary is with child, he would have been in the right, according to the book of Deuteronomy (22:23-27), not only to dismiss his betrothed quietly, but also to put her to death, as she had broken the contract. YIKES! Yet, Joseph was a righteous man, so he planned to say, “I can’t do it,” in a more subtle manner. Then, all of a sudden something changed.

“Just when Joseph resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him.” God speaks to us in so many different ways: in Creation, in stillness, in relationship, in song, in Scripture, in worship, and even in dreams. What Joseph hears spoken to him is actually of profound importance to us as well. The angel identifies Joseph, as Son of David, which puts some historical perspective around this. The God of all Creation has sent a messenger who knows exactly who Joseph is. God does not mistake Joseph calling him by the wrong name. God knows the number of hairs on his head. He knows exactly who we are too. God knows us, the number of hairs on our heads too. He knows our hearts, our minds, and our emotions…

The messenger then tells Joseph, “Do not be afraid.” Someone once told me, “Fear is a great place to visit, but it’s certainly not a place you want to live.” I can imagine that if I were in Joseph’s position and an angel came to me in a dream I would be pretty scared. Yet, the angel’s message of not being afraid is really an invitation to be open to what is coming from God. We too are asked to be open to what God is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be. The angel then lets Joseph know that this child is not some “illegitimate” son, but conceived from the Holy Spirit within Mary. The Holy Spirit comes to bear life in Mary in a very special way. Once his fear subsides, Joseph can hear that God is bearing something profound within his betrothed. We too are invited to put down our fears, so that the Spirit can bear life with Christ in us.

Joseph then discovers that he is to name this child Jesus. This is nothing all that new in Jewish history, as Ishmael, Isaac, Solomon and Josiah all had their names revealed to their family in dreams. Yet, the Angel’s last note stands out in particular! Jesus will save his people from their sins. The child within Mary will wipe away the perceived disconnection, the wrongs, and the hurt that keep people from God. This is good news. This is a good dream, but we cannot live merely in dreams.

What is remarkable about this dream though, is that Joseph wakes up! This is the season when we hear “Sleepers Awake!” Joseph does wake up and all that told to him becomes true! The “I can’t do it” in the nighttime turned into “I can” of the morning. Matthew tells us that all of this happened to fulfill a prophecy that we would know Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” WHOA! God is coming to be with us! When I really stop to think about it, I can hardly believe this. The God of all Creation wants to come and be with us? Certainly God has made Himself known through Creation, through the prophets, through wisdom, but now God is going to fully show us that God is with us! We are called to respond like Joseph.

Joseph, could have said no to this dream. Who knows what would have happened? Certainly God could have intervened in other ways, but Joseph could have put shame upon Mary, Joseph could have even had Mary put to death. Yet, he listens to what the messenger says in a dream. Joseph says I can do this with your help God! And the way in which God responds is by coming to be with Joseph, coming to be with us!

Advent is a season of Mary’s yes, but it is also a season of Joseph’s affirmation. A time for dreaming and for listening. A chance for us to wake up. We are called to say yes to God! Even when the consequences seem hard to believe. How will “I can’t do it” turn into “I can do it with God’s help”? How will you dream? How will you wake up? How will you see that God is with us?

Matthew 24: 45-51: Jesus is Coming, Act Un-busy

Do you ever find yourself completely distracted by people’s bumper stickers? I am not talking about “My daughter is an honor roll student” ones, particularly I am thinking of religious bumper stickers. They tend to induce an emotional response in me, which I am surprised has not gotten me into an accident. Sometimes boiling down a complex theological tenant into a simple phrase leaves something to be desired, to be discussed, to be explored. I guess that is one point of having such a sticker affixed to the back of one’s automobile, while I might not keep driving the same roads as this person, her sticker is going to make me think for miles and miles to come.

