Sermon delivered Saturday, Dec. 24, 2016 and Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016 (The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Luke 2:1-20, Titus 2:11-14, Isaiah 9:2-7
"Do not be afraid; for see -- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:10)
“The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.” (Titus 2:11)
“For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
Good news. Joy. Salvation for all. Justice. Righteousness. Endless peace.
These are the promises of Christmas, the promises that make this “the most wonderful time of the year,” the promises that lead us all to be a little more thoughtful, a little more giving, a little more caring this time of year. As we remember the story of our Savior’s birth, of how God was willing to take human form to be with us, to fully experience our suffering and offer us a way to transform it, our gratitude for this amazing gift flows out to others around us.
People are willing to do extraordinary things at Christmas – even stop a war to sing Christmas carols across enemy lines, as the British and Germans did in 1914, during World War I. Something about this day, this magical moment, this miracle, brings out the best in us, and for a few short hours or days, we can truly see the possibility of “peace on earth.”
But it doesn’t last, of course. The soldiers went back to killing each other during World War I, some of the same organizations who offer gifts for poor children during Christmas then undermine programs that serve the poor during other parts of the year, and whatever “Christmas truce” we might have had with our own families for five minutes dissolves back into the same conflicts that were there before Christmas.
The stark contrast between the best behavior that can come out of us at Christmastime and the way we behave most of the rest of the year prompted Elvis Presley to ask in his 1966 song,
“Oh, why can’t every day be like Christmas?
Why can’t that feeling go on endlessly?
For if every day could be just like Christmas,
what a wonderful world this would be.”
Because even if we can see joy, salvation, justice, righteousness and peace for a few moments at Christmas, overall when we look at the course of human history, it can feel like the overwhelming message is bad news, very little joy, salvation only for a limited few, injustice, wickedness, and endless war.
This year has felt like that to many people. Consider all the things that 2016 has brought to us:
• More terrorist attacks across the globe,
• the Zika virus outbreak,
• the Syrian refugee crisis,
• Britain’s vote to leave the European Union,
• And, of course, our wonderful Presidential election here in the United States,
• Hurricane Matthew killing over 800 people in Haiti,
• wildfires ravaging the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee,
• continued police shootings of unarmed black men and subsequent riots and attacks on police officers,
• the massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando,
• and closest to home for us, the Ghost Ship fire here in Oakland a few weeks ago that killed 36 people who were struggling to make our community a better place through their artistic expression.
Social media has exploded with complaints that 2016 is the “worst year ever,” saying the best thing about celebrating New Year’s this year will be that 2016 is finally over.
But an astute author at Slate magazine published an article earlier this year in which she, somewhat depressingly, catalogues all the horrific tragedies that have befallen the world across human history, suggesting that perhaps this year is no worse than others. 2016, the worst year ever? she asks. Worse than 1348, the year of the Black Plague in Europe? Worse than 1492, the year Europeans “discovered” America and devastated the Native American population through war, genocide and disease? Worse than 1837, a year of economic depression and racial violence throughout the United States? Worse than 1966, the year President Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated, all while the war in Vietnam continued to rage?
The article is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it reminds us of that all-important thing: perspective. Awful things may be happening, yes, but awful things have always happened. Every generation seems to think they are living in the worst of times, but if we look back on history, we can always find other terrible eras that rival the present day.
And then there’s “perspective” from another angle: lots of positive things are still happening as well. Last month, a list of all the good things that happened in 2016 was circulating on social media to counter the message that this has been “the worst year ever.” The author of that post pointed out that in 2016,
• new chemotherapy breakthroughs have increased life expectancy for pancreatic cancer,
• a new genetic contributor to ALS has been identified thanks to the funds raised from the Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014,
• Michael Jordan donated 2 million dollars to organizations working to bridge the divide between the African-American community and the police,
• Pakistan passed a new law to strengthen punishment for “honor killings” of women and rape,
and the list goes on and on. (Read the whole list here...)
So, both of these things are true. A lot of horrible things are happening in the world and a lot of wonderful things are happening in the world. Neither cancels out the existence of the other. One reality affirms that Christmas promise of good news, joy, salvation for all, righteousness, justice, and endless peace, and one of them stands in direct contrast to it.
The challenge of faith is acknowledging those two things simultaneously, avoiding the extreme of emphasizing the joy and comfort of our faith so much that we deny the reality of suffering in this world, while also avoiding the other extreme of focusing so much on the suffering that we deny the reality of God’s blessing and God’s saving power.
As Christians, we see and acknowledge the suffering of the world with eyes wide open, but we do so with the knowledge that death and suffering do not have the last word. We can bear witness to the world’s suffering without losing hope because we know it is not the only story. For that child who was born to us this night in Bethlehem went on to defeat death itself. Through his Resurrection, he has “liberated us from sin, …brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life,” in the words of our Eucharistic prayer. That is the truth that grounds us through all the ups and downs of history, the truth that the church continues to proclaim throughout the centuries, regardless of outward circumstances.
The “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” has come! And he didn’t come to give us just one brief moment of peace once a year at Christmas. He came to transform our entire lives.
“Why can’t every day be like Christmas?
Why can’t that feeling go on endlessly?”
If we let Christ guide our minds and our hearts, there’s no reason why it can’t.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Sunday, December 18, 2016
What was Joseph's influence on Jesus as a father?
