This morning our scripture lessons all contain great and
prophetic dissonance. The dissonance is easy to hear in the Gospel reading
from Luke. John the Baptist is yelling things at the people who came to
be baptized by him, like “You brood of vipers!...Even now the ax
is lying at the root of the trees….He will baptize you with fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to
gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable
fire” and then the writer of Luke adds in his best story-telling
voice, “with many other exhortations John the Baptist proclaimed
the good news to the people.” That always makes me smile and wonder,
“boy, if that’s the good news, I’d hate to hear the
bad news.”
The dissonance in Philippians isn’t contained in the passage before
us, but in the whole letter of Paul to the church in Philippi. Paul was
writing from prison where he was awaiting trial and a possible death sentence.
He was writing to a faith community with a turbulent past, to people with
more than their share of pain. His instruction to rejoice and to not worry
is particularly striking and poignant to me in the larger context of a
prisoner awaiting a capital offense trial writing to a church community
experiencing a great deal of difficulty. “The joy that Paul describes
is a defiant ‘nevertheless,’ which draws strength from the
Gospel story and from laying one’s deepest concerns before God with
thanksgiving” (1) for unnumbered blessings already
received.
The dissonance in Zephaniah has to do with rejoicing in the midst of devastation
and disaster, in the midst of the indignities that have been cause for
shame and reproach, that have caused hands to grow weak with fear and
despair. Zephaniah laments the corruption and injustice rampant in the
city of Jerusalem. The covenant of living in Love has been violated and
the religious leadership is implicated once again.
It’s not a stretch to imagine folks responding to any one of these
three readings with an incredulous, “are you kidding me?”
And when they all come together, it means that it must be Advent. Presbyterian
Pastor Gary Charles recently wrote, “Stories of Advent are dug from
the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed
dreams. They are told from the vista where sin still reigns supreme and
hope has gone on vacation.”(2) Advent is, as
one of my friends recently put it, a time for “waiting, expecting,
preparing, and trying not to freak out.”(3) (And
as I mentioned several weeks ago, trying usually means not doing.)
The prophets Zephaniah, the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist and Luke the
Evangelist are all giving sage advice about how to live in the midst of
injustice and oppression, disaster and shame, uncertainty and fear. It’s
always worth pausing to remember that the only reason to give instruction,
especially in writing, is because people aren’t doing whatever is
being recommended. And it’s always worth pausing to remember that
the prophetic words being offered, that the call, as it were, is to the
city, to the nation, to the church, to the community gathered expectantly
at the Jordan River or anywhere. Participation in systems of oppression,
exploitation, and extortion must stop. Complacency in economies that work
to make rich people happy and make everyone else afraid must come to an
end. Whether it’s physical or financial or spiritual, whatever tempts
us to behave badly toward one another toward one another must be disarmed.
And what could be more disarming than Love?
Zephaniah tells us that in the midst of injustice and oppression, disaster
and shame, uncertainty and fear, is another (an Other): a warrior who
is already rejoicing over the people with gladness, exulting and singing
loudly, and renewing the people in Love, and the word here rendered renewing
can also be translated engraving – as a metal artist might inscribe
a design! Engraving the people with Love. Paul tells us that Love (aka
the Lord) is near. Luke tells us that the Word of Love came not to the
people in positions of power and public trust (like Emperor Tiberius,
or Pontius Pilate or Philip or Lysanias, or the high priests of the religious
establishment, to name a few). No. The Word of God came to John the Baptist,
a nobody who lived in the middle of nowhere. The Love of God came and
continues to come into the midst of the people, covering our enormous
debts, removing our disasters so that we will not bear reproach for them,
gratefully receiving all that is good and true and just, and letting the
rest go.
And what is our right response according to these biblical prophets?
Our right response is singing aloud, making music, and rejoicing; making
our pleas for mercy, for healing, for justice, in the context of thanksgiving;
and sharing whatever we have with any who are in need. Our right response
is dispelling the fear that weakens us and embracing the hope that invigorates
us, to help those around us know just what Love looks like. According
to our scripture, and according to our tradition, that is work best done
in a group – because none of us can make a sustainable right response
alone. Our right response is to gather and to remember that we are all
beggars who know where a little bread is and can share it. Our right response
is to practice the sharing in here so that we can do it out there. (This
is our laboratory.)
A parishioner recently asserted that one must never let one’s own
suffering go to waste, and that is certainly what I mean to be preaching
here. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We are called upon
to help the discouraged beggars in life's market place. But one day we
must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”(4)
The Apostle Paul promises us that when we maintain our posture and practice
of expressing gratitude, the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds.
The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds so that, so that, our
hands are strengthened to work for justice for all who suffer wrong and
freedom for all who are oppressed. So that we might be stirred up as our
Advent collect prays.
There is a hymn text in the Presbyterian hymnal that comes to my mind
when I reflect on the rejoicing, thanksgiving and justice-making we are
called to do together in community. Had I thought of it before yesterday,
I would have had us sing it together. Instead, I’m going to read
it to you to close my reflection:
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When God restored our common life, our hope, our liberty,
at first it seemed a passing dream, a waking fantasy.
A shock of joy swept over us, for we had wept so long;
the seeds we watered once with tears sprang up into a song.
We went forth weeping, sowing seeds in hard, unyielding soil;
with laughing hearts we carry home the fruit of all our toil.
We praise the One who gave the growth, with voices full and strong.
The seeds we watered once with tears sprang up into a song.
Great liberating God, we pray for all who are oppressed.
May those who long for what is right with justice now be blest.
We pray for those who mourn this day, and all who suffer wrong;
may seeds they water now with tears spring up into a song. (5)
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- William Dryness writing in The Christian Century,
11/23/94, paraphrasing Karl Barth.
- Gary Charles in Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2009), p. 3.
- Thanks to Lynn Vanderford Schmissrauter for this!
- Martin Luther King, Jr."Where do we go from here?"
speech made to the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the S.C.L.C.
in Atlanta on August 16, 1967.
- Hymn text by Ruth Duck.
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