One of my friends in seminary had a sticker on her car that read, “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” I chuckled the first time I read it, but I still wonder about that question today. Other phrases might not cause as many questions, like one that has recently faded off the back of my car. “Blessed to be an Episcopalian,” read the sticker, but the “to be an” was in very small lettering, so it looked like, “Blessed Episcopalian” from far away. A little presumptuous, I know. Another statement I once read on the back of a minivan has hung with me in an eerie way, it simply stated  Jesus is Coming, Act Busy.” I did not ever get to meet the people in this van, so I do not know if it was said tongue in cheek; however, regardless of the amount of sarcasm attached, this phrase pokes at a deep seeded dilemma within me and within today’s gospel.

The difficulty within leaves me wondering, how hard do I have to work for Jesus to accept me into his Kingdom? Act busy for Jesus is coming and you better be doing something when he gets here. That is the default tendency somehow innately programmed within me.

In today’s gospel, Jesus uses a household from his day as a parable. He explains, “Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.” What I hear is this message of act busy the master is coming! At this time of year when we have so much going on around us, I believe that we might get swept up in this message too. We might believe that our worth in not just our own eyes, but our family’s eyes, and even God’s eyes is determined by how much we do. Yet, if all we take from today’s message is the bumper sticker, “Act busy, Jesus is coming,” then we miss the point.

In this parable those who are wicked are the ones who know the master is delayed in coming and instead of taking care of one another, they get drunk and act violently towards one another. Both drunkenness and violence are addictive distractions of power. They tend to make us believe that we are more powerful than we are and they distract us from that which the good servants are focused: relationship. Those who are wicked are not wicked just because they are drunk or violent, they are wicked because they have substituted the healthy relationship with something that is distracting, demeaning, and destructive. The good servant on the other hand is “hard at work,” but not in the sense of being “busy.”

“Act busy, Jesus is coming,” might be just as dangerous as drunkenness or violence. This is the superficial message from today’s gospel that leads to bumper stickers being printed. Instead, the “work” that God gives us, his servants to do, focuses upon being in relationship with one another, taking care of one another, and not getting distracted by the many things that might make us think that we have “power.”

In today’s somewhat distracting reading from John’s Revelation, we hear of “the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside.” Day and night without ceasing they are singing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” These creatures who have sight within themselves as well as outside of them, are aware enough to just be with God. Their focus is upon praising God, night and day. They do not get distracted by addiction or power, instead, they continually hold their intention as praising God.

God is continually faithful to us. Our charge is to be wise and faithful servants of God. To do this does not mean that we act busy, rather it is for us to be un-busy. I do not mean that we all quit meaningful work to sit around and sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” all day long, but in this season of Advent while we wait for God’s coming there are many distractions. The work we are given to do is to prepare space for God to come; to slow down, to be quiet; to stop, to listen; to be present to the God who is coming to be with us. Jesus is coming, act un-busy.

Matthew 1:18-25: Defying Our Own Good Intentions

This week's gospel (for Advent 4, Year A in the Revised Common Lectionary: Matthew 1:18-25) opens in a very matter of fact manner, "Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way." Then, unlike the Gospel of Luke, which our Nativity-focused culture tends to love, we hear about Joseph and not Mary. The Eastern Orthodox Church calls Mary theotokos, or God bearer, and with them I heartily rejoice in her willingness to continually say "yes" to God, which is so beautifully described in the Third Gospel's stories. Yet, when I put myself in Joseph's shoes I find his own response to Christ's coming into the world another complete act of Faith in God's working among us.

Joseph was a righteous man, we discover from Matthew's words, and he was going to do the noble thing when he found out that Mary was with child. He was to "dismiss her quietly" from their engagement. Ending a proposed marriage in a small town, like Bethlehem, would hardly be a quiet act, but Joseph set about accomplishing this before he lay down for sleep one night. Joseph held as his intention that no shame be brought unto Mary, and this points to the virtuous way in which this son of David lived his life. Today, we still have disparity in the way in which men and women are treated, especially around issues of sexuality and "illegitimate" pregnancy, so for Joseph to do as he was planning was indeed outstanding and righteous! Yet, all of Joseph's good intentions were dwarfed by what God had in store for him through the Holy Spirit and his partner Mary.

