Second Sunday of Advent, Proper 2B, December 10, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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

Every year our branch of Christianity gives us a new year – a new advent –a new season for longing, to hear and respond to lessons of prophetic wisdom and calls for repentance writ large. These calls are not for personal repentance (that’s for the season of Lent). It’s fairly easy for people like us to understand our individual sins. (Not so easy to repent, but easy to identify.) It’s much harder in our culture for people like us to identify collective or institutional or structural sin, especially when so many of us benefit from it. Advent’s prophets are calling not for individual repentance, but for national repentance, for corporate repentance, and for ecclesiastical – that is Church — repentance. It seems to me that it doesn’t matter what your political perspective or affiliation is, we can probably agree that institutions – nations, corporations, and organizations are failing to care for people with dignity and respect. We are in a period of deep disintegration and the need for repentance, for turning around toward God, or Love, seems more pressing than ever.

This morning our collect for the day gathers us as one to beg for grace to heed the prophets’ warnings and forsake our sins – our collective sins: the sins of our communities, our corporations, and of our governments. We beg for grace because we surely cannot forsake our sins without grace. And if the good news is that God’s grace is abundantly available to us –all around us, completely accessible for the asking, then what? How do we drink from the deep well of God’s grace so that we heed the prophet’s warnings and forsake our sins? You know, I think the first step is admitting that we are powerless. What does forsaking look like? It is to abandon, ditch, reject, turn our backs on, renounce. What are our sins? Missing the mark, broken relationship – and the things that cause broken relationship: transgression, violence, greed, envy, resentment – you know the list. The essence of sin is separation from Love. Some of you might remember that last week I encouraged us to ask the question, “what would Love do in response to this mess we’re in?” If we have no idea, that is because of sin. If we know and are not willing to allow Love to do its work, that is because of sin.

John Donne’s beautiful words come to mind, and I’ve changed the pronouns to reflect our collective, our community. “Wilt thou forgive that sin where we begun, which was our sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which we run, and do run still, though still we do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for we have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin which we have won others to sin, and made our sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which we did shun a year or two, but wallow’d in, a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for we have more. We have a sin of fear, that when we have spun our last thread, we shall perish on the shore; but swear by thyself, that at our death thy Son shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore; And, having done that, thou hast done; we fear no more.” The reason to repent as organizations, institutions and nations – the reason to repent is to turn around toward Love, is so that we might forsake fear and experience joy, that we might forsake greed and experience generosity, that we might forsake violence and experience peace, that we might forsake indifference and experience compassion.

We have some bossy scripture lessons before us this morning – bold and directive in their instructions for those of us who are the heirs of the prophetic tradition. In the lesson from Isaiah, we have an instruction to comfort God’s people – to build a highway – a clear and easy road to travel to get right with God. Make the way easier to travel. It never takes very long in a Bible study discussion of this passage for someone in a group to say, “hey wait a minute, why would God need people to build an accessible and direct route? If God is God, why can’t God arrive unassisted, through the circuitous mazes and road blocks and rubble? Why do we have to do all the work?” Maybe because we need to clear the obstacles so that we (and other folks) can see that God is right here. Maybe there is too much of our own stuff in our way.

And then in Isaiah, we are instructed to cry out! “A voice says to us, “Cry out!” And we say, “What shall we cry? The people are frail and feeble compared with the ruin and destruction in the world. The people are small and weak compared with the degradation of society and unspeakable violence in countless places. We are too little. In other words, there is no use – what are we? To that I respond, yes, we are little and what about the Emmanuel Movement – model for AA. Or Café Emmanuel – national model community meal program for LGBT seniors. Or Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, which secured the civil right of marriage for same sex couples in Massachusetts. Or BostonWarm – collective responses to structural sins that threaten to undo so many people. With brave (and foolish) actions, little Emmanuel Church is shouting out that God is present and that God is good, like a strong and caring shepherd – who will feed the flock, cradle the lambs and gently lead the mother sheep. And we have more work to do. We have more work to do. We always have more work to do.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but many many people do not know that God is good. And it’s not just secularism that is to blame. The Church bears most of the responsibility. It is incumbent on us to preach repentance and we often fall short. (Now you might be thinking, “uh-oh, I wouldn’t want to preach repentance; that’s what we hired you for, Pam!” I’m here to tell you that you employ me to remind you that it’s your call too.) What that means is that it is incumbent on us to invite — to exhort, to cajole, direct, entice – peoples (peoples – not individuals, peoples – nations, corporations, institutions, the Church) to turn around — that’s what repenting means. Turn around and see that Love is good. Turn around toward the Holy One – toward Love. Turn around and see how Love is and behave accordingly. Repent.

