Being the Beloved Community

Being the Beloved Community

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, O.A., Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

December 4, 2016;  2 Advent, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 3:1-12)  In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

                “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
                                ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
                                make his paths straight.’”

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 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.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Maybe you remember those opening lines from Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. The words seem appropriate not only to the dramatic setting of Dickens' novel on the eve of the French Revolution, but also to the days of Jesus, when John the Baptist had just revived the ancient role of prophet, silent for more than 400 years. John pointed toward Jesus in a Messianic reference as the promised "Lamb of God." In that time, Herod Antipas had inherited the rule of Galilee from his father, Herod the Great, the builder whose expansion of the Jerusalem Temple was so extravagant that people thereafter called it Herod's Temple. Antipas' recent divorce and his marriage to his half-brother's wife threatened to provoke war and was a scandal to John the Baptist and others. Jewish Zealots constantly plotted violent overthrow of their Roman occupiers, and would in a few years incite a full scale civil war that would result in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and deportation of most of its inhabitants. It was a tense time. And in the wilderness a powerful voice cried out for change: John the Baptist.

John the Baptist was the best of prophets, and he was the worst of prophets; he announced a season of Light and a season of Darkness. Clothed like the great prophet Elijah and eating the wilderness food of a people's prophet, he cried out for change. Repent! Turn around, and go the other way.

John confronted the people of privilege with prophetic judgment and warning. "You brood of vipers!" There is wrath coming, he said. John challenged the unearned privilege of the Sadducees who exercised their power from inheritance and family position. He also challenged the earned privilege of the Pharisees, the proper people, who knew themselves to be the righteous ones, obedient to God and therefore superior to the sinners and all those others.

John compared both groups to snakes. Cold blooded, poisonous, like a slithering mass coiled and threatening. Woe to you, he said, repeating the constant theme of the Hebrew prophets. Woe to you rich and privileged who ignore the needs of the poor. Woe to you who think only those who are like you are righteous. Woe to you. God cares first for the poor and the weak, the widow and orphan, the stranger and the alien. God will judge how you privileged ones use your power. Beware you wealthy and powerful ones; beware you righteous and self-righteous ones. Do not presume upon your privilege.

John looked around at the rocks covering the wilderness landscape. "God is able from the stones to raise up children of Abraham." The multitudes; the people you think of like rocks, as "throwaways," worthless – God raises them to equal status as children of Abraham. You are of no more value than the rocks. So straighten up. Or else. Ax and fire!

John was the best of prophets and also the worst of prophets. Threat and violence and force – that's all John can imagine. The threats of ax and fire are humanity's way, but never God's way. John only knows repentance. John doesn't know transformation. He knows he is not worthy to carry the sandals of the one who is coming, but he can only imagine that future one to be like him, but on steroids. "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

John got all of that wrong. We will see him next week; disillusioned and imprisoned, he will send to ask of Jesus, "Are you the one." None of the winnowing and chopping and burning happened. That's not the way of Jesus. That's not God's way.

God's way is transformation. "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." The beautiful fire of transformation. The only weapons Jesus uses are the weapons of love and compassion. It is love and compassion that transforms humanity. Jesus heals the broken. He empowers the unempowered. He declares as clean those thought to be impure. He brings good news to the poor. He does all of this in a spirit of peace and gentleness. Jesus' only act of violence was to overturn the tables of the exploitative businesses that were preying on the poor.

John threatened with negative reinforcement – repent, or else – the appeal to power and power-over. Jesus gently inspired with an unbounded love that kindles our deepest hopes. For Jesus, forgiveness precedes even our awareness of need. And the path of the powerful and the great is the path of the servant and slave of all. To become great is to become a servant. Humility is the path of greatness. Not power over, but power with – distributed most liberally to the most needy.

No force. You can't force love. You can only love and inspire love. Love transforms. It transforms a stone into a child of Abraham, a throwaway into a beloved one.

Jesus came to create a beloved community. A community that begins when each person knows themselves to be God's beloved child. In the beloved community each person is accepted and empowered. Every person is capable of great good and embodied by God's Holy Spirit. Breathe that air and be on fire, a member of the beloved community.

These stories of John and Jesus are good things to know in this time of history as well, for it is the best of times and the worst of times, an age of wisdom and of foolishness, a season of Light and of Darkness, the winter of despair and the spring of hope.

Yet know this, the kingdom of heaven has come near. Jesus tells us to inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. We are baptized with Holy Spirit and fire. We are grafted into the beloved community. And we are called to continue to do what the beloved community has always done. The call is simple. Feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; welcome the stranger; clothe the naked; care for the sick; visit the imprisoned. Fear not; do not fear; be not afraid. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everyone is your neighbor.

This is what Jesus taught us in the days of John, and Herod Antipas, and Empire and Zealots. Fear not; do not fear; be not afraid. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everyone is your neighbor.

We are God's beloved children called to live in the beloved community. This is who we are. This is what we are called to do. This is the true vision that brings life out of death.

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

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P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

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