The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him not to be afraid of taking Mary as his wife. Upon awaking Joseph who was so convinced by the vision that he did as the messenger told him. Yet, we must be careful not overlook the riskiness of this move from a societal perspective. If anyone found out that Mary's child was not Joseph's own, he would have been scorned, shamed, and humiliated by those around him. One's status in Jewish society in the First Century would have been correlated with her or his moral credibility. Joseph's livelihood depended upon the respect of others. So for Joseph to go from a quiet dismissal, which would have been in and of itself risky, to something that could have led to complete societal isolation himself shows just how profound Joseph's faith in God was after having this dream. So what does Joseph's faith show us?

I believe, as strange as it sounds, that Jesus really was born of the Holy Spirit within Mary. I believe that an God truly spoke to Joseph in a dream. I believe that Joseph was indeed a righteous man intending to do what was least shameful to Mary, yet God's will can defy even our best intentions. God's salvific (salvation-focused) work does not typically happen in a manner that appears logical to us. Remember from this last week's gospel, Jesus referred to the great John the Baptist saying, "the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he," and elsewhere that even the wisest on earth are fools in the kingdom of heaven. So even those who appear to be most "godly," "righteous," or "Christ-like" and even we who work towards the best laid plans can often come up lacking. This does not appear to be very good news on the surface: even my best intentions, even my righteous ways, and even my best attempts are not always in line with what God is doing.

However, good news rests just beneath the surface, or better yet, just behind our sleepy eyelids. In a season when we are warned to keep awake (for we know not when God will come like a thief in the night), the good news for Joseph appears ironically when he is sleeping. For Joseph his ways are righteous, but they are not God's most abundant will. God's work sometimes will come in such a way that we cannot even believe it, nor understand it. This is so hard for me as a rational, intellectual, and heady person. How can Mary be a virgin? How can Joseph stand by her? How can God actually come into the world? The difficulty is in resisting the urge to attempt to explain away God's Mysteries. Maybe that is an unsatisfying answer, but God's will brings comfort in that we do not have understand everything, that we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Mary's virginity, Joseph's dream, or Jesus' divinity. Leaning into the mysteries of God, withholding our attempts to explain away God's ways, and living into Faith allows for the gift of grace to transform our own righteous intentions into God's miraculous working in the world.    

Ordination Day Reflection: I Am A Man Of Unclean Lips, Yet God Calls Me

The historical prophet Isaiah had a vision in the Temple. The Lord was sitting high and lofty on a throne, the hem of the Lord's robe filled the entire space, the pivots shook, the house filled with smoke, and seraphs with six wings floated around singing to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

To be certain, I have never seen quite a sight as this. In yesterday's post I described a very holy moment in my life in which I finally felt God's call to the priesthood reverberating within me. Others had heard it in me earlier in my life, but it took a profound moment for me to let God's bidding sink deep into my soul. When Isaiah experienced the overwhelming presence of God in the Temple his response focused at first upon his inadequacy, as he spoke, "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!"

At first, when I heard God's call spoken by others I felt the same way as Isaiah. Within me there is sin and separation. Sometimes I feel disconnected from my neighbor and from God. Often I focus on my needs and not the concerns of those around me. Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. Yet, there is more to what Isaiah says and I think more to a call from God than our inadequacies.

Even in his unclean state, Isaiah says, "My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" Yet, God does something to relinquish this feeling in Isaiah of uncleanliness. Isaiah openly admits his state, "I am a man of unclean lips." His sinful nature is located within his mouth and the way in which he is cleansed is through a fiery coal delivered by a messenger of God to precisely where his separation is housed. By his mouth he sins, and by his mouth he is cleansed. Once the sin departs, Isaiah is able to hear the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" With his once sinful lips and tongue, Isaiah responds to God, "Here I am, send me."

This is a great reminder for me on my ordination day, and it is a wonderful call for all of us, as we serve God. God comes to us in tremendous fashion, sometimes in an overwhelming manner with flowing hems, earthquake, and coal bearing seraphs. Other times the coming of God is in the stillness or in our darkness. We may believe that we are not worthy to serve with God, I am often guilty of this, yet God is always seeking to reconcile us to Godself. Most clearly we see this in the Incarnation of God within the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In his coming, his ministry, his death, his Resurrection, and his Ascension we are, like with the seraphs from Isaiah, relinquished from our separation and fitted for ministry with God. All we can do, and all I want to do today is to respond, "Here I am, send me."

