Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Once you’ve been through Advent a few times, you’ll start to notice the pattern. On the First Sunday of Advent, the focus is apocalyptic, with Jesus speaking of the end of all things. The Fourth Sunday of Advent focuses on Mary as the God-bearer. Which leaves us with Sundays two and three and their focus on John the Baptist’s prophetic ministry and call to repentance.
John’s Baptismal ministry is announced in a harsh way, there’s no getting around that. I don’t send out Christmas cards because that’s just another thing that you can add to the list that Millenials have destroyed. But if we did, I’d be tempted to find one that says “Merry Christmas, you brood of vipers!” John doesn’t pull any punches, he tells it like it is. This morning’s Collect puts it a bit more tactfully, but makes the same point – “we are sorely hindered by our sins.”
This is the whole idea behind Baptism – it’s a bath, even if a symbolic and ritual one. And the primary reason that you take a bath is to wash away dirt. And it is only by naming this reality of our sinfulness that we can understand the depths of what Baptism is all about. Baptism isn’t a dedication ceremony, it’s not an occasion to have a nice brunch with family and friends afterward, rather Baptism is initiation into nothing less than the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, of dying to sin and being born again into the new Creation in Christ. In Baptism, we are plunged into a new way of being, doing, thinking, and acting in this world.
It is for this reason that John proclaims “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” As I’ve said many times, repentance isn’t about feeling remorse, apologizing, or making promises to behave differently. No, repentance goes deeper than that – repentance is about changing your mind, about realigning your priorities, about putting aside your assumptions. Baptism isn’t about reserving your ticket for heaven, Baptism is actually entering into the Kingdom of God. Baptism doesn’t make you a “card-carrying” Christian, rather it becomes the catalyst for your transformation.
And so John attacks those who don’t appear to be transformed by Baptism. He says “Do not begin to say to yourselves ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor;’ for I tell you, God is able from these stone to raise up children to Abraham.” But you don’t understand, my family paid for that stained glass window; why, we’re St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, founded even before the United States and we have the oldest church in all of Salisbury; I have a very important job and a big bank account. John the Baptist isn’t impressed with any such claims. He says, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” In other words, let’s see how this transforming grace of God is evident in your life.
We must be careful here to understand that John the Baptist is not saying anything about us needing to earn our salvation or God’s love. These things are graciously given to us already. In Baptism we are grafted into the vine, but John is saying – if you’re a part of the vine, then where is the fruit? As much as God gives us, we still are responsible for our own participation in our faith, we still have free will. Are you open to what God is doing in your life? Do you resist the transformation of your checkbook, calendar, and priorities? Are you tending the soil of your salvation so that fruits flourish, or have the weeds grown up around your faith?
What I so appreciate about John the Baptist is how concrete he is on this point. Do you have two coats? Then share one. If you’re a tax collector, collect no more than you should. If you’re a soldier, don’t use your power to oppress people. I’m also glad that John the Baptist answered the question “What should we do” and not me, because I would have been far more closed-minded. Remember, tax collectors were agents of the occupying and oppressing Roman government. I would have given the advice “Stop working for the enemy and turn to God.” But John recognizes that you can be faithful to God in all that you do.
The trick to answering “What should we do” is that it isn’t formulaic, it’s very specific. The advice given to the solider isn’t the same that is given to the tax collector. And so each of us needs to spend time in prayerful discernment and in conversation with others about how our Baptism is bearing fruit in our lives. Teachers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, mechanics, bankers, computer programmers, politicians, priests, and police officers all will bear different fruits in their work. And I can’t tell you exactly what that fruit looks like in your specific context.
But what I can tell you is that faith is meant to be incarnated. One of the greatest heresies and losses in our modern world is that faith is thought of as something that we do in our heads. Faith has become about the arrangement of our mental furniture, even though that understanding of faith would be unrecognizable in most of human history. Faith is supposed to be about how you live. Faith is about how you treat your children, and how you spend your money, and how much time you spend serving those in need, how you react to disappointments and failures.
