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Third Sunday of Advent,
Year C
The Rev. Vicki K.
Hesse,
Director of the
Whitaker Institute,
Episcopal Diocese of
Michigan
Cathedral Church of St.
Paul, Detroit, MI
Sermon Preached on December 16, 2018
O Lord, take my lips and speak through them;
take our minds and think through them;
take our hearts
and set them on fire with love for you. Amen.
John said
to the crowds,
“You
brood of vipers!
Who
warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”
That
really gets me.
Especially
as today is “Gaudette” Sunday – Joy!
“Rejoice
in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice!
Let your
gentleness be known to everyone.”
So what
is going on
with John
the Baptist calling people a brood of vipers?
Vipers
are really creepy –
probably
because I don’t particularly like snakes –
but vipers
are baby snakes that eat their mother.
For some
reason that really creeps me out.
The
teacher in me wants to say to John,
um, the
way you start your sermon is a bit strong.
Don’t you
know you can
catch
more flies with honey than with vinegar?
Your
opening line is, ahem, little off-putting:
and then you
announce
what
will happen at the end of time.
I mean,
who can hear that?
Brood of
vipers, really!
Well, he
caught our attention, right?
Today’s gospel
passage is John the Baptist,
with the
attention-getting introduction
to his 3-point
sermon
as a
drama sandwich form:
eschatology,
ethics and expectation.
This
sandwich sermon
places a mild
ethical teaching in the middle,
between
“dramatic
eschatological warning of the coming of end times” and
the
announcement and expectation of the coming messiah.”[1]
So I got
curious –
is
this ethical teaching really that mild?
pause
A few
days ago,
I came
across a brief segment from the Today show on
TV.
There,
the Today show explained
the
results of an NBC survey
where
they asked people
to rank
the character traits they believe
are most
important to teach their kids.
Top of
the list, at 43%, was honesty,
then
kindness at 29%,
then a
strong work ethic at 11%.
These are
the character traits
most
people believe are important
to teach
their kids.
And the
top three align pretty closely with John’s teaching.
So
ordinary,
maybe
that’s why John
got their
attention with that opening line.
What I
found funny was
how
seemingly mundane John’s offered this
ethical
message.
Slipped
between drama and excitement,
Was a communication
so
ordinary, you might have missed it.
Kind of like
that book,
“everything
I know I learned in Kindergarten,”[2]
Which
“teaches how to live and what to do
and that
wisdom does not come
from the
top of the graduate school mountain
but in
the sand pile in elementary school.
Simple
things, such as:
·
Share
everything.
·
Play
fair.
·
Don't hit
people.
·
Put
things back where you found them.
·
Clean up
your own mess.
John’s message,
too, was so ordinary
that it’s
extraordinary. Why? Because
John’s
instructions
to the
crowds,
to the
tax collectors and
to the
soldiers apply to us, too,
and every
aspect of our lives.
These
instructions guide how we treat each other
– our
family, friends, co-workers
and people
we meet in ordinary places of our daily lives.
These
instructions remind us how
we are obliged
to treat one another and the world.
To the
crowds who ask, what then should we do? John says
Share. Be
kind.
To the
tax collectors who ask, what should we do? John says
Be fair.
Be honest.
To the
soldiers who ask, what should we do? John says
Work hard.
Be ethical.
Pause.
That’s
it? Yes.
And it’s everything.
Because
everything –
everything
from eschatological warnings of end times
to buzzy
expectation of messiah’s coming
and
boring daily ethical teachings –
everything looks different
in the light of the
coming Christ.
See,
by our
sharing,
by our
being honest and
by our ethical
lives,
we
help bring God’s kingdom on earth
as
it already is in heaven.
But wait
– it’s not us that’s bringing in the kingdom, it’s God.
God is
bringing in the kingdom
and we
can witness God’s new realm
when we
live like it’s already here:
live like
we believe a new world is coming,
live like
our ordinary lives matter.
Because
they do!
Here’s a
story about ordinary, daily lives.
At the
DTW Airport,
one of
our Episcopal deacons
serves as
an “airport ambassador.”
He
volunteers, helping people
find
their way,
find
their car,
find
their baggage,
their
lost keys.
Mundane
things.
And once
in a while,
he gets
to simply witness
the
return of a fallen soldier.
When he
gets a text from the airline
that the
casket will be offloaded from the plane
at a
certain time,
he goes
to the tarmac and stands at attention.
He holds
the loved one’s hand.
He shares
the honest witness
of
the dignified transfer of the soldier’s remains
to
a final resting place.
And after
a while,
when he
turns around
and
returns from the tarmac to the mundane terminal,
people in
airport are silent.
They have
been silent.
Those
people who see the returned fallen soldier
hold
vigil in love,
and bond
in an indescribable holy way.
And it
changes everything.
Just
think.
What
would it be like if everyone –
politicians,
police, powerful and powerless,
people on
the street,
people in
our grocery stores,
people at
work –
what
would it be like if everyone
was
honest,
kind and ethical.
I think
that our world might work a whole lot better
and might
become more of what God dreams!
What if
we, in our daily lives,
really
believed (as our collect says) in God’s
bountiful
grace and mercy –
and
honestly, kindly, & ethically lived our lives?
It can
change everything.
When
Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and with fire,
we are
already soldered together
into a
new community.
That refining
fire bonds us
so deeply
that we feel
each other’s’ pain,
care for
each other’s wounds,
share
with each other our gifts and blessings,
and hold
each other in love.
This is
how we live as if God’s kingdom is near.
When we
are one – bonded together as a community,
we fear
not random acts of violence,
we fear
not the impact of natural disasters,
we fear
not the predicted recession,
we fear
not the person we see who looks different from us,
we fear
not the “powers and principalities” that oppress us.
See, we humans
resist this good news of God’s grace
because
of our fears,
because
we think we don’t matter,
because
we minimize the impact we have on the world.
But
Christ hopes for us to join with others.
To bond
with others,
to cry
with others,
to share
with others.
Christ
hopes for us to be one.
We can
participate in God’s dream
to make
the world amazing.
For this
is how we witness to our confidence in Jesus:
we share,
are honest, and work hard.
Simple.
Ordinary.
Makes a
difference. Makes a world of difference.
See, this
being Christian,
this
being honest, kind and hardworking,
impacts
the world.
When
youth gather around and speak
honest
truth to power against gun violence,
the world changes.
When the
airport volunteer stands on the tarmac
in
sacred witness to the fallen soldier arriving home,
the world changes.
When
states agree to uphold the international climate agreement
even
while the federal administration
denies climate change,
the world changes.
When
ordinary people
deliver
bottled water to Detroiters
whose
water has been shut off,
the world changes.
When
communities share in breakfast every Sunday,
the world changes.
When we
pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples
and share the bread
that he broke,
the world changes.
Today’s
good news is that
God
brings God’s kingdom here and now,
through
us as we are,
through
ordinary lives,
through
ordinary human imperfections,
through
God’s love and forgiveness.
And that
Love and forgiveness
is
extraordinary enough to get our attention.
Thanks be
to God,
we have
God’s bountiful grace and mercy
and we
will, with God’s help.”[3]
Get ready
for Christ’s light to shine in our lives!
Amen
[1] Portions of this
sermon inspired by David Lose, cited here on December 14, 2018: http://www.davidlose.net/2015/12/advent-3-c-ordinary-saints/
[2] Cited on http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm on December 15, 2018
[3] Portions inspired by
Rev. Scott Gunn, Forward Today: Bountiful Grace cited here: http://news.forwardmovement.org/2018/12/forward-today-bountiful-grace/
on December 14, 2018
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