Our God is Persistent

When I was twelve years old Mrs. Sallie Lowe stopped me after a service of Holy Eucharist in which I had served as an acolyte. She said to me, "Seth, you will make a great priest one day." My mom who was standing nearby says the look on my face did not hide my emotions. I was both bewildered and annoyed by the thought of spending my life working in the Church. Sure, I loved going to worship God on Sunday. Yes, I enjoyed being an acolyte. Certainly, I possessed a deep fascination with the mysterious words we prayed together at worship, but a priest? COME ON! As a pre-teen, I thought I would always love God, but being a minister in the Church was far from my ideal life path.

Seventeen years later, the clock ticks down the seconds until Tomorrow night, December 11th at 5:30 when I will be ordained to the sacred order of priests in God's one holy catholic and apostolic Church. How did this happen? Simply put, our God calls is persistent. Yet, I have found that ministry with one another and with God requires that I must slow down, be quiet, and listen to what form that ministry will take.

In the years after Mrs. Sallie prophesied at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church about my future vocation, I attempted to follow other passions to see where they led. For a while, I wanted to be a professional soccer player or a sportscaster, but when career day came around I decided to follow around my priest. On that day I allowed myself to wonder if working in God’s Church could be more appealing than I had initially thought. Mrs. Sallie’s words were echoing in my heart.

During college I joined every Christian group imaginable, but by my junior year I struggled with my belief in God. What if God does not exist? What if God does not care about me? What if? After a difficult breakup, I felt emotionally raw, and I hurled accusations at God. I questioned God’s presence in my life all those years growing up. “Could it have all been a lie?” I asked my mentor, the Rev. Annwn Myers. “Even when you slam the door shut in God’s face,” she told me, “leave the back door open or at least leave a crack in the window, so the breeze of the Holy Spirit can blow through.” I tried desperately to disconnect from God and the Church.
I stepped back from commitments at the college chapel. I attended atheist lectures. I tried my best to become a secular person. All the while something within me was drawing me back to God, like the undertow in the Gulf of Mexico on a red flag day all my struggling against the tide only seemed to pull me deeper into life in Christ. Yet, as I approached God, who was there with me the whole time, I felt a new gift of freedom. Instead of “having to believe” the same things as family or friends, I was able to experience God authentically from my own point of existence.

Through this freedom I felt called deeper into ministry with God in the Church. After college graduation, I applied for and received the position as the lay chaplain for undergraduates at Sewanee. In this placement I was able to “try on” ministry for three whole years. During this time I reaffirmed my baptismal vows at the Great Vigil of Easter, which was where I finally fully heard and accepted my call to the priesthood that Mrs. Sallie foretold ten years earlier.

At the Great Vigil I reaffirmed my baptismal vows and served as a Lay Eucharistic Minister. After receiving the bread and the wine I took my silver chalice to distribute this gift from God. As I approached the first person, I realized it was none other than Fr. Francis Walter, my childhood priest. He smiled the same grin that I remember from when he first gave me communion as a child. Pulling back the chalice after serving him I saw in the cup’s reflection all of the people gathered around the altar. “We are the chalice,” I thought, “We make up the Body and the Blood of Christ. We are Jesus Christ.” Whoa! I almost fell over with this simple, lighting bolt of God’s inspiration. Those gifts at the Table are important because we are important.


Since that moment on that Easter Vigil night I have been open to accepting the call to be a priest in God’s church. I finally heard what others had heard long before I did. After much discernment within myself, with committees, with friends, with family, with the Church, and with God, I am ready, or as ready as I will ever be for anything in my life. Tomorrow night I will kneel before Bishop Santosh to be ordained in God’s Church. I ask for your presence and your prayers. I will be made a priest, but the service is about us as a Church and God’s people. We are entering into a new ministry together and I hope that you will be there to celebrate.