Again, it’s important that we don’t deny the grace of God is in this discussion of fruitfulness. The equation of faith is not “if-then.” If you are a Christian, then you have to give 10% of your money away; if you are a Christian, you must forgive those who harm you. That’s just legalism, and the last thing that we need is another set of rules to measure ourselves against. Instead, the equation of faith is “because-therefore.” Because God loves you, you, therefore don’t need to earn your worth; because you have been forgiven, you are therefore liberated so that you can forgive others; because God abundantly cares for you, you are therefore able to care for others who are in need; because God is generous towards you, you are therefore able to be generous in your giving.
The answer to “What then should we do?” is not a transactional one. We don’t need to know what to do in order to earn something or get something from God. The key word in that question is “then.” It’s all about our response, it’s the “therefore” to the “because.” So, what then should we do? Another way to ask that question is “How do we enter into the grace of God given at Baptism” or “How is this fruit of faithfulness manifest in our lives” or “How do we participate in the Kingdom of God?”
And notice how John’s commands are received – with expectation, with anticipation, with hope, as good news. The thing is, these fruits that are to grow from our faith really aren’t that complicated. John doesn’t say – Well, you need to wake up at 5am to say your morning prayers, then you need to work at the soup kitchen, then eat your farm-raised, organic breakfast, then drive your hybrid-electric vehicle to your job at an ethically-run business, and then go to the gym and exercise before going home for dinner and then to church where you’ve volunteered to be on a committee, then be home to say bedtime prayers with your kids, and then be sure that you’re getting 8 hours of sleep. If that was the answer, I could understand if we walked away and said “That’s just too much,” because it is. But, no, John essentially says “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Be fair. Be honest. Be generous. Don’t be selfish. Don’t be a jerk. I know it sounds crazy, but those basic things are the fruits of our salvation.
But then the hammer comes down, only, in this case, it’s not a hammer; it’s an ax. John says “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” That sounds harsh. The fact of the matter though is there isn’t as much fruit in our society as you might expect. The harvest of charity isn’t as robust as it could be. The fact that we have so much poverty, division, and greed is a clear sign that we’re not putting out all of the fruits that our Baptisms can produce. Remember though, Luke tells us “With many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.” This is good news. We seem to have lost the ability to hear about judgment as anything other than bad news. God’s judgment though is very good news.
There’s a book about Advent that I’ve been reading over the past few weeks by Fleming Rutledge and she reminds us that judgment is an act of God’s mercy, not its opposite. Because if there are parts of our lives that are fruitless, they really should be cut down. I find it to be such liberating and good news to know that God’s judgment is going to throw into the fire the parts of me that I so desperately wish I could change. My selfishness, my sense of being better than other people, the mistakes that I’ve made, all of my flaws and foibles – all of those things that prevent the fruits of God’s grace from growing in me should be cut down and thrown into the fire. But the thing is, as much as a I try, I can’t do it. Not completely. Not all the time.
And so judgment is very good news because the one doing the pruning is the merciful, loving, discerning, Lord Jesus. The one who will judge me isn’t a style magazine, or a church committee, or even myself – but my judge is none other than the one who created me out of love, who took on flesh and died for me. As we strive to open ourselves to the good works that God is doing through us, as we strive to be generous, and kind, and loving, as we do our best to not be a jerk, know that you’re going to fail at times. But don’t beat yourself up over those failings, rather know that God will take away those fruitless parts of our lives. When you run into selfishness, or fear, or doubt, don’t focus on it – just say “Well, God, there’s another branch for you to throw into the fire.”
We are about the celebrate the Eucharist, that great feast which nourishes and fertilizes the faith given in Baptism so that the fruits of God’s grace might flourish in us. The Eucharist unites us to God and one another, it reminds us of God’s abundant and self-giving love for us, it gives us hope and strength as we grow in Christ. There’s a wonderful prayer in our Prayer Book that is suggested for use after you have received Communion and part of it says “Grant that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption.” In this Third Week of Advent, make that your prayer – that God grant you to perceive the fruit of redemption in your life. Pray for the wisdom to know what, therefore, you should do in response to your Baptism. Pray for the strength and the courage to have the fruits of faith manifest in your decisions, words, and actions. Pray for God to prune those fruitless branches of your life. And above all, thank God for the redeeming fruit of our salvation given in Jesus Christ. Amen.
