SERMON PREACHED at St MARY’S, NORTH OAMARU
and St Alban’s,
Kurow
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT (12th December)
2021
Readings:
Zephaniah
3:14-20
For the psalm:
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:
4-7
Luke 3: 7-18
“You
brood of vipers,” John cheerfully addresses his audience: “who warned you to
flee from the wrath that is to come?” He seems to dispense with the social niceties
of “Hello, how are you, welcome to my desert.” I’m not sure that he’s read the book
on making visitors feel welcome in church.
For
good measure he reminds his berated audience that the winnowing fork of the judge
is at this very moment poised to strike them – us – down and we are presumably
to be cast into unquenchable fire. Luke does remind us that the Baptist
specialised in bringing Good News to the people – it’s just that good news seems well disguised in this reading.
Most
of us, I suspect, sat down with less than cheerful memories of the passage that
we’d just heard. Most of us are aware that we haven’t done an awful lot of
sharing of our coats. Some of us may have heard academic David Tombs reminding
us in the Gospel Conversations of the story of the South American Socialist
leader addressing adoring, applauding crowds … if you have two houses (or seven
for that matter, or however many the leader of the opposition has) surrender them
to the poor. The crowd cheers wildly. If you have two cars (or can afford a
black Mercedes to drive you around the block as the Leader of the opposition
did) – give one up. The crowd cheers wildly, as
crowds do when they hear popular demands that really don’t apply to them. If you
have two coats … give one up. The crowd stood in sulky silence. The rich young
man walked away, remember.
Socialism is
easy when I am the one who gains, but less so when I am the one called to make
sacrifice. I have often if not always been guilty of a socialism of jealousy, keen
to see the wealthy surrender their assets, but less keen to make sacrifices of
my own. Yeah, get rid of your houses, Mr Luxton [newly elected Leader of the Opposition in New Zealand], I am inclined to say, or your cars,
or whatever, but I am less keen to get rid of the surpluses in my life. I
secretly would prefer it if he slipped a house or two or a car or two my way. Maybe
I too should be fleeing the wrath that the Baptiser announced?
Few of us in the
so-called First World / Global North escape the wrath that John the Baptist spoke
of, when we compare our wealth and opulence with the horrors of existence in
Syria or Sudan. That doesn’t altogether sound to me like good news, news to
elicit great joy. But … but …
But we might
just leave John there, for a moment, ranting in his desert. The other readings do
seem to speak of joy. Great joy. Rejoicing. Much nicer. “Rejoice in the Lord
always and again I say rejoice.” I used to sing that happily in the Christian Fellowship
of my first flushes of faith. “Rejoice, rejoice, and again I say rejoice.”
John – he was
such a party pooper. Though his cousin, our babe of Bethlehem, wasn’t always a
bundle of joy, either: if your hand causes you to sin, chop it off. Your eye?
Pluck it out. Go sell all you have, give to the poor, then come follow me. Gosh
- those cousins. Though at least Jesus turned some water into wine.
When I give the
last rites – far less common these days than in the early days of my ministry –
I say something that’s not in the book. I commend the person I’m sitting with, anointing,
praying for, into “the loving care and judgement of God.” I don’t have time then
or now into the whole theological kit and caboodle of explaining that all we
need to see and know of that loving care and judgement is revealed in the life
and teachings of Jesus. I leave it unsaid.
But time and again
I find Jesus offering not an airy-fairy wave of the hand to those he encounters
– the “usses” he encounters – who have shall we say fallen short of the glory
of God. He doesn’t conspiratorially say to the sinner, “never mind, buddy, it
doesn’t matter.” No. It’s something more like, “Mate, you got it wrong. But let’s
see if we can set things right, okay, and find a way forward.”
The gospel
writers leave us the hint that this is what we need to do, too. We are a brood
of vipers, but yeah, the footprints of Jesus are still warm, and he will pick
us up, help us to love, make us a tad better person, if we let him. The wrath
of Jesus is ameliorative, not punitive – restorative, not destructive. Though
it sometimes hurts a little. In fact I think the current throes of nature, in
all their destructiveness, might be a kind of restoration writ large, though
the equations seem wrong, and so far it seems only to have made the plight of
the poor peoples more wretched and the rest of us just a little inconvenienced. I
don’t understand that. I know my innter viper, deserving wrath.
But I think we may
be beginning to see ourselves for who we are. This too may be a judgement of
God, as our complacencies fall apart. Who warned you to flee from the wrath
that is to come? Those nations who are hoarding vaccines at the expense of the
poor nations may yet feel the terrible wrath of nature which is of God: is that
what the Omicron variant is warning us? Those who have dived down rabbit holes
of self-indulgence may yet hear John the Baptist’s wrath writ large. Have they
protected the vulnerable? History suggests we won’t listen. One day we might
just have to. We’re past the eleventh hour, now, well past.
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