Advent 2, 2022

 What an amazing scripture, reminding us of God’s words and actions in the past, preparing us to meet Jesus by referring forward to some of what he will mean for us.  The readings today take us through the Hebrew Scripture to the expectation of the coming Messiah and through a change from self-reliance and self-worship, to finding our chaff removed and looking to Jesus to help us acknowledge the truth of what is separating us from God, to participating in the Kingdom of God and helping to make it visible to others.

            This Gospel reading is so very rich with references to the Hebrew Scriptures.  Matthew loves to link Jesus and Moses, so here we have the wilderness, which Moses traveled through with the Israelites until they reach the border, this very place where John baptizes.  The wilderness is a quiet place where the Israelites and the Judeans learn to listen to God and trust God.  In this wilderness, John the Baptist has been preparing.  He is a prophet who can be a prophet because he is completely focused on God, reliant on God, and does not participate in the corrupting and distracting economy.  His clothing is handmade.  What he eats is foraged from what God provides, like manna.  In the wilderness he’s entirely learned to rely on God and not on other people or money that might corrupt him. 

John uses the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness.”  The Israelites did not have long to prepare as they left Egypt.  They left so quickly they didn’t even have time to let their bread rise.  But their time in the wilderness was a preparation for coming into the promised land.  The story of the Israelites is reflected in what John is eating.  He is eating locusts, which was one of the plagues against Egypt to convince Pharaoh to release the Israelites into freedom.  What devastated the crops of the Egyptians is now simply everyday food for this plague-eater, John.  And he eats honey, a nod to the land of milk and honey promised the Israelites as they wandered the wilderness.  The Israelites wandered the wilderness, doubling back and criss-crossing many times over.  Here John and Isaiah call out to make his paths straight.  This is a smooth landing, a direct path to join God with humankind as contrasted with wandering paths that humans take. 

            John is baptizing at the Jordan.  This is a reference to when the Israelites crossed into the promised land, at that exact spot.  In fact, those gathered from Judea can see there the 12 stones placed there by the 12 tribes of Israel after they crossed.  This is literally the same spot where the Israelites crossed into something completely new.  Now these newly baptized by John are finding themselves joined with those ancient Israelites in crossing through the same waters at the same spot and being invited into something new.  This was also a mini red sea, a parting, a leading to freedom, the beginning of a new chapter and a letting go of a former identity.

            In this scripture, John the Baptist calls the religious authorities vipers.  We might think back to the quote from Isaiah about the den of the adder and a child playing safely nearby.  We have a reference to Abraham and a tendency to romanticize traditions and old stories.  But in case those gathered for baptism wanted to romanticize the past, John demands that they face the possibility of the axe.  The tree being chopped down is referenced in the previous chapter to the Isaiah reading we have today—a reference to Jesse’s family line falling from grace, to the exile, and to times when it seemed all hope was lost.  John references water and fire, reminding us perhaps of the pillar of smoke and cloud leading the Israelites, or the water that God provided the Israelites in the desert when Moses struck the rock. 

            But this scripture doesn’t just call us back to the past.  John is calling his audience forward. He is calling from the wilderness and in this way God is accessible.  The temple had been the only place to encounter God for so long and it was made anything but accessible.  You had to have money for an offering.  You had to be close enough and strong enough to travel to Jerusalem.  You had to be circumcised.  But here, in the wilderness, God is near.  The paths are smooth.  There is no barrier to stop anyone from coming, so everyone comes out to see what’s going on.  This shows how accessible God is to anyone, no matter their social status or location, there is room for everyone in the wilderness, the desert.

            So why is John so surprised to see the Pharisees and Saducees, the religious authorities?  He knows his good news is for the blind and the lame, but in Jesus’ ministry it will be revealed that those who are rich in positions of privilege and power are more blind than anyone else.  John is calling his audience forward and there are certainly surprises for everyone, even John

            The reference to the tree and the sandals calls the audience forward in the story.  Jesus will be crucified on a tree, maybe also that he was a carpenter.  The sandals might remind us of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.  The fire might remind us of the Holy Spirit coming as tongues of fire.

            This whole scripture shows us a story of God changing a people, it is a recipe for change.  Looking back, we see how God led the people through a wilderness school—it took 40 years until they learned to trust God, to rely on God for every meal, for every sip.  It took 40 years to unlearn the slavery of the Egyptians that some would exploit others and benefit from the labor of others and buy and sell other people.  But God was giving unlimited access to God’s own self and to abundant life.  Everyone could see the pillar.  Everyone had a job to do and that job was to learn to trust God, to learn God’s commandments for abundant life.

            We look, too, at where we are.  We have amazing inventions and medical breakthroughs.  World hunger and poverty is lower.  But we also have income inequality the likes of which have never been seen and we have mass extinction.  Our lives, too, are based on limited access.  Whoever can afford it can access it—food, clothing, the necessities of life, the luxuries of life.  Except the love and grace of God.  That is for everyone. We have so much opportunity for God to change us.  And the good news is that we can change!  In a world that doesn’t seem to believe that people can change, who use cancel culture and ghosting to axe others out here is the hope that what we once were, we won’t always be and that there is forgiveness, learning, second chances to try again to live in a new way.

            So here is God, seeing the ways which we are enslaved, in which we worship ourselves and our comforts and God is turning us around.  A fresh start is possible and God will guide us through.  Repent is both law and Gospel, bad news and good news.  Repent means we have to change—it’s a command.  Maybe we don’t want to.  Maybe we’re comfortable.  But repent also means that we get to change.  We get to let go of what isn’t serving God, what chaff gets in the way of loving relationship and abundant life, we let go of systems of oppression and we go out the wilderness (maybe that’s part of what Advent is all about), we make space to listen to God and to receive the new life and community and hope that Jesus is offering.

            We do this as individuals.  Repent.  Review what isn’t working.  Take steps to let go and to listen to let God turn us around, to make space and to wait.  And we form new habits, meet new people, and live in different ways.  And we do this as faith communities and churches.  We take an honest look.  We listen to people at the margins that have been shouting from the wilderness because the way this world works doesn’t work for them and for many.  As a congregation we decide what we are able to let go of and at what pace and we stand in the not knowing, the vast wilderness and listen and listen and listen.  Maybe God speaks in fiery warnings.  Maybe God speaks in silence.  And we are changed.

            Maybe that sounds like bad news.  If we change does that mean we were wrong before?  No, maybe we were responding appropriately in that moment, but the context has changed around us.  If we change then we have many fears about who we will be and how that will look.  There are many unknowns.  Will I still be served if my church changes?  Will I still be loved?  Will this still be my community? 

            We do take a leap of faith, trusting in God to be with us whatever may come, using all that we have learned to communicate our discomfort without threatening to quit.  We change because we are alive and that’s what living things do.  We listen and that changes us.  We receive from others and that changes us.  The makeup of our congregation changes and they become part of us and we become part of them and that changes us all.  So it has been and so it will always be.  And when we are no longer changing, we are no longer alive.  That was like the stump.  It was chopped down—no more growth, no more leaves, no more giving and receiving.  But God said, I am going to change you.  I am going to bring resurrection out of death and so I will bring you a messiah to change you by giving you new life and show you a new way to relate to other people.  So here we are in Advent in the wilderness waiting, looking back in gratefulness and looking forward in hope for the gift of Christmas, our Savior Jesus.