Second Sunday of Advent (A), December 8, 2013; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God, hope of the prophets, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

It’s the second Sunday of Advent, and once again (in the Church, anyway) we have to go by John the Baptist in order to get to the baby Jesus. I don’t know about you, but whenever I encounter John the Baptist, in scripture or in people that remind me of him in day-to-day life, I have a strong urge to steer clear. It’s not that I disagree with John the Baptist’s message; it’s just hard for me to look at him and hard to listen to him, especially when he starts his blistering critiques of well-meaning religious teachers and priests (which is what Pharisees and Sadducees were). I feel inclined to respond, “Look, come back and talk to me when you’ve calmed down and you’ve had a good meal and a shower.” But John the Baptist never calms down. And I don’t want to look him in the eyes any more than I want to look people in the eyes who are rough and wild and eating whatever they can find out of garbage cans in the wilderness of places like the Back Bay. I don’t want to listen to John the Baptist any more than I want to listen to the angry rants about injustice from a disgruntled resident of the women’s shelter downstairs or anyone else, for that matter.

It’s painful to hear God’s call for justice and acknowledge my own complicit share in unjust systems and economies that make and keep people poor or sick or set apart. It’s tempting to think that we don’t have to heed the cries of John the Baptist, since he himself says he is not worthy to carry the sandals of the one who comes after him. Surely Jesus was softer and gentler than John the Baptist predicted. The Gospel of Matthew seems to anticipate this dodge because it has Jesus himself quoting John the Baptist in the very next chapter.

Jesus’ message is the same as John’s: REPENT! In Greek the word means “change” or “go the other way” and in Hebrew the word for repent means “return home from exile,” and by “home” the Bible means “God.” I’m always sure that we should heed this command, but not so sure how to lead us to do it. And Paul’s phrase from our reading from his letter to the Romans rings in my ears: the instruction and the encouragement of the scripture are there so that we might have hope. Hope for the sake of what? For the sake of the well-being – the shalom of all of the citizens of the world.

This past week, I heard a rendering of this Gospel lesson by Eugene Peterson in The Message that actually sounded more like the hope that Isaiah heard coming from the voice in the wilderness.¹ Listen to the second half of the story again told this way:  When John realized that a lot of[religious leaders] were showing up for a baptismal experience because it was becoming the popular thing to do, he exploded:

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 make any difference? It’s your life that must change, not your skin! And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as father. Being a descendant of Abraham is neither here nor there. Descendants of Abraham are a dime a dozen. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because… deadwood …goes on the fire.

I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama—compared to him I’m a mere stagehand—will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.

I was really struck by that metaphor of snakeskin. You know, the way for a snake to grow is for its skin to dry out, crack, and fall away. And I noticed that even Biblical snakes get tempted according to Matthew. The temptation for the snake in this scenario is to keep its skin moist so that it stays comfortable – so that its skin can’t crack and fall away. But if it doesn’t fall away, the snake simply cannot grow. I thought about that metaphor as applied by John the Baptist to religious people – you know – people who go to church.

The derogatory term “heathen,” which is shot through religious discourse (including today’s cantata text) really just means people who don’t worship the way we think they should. The other day in the middle of a clergy gathering discussing church service attendance, one of my colleagues said that the main difference between people who go to church and people who don’t is that some go to church. Actually that’s the only difference, she said. She went on to say that all are searching for meaning and for moments of transcendence in various ways, with varying degrees of success.² So, just to be clear, I’m not talking about us as if we have some work to do that folks who aren’t here don’t also have to do. But I am preaching to you (and to myself) because we’re the ones here today. What cracked and dry skin will need to fall away so that we can grow the well-being, the shalom of the world?

I wonder, what about Emmanuel Church as we have entered a time of transition – a time of endings and beginning again. It’s early – and maybe the changes are barely perceptible, but the signs that we are changing and growing began with the TogetherNow collaborative capital campaign last year and the congregational and leadership development of this year, accelerated during my sabbatical last spring. As I say, maybe the changes are barely perceptible, but some of the ways we have been are ending and new ways are beginning. When the vestry and I reflected on our mutual ministry a few weeks ago, we noted that we see signs of growth in Emmanuel’s generosity, vision and mission and purpose – in this parish’s sense of responsibility and commitment. We are growing in our response to the call to bear fruit that will last. We have answered this call in big ways before – the Emmanuel Movement at the turn of the last century, forerunner to Alcoholics Anonymous comes to mind. We have answered this call in big ways before – this parish’s leadership work in the 1930’s to change the marriage canons of the Episcopal Church to permit divorce, this parish’s leadership work in the dawn of the present century to organize religious leaders across Massachusetts to secure the civil right of same-gender marriage. There are other examples, too.

In his reflection on repenting in The Passionate Life, Sam Keen wrote: “The practice of [beginning again] requires the rarest type of courage. Magical thinking always tempts us to believe that we can purchase enlightenment without coming to know our darkness, that we can be saved by some vicarious savior, that we can be reborn without having to die.”2 We are called to begin again and we respond as individuals and more importantly we respond as a group – as a parish, as a community of faith. It seems to me that Advent, the beginning of a new church year, is the perfect time to realize or remember this.³

Advent is a church season that marks a call to repent, to change our ways, to go another way, to return to the One who loves us unconditionally, and to have the courage to grow from the inside out. And the focus of Advent is on corporate or institutional or community change. The more we love our own institution or community or sect, the more we must confront its arrogance and its indifference.⁴ We might have difficulty knowing how the need to change applies to us. Or perhaps we have difficulty seeing in the darkness of this season. But I think it’s actually easier for us to see than it is to change. We are in a wilderness of sorts –- feeling vulnerable, unsure of what the change will demand from us, unsure of whether we will have what it will take. We surely have a skin that will need to dry out, crack, and fall away so that we can continue to grow. The new skin will be tender, yes, and we may feel overexposed for a while.

I hope that you have paused to reflect on the magnificent life and witness of Nelson Mandela this week as the world marks his death and celebrates his life of grace, of resilience and determination to enact and model reconciliation. I also hope that we feel inspired to take up his courageous work for justice and peace with a fresh sense of clarity and courage. We know that his clarity and courage were forged – even baptized — in the fire of incarceration, surely inspired by the Holy Spirit. I’ve been thinking that he shed his dried out, cracked skin when he left nearly three decades of often brutal imprisonment. He famously said, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” For me, it’s as empowering to know that he felt bitterness and hatred as it is to know that he could decide to leave it behind, because we all have experiences of the imprisonment of bitterness and hatred.

Here’s some Good News. In the most desolate and spare wilderness, there is a river of life and a voice of hope that cries out that we are not alone. That’s what the voice crying in the wilderness tells us. We are not alone. Our sacred narrative tells us that God wants us to know this so much that God With Us, Emmanuel, will be born – God will take on human form as a radical show of solidarity. Apparently, God will stop at nothing to get our attention!⁵ The voice crying in the wilderness tells us that Jesus, Emmanuel, will help us sort through what in us is true and what is false, what are the nutritious kernels and what are the indigestible husks. Jesus will do this with inspiration and passion – which is another way of saying with the Holy Spirit and with fire. So let’s encourage one another grow from the inside-out in this new year. Let’s bear fruit worthy of the welcome home that God is preparing for us, because the realm of heaven has truly come near.

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