Waiting in Action
I don’t know about you, but I feel as if I have whiplash. Our Christmas luncheon yesterday was enough to move any Ebenezer Scrooge to joy. The last months of Christmas marketing and hard sell haven’t been enough to sway me, but being together with so many members of our parish, sharing a wonderful meal, beautiful music, and silly behavior helped me to see that we are all awaiting the incarnate Messiah to come into our midst again, and having fun in the process.
You brought the Christmas message to life by offering your time and your talents. You embodied the message of Christmas, to be Christ’s hands and Christ’s feet, Christ’s ears and Christ’s voices for one another. We were and are the Body of Christ, even as we await the birth of Christ, just 12 days away.
The readings we’ve just heard carry on the joyful, expectant spirit of our day yesterday.
With Zephaniah we say: “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.”
With Canticle 9, we “Sing the praises of the Lord, for he has done great things… ring out your joy for the great one in the midst of you.
And we join with Paul in saying, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Let us go to another gathering of faithful people, not in the heated parish hall of St Mark’s, with an ambience created by candles and a hearty fire, but in the wilderness of caves and rocks where John the Baptist had spent his life in preparation and where he began his work. John’s message of promise drew people to him, good people, striving people, people who may have seemed to have nothing in common – Roman soldiers and Jewish carpenters, dignitaries and beggars,
But they were people, like us, who had everything that matters in common: searching for hope and acceptance, a yearning for the Holy in one another and in God. They came thirsting for a message of hope and wisdom from this strange alienated man and he quenched their thirst, refreshing them. They came in search of a Messiah. Could this be he at last?
And now to the reason I have whiplash. It’s John’s first words to the good people who crowded around him, listening in anticipation. John the Baptist, named before his birth as the herald of the Messiah, says: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
Moving from “Sing praises to the great one in the midst of you” to “You brood of vipers” gives me whiplash. What is John thinking? Does he need an anger management class?
I don’t think John’s missing social skills. I think he’s using another approach.
John is saying, “Can you hear me now?” Just like the farmer who slapped his recalcitrant donkey upside the head to get it to pull a plow, John, then and now, is getting our attention.
John’s mission is straightforward and he takes it seriously: “[H]e will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will … make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’ (Luke 1: 15b-17) As we heard in the Gospel portion we read last week, [he will be] “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”
Jesus, Emanuel, does not need straightened paths to find us any more than a compass needle needs help finding north. It is we who need help, and John’s mission is two-fold: to give us the help we need and to fire our engines so that we actively build our paths to Christ during our period of waiting.
It’s odd, though, that John offers no original ideas for building our paths. He shares only what his listeners already know, and know well, from Torah.
Simple acts, spelled out long before in Moses’ law. Well-known acts of charity and justice
that are as familiar to John’s followers as our baptismal promises are to us. We too know what to do, how to act, how to love, how to pray. Sometimes we’re even good at these, and yet we often need encouragement. John brings us encouragement today, and we can encourage one another.
John mentions – threatens – that Jesus comes with a winnowing fork. But here is some good news: our coming Messiah is not the only one to have a winnowing fork. We don’t need to fear the winnowing because we each have a fork of our own, a strong and discerning fork, a fork to use on each of the next 12 days to lift up and store the attributes that speed us on our paths to Christ and to clear away the spiritual rubble that blocks our way. We can make our own bonfires of that rubble. The taller and hotter the flames the better.We can warm our hands, which are the hands of Christ and our feet, which are the feet of Christ. On these last 12 days we can hearten the struggling, welcome the lonely, love one another, and wait with active, open hearts.
We know, with Paul, that “[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just… whatever is commendable…. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen…, And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
It is the 3rd Sunday of Advent. Let us make good use of our remaining days of waiting. Let us all give John the Baptist our attention.