Matthew 3:1-12: More Than Just "Do This, Do That"

Have you ever played the game called “Do This, Do That”? It’s not all that popular, so maybe you have never played it. But the leader of the game, does actions (kinda like this) and while saying, “Do this.” Those who are playing the game mirror the leader’s actions. The game keeps going on in this fashion until the leader says, “Do that.” And whatever action the leader does while saying “Do that,” is the only thing that gets players “out” of the game. So basically players copy the leader’s example while she or he says “Do this,” but as soon as she or he says “Do that,” one ceases to follow the leader’s motions. So let’s play one round, shall we?

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I was really good at this game. Not because I was super quick and had instinctive hand-eye reflexes, but rather the opposite was the case. I was slow and so I was always a move or two behind. When everyone was “oohing” and “awing” because the leader said, “Do That!” I was a step late and could stop in anticipation of what was to come.

The season of Advent is a prophetic season that often comes off sounding like, “Do This, Do That.” We look ahead to Christ’s coming both in the person of Jesus 2,000 years ago and the future advent of Christ. It’s a season when we are eternally looking ahead. Often we may hear the prophets telling us as we wait to “Do this and do that,” or better yet, “Do this, and don’t do that.”

We can hear John the Baptist this morning as the king of “Do this, Do That.” John is out in the wilderness saying “Come on out… Do this,” “The Kingdom of Heaven has come near, turn around, do this,” “Come into the waters of Baptism, do this.” Of course, the game of “Do This” changes suddenly to one of “Don’t Do That,” as soon as the Pharisees and Sadducees enter into the waters of the River Jordan.

Starting off the conversation calling the Jewish leaders, “You brood of vipers,” makes it seem as though the deck is stacked in this game. Yet, I can see a wry smile on the face of the Baptizer, as he asks, “Who warned you of the wrath to come?” John sees these hyper-religious men as people who rely so heavily upon their rituals that they have forgotten that it is not religion that they worship, but God. He warns them that entering into these life-giving, renewing waters is no empty gesture. True baptism to the prophet is shown in the good fruit it produces. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” he says. Do not cling to your ancestor’s merits for God can raise up stones to be children of Father Abraham. Then, John gifts us hearers with two images that at first appear to be dichotomous, either/or, “Do This, Do That,” yet they provide a subtle way for us to prepare for Christ’s coming both as a community and as individuals.

On the surface, we hear either, “you will be a tree bearing good fruit” or “you will be cut down”; “you will be wheat” or “you will be chaff.” There was a tree in the backyard of my childhood home, a great, beautiful apple tree. When I was in elementary school I would excitedly run outside almost every autumn morning to pick fruit from its branches. Then, I would put it in my lunch bag and proudly pull out some homegrown good produce at school. Yet, as the years went on and on, the tree grew older and older, and it bore less and less fruit. Eventually, this once fruitful apple tree slowly started to decay and die. While this saddened me, what I learned from watching this little backyard ecosystem was that even in the process of dying this dying tree was continuing to grab nutrients from the soil and its branches were blocking the sunlight from other smaller seedlings.

John’s warning about the trees bearing good fruit can be taken as a warning to “be good,” whatever that might mean, but maybe what the Baptist is crying about is a need to make way for new growth within our religious communities. I do not intend to pick up an axe and start chopping down dying ministries within our church, nor do I want to light fires to our tradition, but perhaps we together can see where pruning and maybe even hacking is in order to allow for something fresh to sprout. Where is the good fruit in our church? Where are those decaying things that take up our energy? What is blocking good new growth from happening? John’s cry is for us to dream something new together to bring it about and not to cling too tightly to the old ways. Yet there is another image.

One is coming who is more powerful than John, and his baptism is with the Holy Spirit and fire. The image that John uses for this fiery one to come is an agricultural image. The messiah will come with a winnowing fork in hand, as Lucy McCain said in centering prayer this week, there is grace in that he is not carrying a shovel. Yet the end of this image of the messiah seems a bit scary: the wheat is kept in the granary and the chaff is burnt up in an unquenchable fire.