Perhaps you remember the Hasidic tale of the man who travelled to meet with Reb Dov Baer to ask him how to love God when so many bad things happen and there is so much suffering in the world. The Rabbi said, “I cannot answer your question but go to meet Reb Zusya. Maybe he can help you.” The man travelled and when he arrived at the hovel where Reb Zusya stayed, he found him emaciated, dressed in rags, with sores covering his body. The traveler asked him, “How can I love God when there is so much suffering?” Reb Zusya looked up and smiled and said, “I cannot answer your question. Nothing bad has ever happened to me.” For me this is a story about how experiencing pain is not optional, but suffering is optional. Turn around toward the Holy One. Turn around and see Love. Respond accordingly. Repent, oh you nations, oh you corporations, oh you Christian Church!

It is also incumbent on us, as heirs of the prophets, to prepare the way for salvation. Again, the salvation idea of our tradition is not a personal or individual idea – it refers to the saving grace of God which will create “new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home” (in the words of 2 Peter). Our lesson from 2 Peter addresses our impatience with God’s apparent delay in setting things right, in making new heavens and a new earth. It’s not slowness, the writer says, but God’s patience with us. The writer postulates that God is giving us thousands of years to come to repentance because of God’s desire that none perish. Thousands of years – and we apparently need all of them and more! Again, it is God’s extravagant goodness that we are encouraged to consider. We are exhorted to regard God’s patience as salvation and to use the extra time wisely – to identify with Jesus – to grow in the grace and knowledge of God.

Jesus, it seems, has reversed the order of amendment of life and forgiveness. [1] With Jesus, the offer of forgiveness always comes first. It’s true. Time after time in the Gospels, Jesus declared forgiveness without any evidence that someone had demonstrated a new life without sin. It alarmed many people around him. (We continue to have a very hard time with the concept of forgiving people, even when they’ve earned our forgiveness, but we really struggle to forgive before people have earned our forgiveness.) The story is that forgiveness is given and then the Lord waits thousands of years (only a few days in divine time) for the grace of the forgiveness to sink in so that we change our ways. Jesus’ hope was that the knowledge of forgiveness would permit peoples – organizations, institutions and nations, to live new lives of freedom from the slavery of not knowing the goodness of God.

So our first two readings want to boss us into declaring visibly and loudly that God is good and God’s patience is salvation. What about the Gospel? The bossiness of the Gospel reading for today is in at least two places. One is explicit in the Gospel’s quote from Isaiah (really a mash up of Isaiah, Malachi and Exodus) and one is implicit. It’s in the last line. John the Baptist is telling everyone that the one who comes after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit. This is how it all started for Mark, there is nothing of Gospel importance before this: John the baptizer is embodying the words of God’s ancient promise – John is doing what he can to prepare the way. He’s announcing the coming baptism with the Holy Spirit that the first hearers of Mark’s Gospel have already received. They had been immersed in a spirit of holiness. It was already true and it still is! What does that mean to have been immersed in a spirit of holiness? It means that the fire of God is kindled in us. The implicit instruction is burn – shine – brighten – warm (BostonWarm). The flame has been lit in us and this is no time to hide it. Listen for the words of the final chorale in today’s cantata in first person plural, “Not for the world, nor for heaven does our soul long and yearn, we desire Jesus and His light, Who has with God forgiven us, Who frees us from judgment, we will not abandon our Jesus.” The world needs our brightness and our warmth more than ever. We must tend the flame; we must not hide our fire or keep it for ourselves. So rest well today on this Sabbath because we have work to do.

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