I am not a great farmer, and we have many green thumbs in our church, so if what I am about to say is wrong, please correct me: Wheat is made up of grain and chaff. The chaff is that which protects the nutritious grain from bugs and the elements until the time is right for the grain to be harvested in the granary. John’s image is not asking us to think, “In the life to come do you prefer smoking or non-smoking?” as some church signs read. Rather, we are the stalks of wheat. We have a part of us that protects us from being fully vulnerable with one another and with God. Christ’s call is to shake off that chaff. Let the part of us that is keeping us isolated, alone, and “safe” be burned up in the unquenchable fire. Now I know this sounds scary, but we cannot live fireproof lives. We do not possess flame-retardant spirits. Part of us, that bit that separates us from one another has to be torched.

Once we let that chaff go, then we can come together. We can enter into the granary. As our grains come forth we are pressed together and turned into that flour that makes the bread of life. This is the good news hidden within the “Do This, Don’t Do That” game that John seems to be calling out in the wilderness. Once we move beyond our initial panic of believing that the Baptist is speaking of heaven and hell we can hear this truly difficult, yet fully inspiring message. With God we are called to cut down that which is dying and not bearing fruit in our community in order for new growth to happen and to shed the chaff providing us false security, so that we can come together to form the bread of life. In this season of Advent when we are asked to slow down and be quiet, to watch and wait, to stop and listen, God is coming to be with us. It is not a game of “Do This, Do That,” it is a time of discernment to prune our hearts and ministries, to shed the chaff so that God can bear in us good fruit and form our grains into the Bread of Life.

Matthew 3:1-12: John the Baptist Is a Weirdo and A Pyromaniac

This morning I had the gift of sitting with several members of St. John’s parish to practice Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. For the latter exercise, we read this coming Sunday’s gospel lesson, which is Matthew 3:1-12. In this passage we hear about John the Baptist who is crying out in the wilderness, as Isaiah foretold someone would. John, if you don’t already know, is a weirdo by today’s standards, or at least that’s what so many people say. He spent his time out in solitude, ate bugs and honey, and wore camel hair clothes with a leather belt. COMPLETE WEIRDO RIGHT?

Well, I’m not so sure. Prophets are supposed to be a little outside the box. If someone is swept up in the culture of the day, how could one actually say anything prophetic? One has to even step outside of one’s own home, one’s own town, one’s own immediate culture to have a resounding prophetic impact. Later in Matthew, Jesus himself will attest to this saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (13:57). I think John decided to step way, way outside of the predominant culture, so that he could gain some perspective. Thus John gives us phrases like, “You brood of vipers” (3:7), “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees” (3:10), “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (3:12), and my personal favorite “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” (3:8).

When John stepped out into the wilderness he left his kind and gentle turns of phrase back in civilization. As a result of the two thousand years of dissonance (in culture) and distance (in time and space) between John and myself, I tend to tune out what this great prophet said. I retain a bit of my childhood impatience and choose to skip over the hard message of Advent of which John is the head spokesperson. I want Christmas to be here already, so I create a more sterile version of this season of Advent. Primarily, from John’s message I run away, hide, and hope that I am not about to get axed and tossed into the unquenchable fire.
So I felt a bit squeamish at first hearing Matthew 3:1-12 multiple times this morning during Lectio Divina. Yet, sitting with the parishioners and John the Baptist enabled me to hear something new. This prophetic message from this strange man in the wilderness actually is a message of hope.

As stinging as his message is hitting our ears, John the Baptist truly was preaching good news about repentance, the forgiveness of sins, and the kingdom of heaven coming near! The Rt. Rev. Claude Payne in a meditation for today says that Advent is the season of the Old Testament, by which he means that it is the season of anticipating what the prophets are saying. We get to slow down, be quiet, and listen with hopeful ears for what is coming to us.

The Baptist’s message allows for us to dream how it is that the Christ’s coming will bring with it the Holy Spirit’s unquenchable fire. A fire that consumes our sins and our separations and melts away our distance from God and our neighbor. A fire that rips through our dying forests and dead tress to open up a new grove of growth. Fire is not easy to stand, nor is it easily controlled, but as we wait and watch for Christ’s coming the burning clears space for new life to blossom. John’s words burn like the fire that Christ brings.

Let the words into your heart. Let the fire consume you. Let Christ come into the world.