Sermon delivered Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016 (Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Matthew 1:18-25
Much of our focus during the season of Advent is on Mary. She is, after all, the one who carried Jesus in her womb, the one who waited for his birth like no one else ever has, like only an expectant mother can do.
Earlier this season I mentioned that using blue during Advent instead of purple emphasizes that Advent is not simply a mini-Lent, that the season of Advent is about waiting, watching, hoping, longing, not just about repentance. But for some, using blue during Advent also is about drawing our attention to Mary, since blue is the color traditionally associated with her in art and iconography. The Virgin Mary, “great with child,” is our icon of the season of Advent, the personification of what it means to wait and watch expectantly.
But today’s Gospel reading invites us to focus on Joseph rather than Mary as we consider the story of Jesus’s birth.
We don’t actually know a whole lot about Joseph, Mary’s husband, who was Jesus’s earthly father in a practical sense if not biologically. The scriptures mention him only a few times, mostly in the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Perhaps as the official theology of the church about the Virgin Birth began to form, Joseph’s presence in the narrative made some people uncomfortable. If it’s a Virgin Birth, why is there a man in the story at all?
Well, uh… because in that culture a woman couldn’t be pregnant and single without being at risk for her life, so maybe Joseph was more like a guardian for Mary. And since it was probably an arranged marriage, and Joseph was probably a lot older than Mary (some traditions say he was as old as 90 when he became engaged to a teenaged Mary!), maybe they never slept together at all and she was a “perpetual virgin” – as the Catholic Church later came to hold as official doctrine.
Let’s face it, the story’s really all about Mary, the Holy Spirit, and the miraculous birth. Joseph’s kind of a third wheel, an inconvenient interloper, an awkward stepfather to God’s son. Christian tradition has tended to let him fade into the background as the spotlight shines on Mary and the Christ Child. Joseph becomes just a placeholder in a society where a woman couldn’t exist without a man’s protection.
But what if there was more to Joseph’s role than that? While we’ll never know specific details of what his day-to-day relationship with Mary or Jesus was like (unless an archeologist discovers Joseph’s diary in a cave in the Middle East somewhere!), we do know that in a society in which he would have had every right to reject Mary when she shows up pregnant with a child he knows is not his, he not only accepts her as his wife, but raises the child as his own. He chooses mercy over strict obedience of the law; if he’d been a stickler for the law he would have called for Mary to be stoned to death when he discovered her pregnancy.
He goes to great lengths to protect Jesus; as the story continues in Matthew, Joseph moves the entire family to Egypt to escape King Herod’s attempt to kill the child that he feared might be a threat to his throne.
When he and Mary take Jesus to the Temple to dedicate him to God, Joseph offers the sacrifice prescribed for the poor: two turtle doves, rather than a year-old lamb, which was the sacrifice expected of all who could afford it. This tells us he was likely a man of humble means, but even so, according to Luke, he took the family to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. The fact that he made this long, expensive trip every year despite the fact that it would have stretched his budget shows that he prioritized the practice of his faith over other things in life.
Matthew calls him a “righteous man.” But his way of being righteous, his way of practicing his faith, seems to have been a way that always focused on what matters most, a way that never allowed rituals to get in the way of relationships, a way that emphasized mercy over sacrifice, a way that focused on compassion and protecting the vulnerable. Maybe Jesus learned those things not only from his Father in heaven, but from his father on earth.
Last Sunday, Father John talked about how devotion to and veneration of Mary has given the church a counterbalance to the traditionally masculine imagery attributed to God. It’s given us a way to remember that the more traditionally feminine qualities – “nurturing, supporting, protecting, healing, loving” – are also part of God, however much human nature has tended to focus on the “masculine” qualities of “aggressiveness, anger, judgment, decisions, and action” when thinking about God.
This is certainly true, but in reflecting on Joseph this week, I’ve been noticing how much Joseph emphasizes those nurturing, supporting, protective, healing, loving parts of God.
John told us a joke last week to illustrate his point: a man dies and is greeted at the pearly gates with judgment, with an accounting of everything he did wrong in his life. The man pauses, thinks for a moment and replies, “Um, excuse me, could I please speak to Mary?” Behind this joke, John says, is “a sense that the male judgment may happen, but Mary will soothe and calm and ease the situation and will be forgiving.” But based on our Gospel reading for today and what we know about Joseph from the rest of the scriptural witness, I think I’d be just as likely to ask for Joseph at the pearly gates as I would Mary if I were looking for compassion and forgiveness.
It’s always bothered me that our society characterizes qualities as “masculine” and “feminine” the way that it does, in a way that stereotypes men as aggressive and judgmental and women as nurturing and compassionate. Because, of course, it’s not that simple. I’m sure we’ve all known women who are aggressive and judgmental and men who are nurturing and compassionate. No human quality is exclusively the purview of any one sex or gender. And Joseph is a particular illustration of that case in point.
Critique of the image of God as “Father” has rested on the assumption that a “Father” is a stern, emotionally distant figure associated with rules and punishment. We need a female image of God to balance this stern male Father figure, feminist biblical scholars have argued. But from what we know of him, Jesus’s earthly father didn’t fit that stereotype. So to the extent that as a human being, Jesus’s concept of what a “father” was came from his own earthly father, it seems that what he meant when he talked about God as a father was someone who was kind, loving, compassionate, forgiving – someone who would put his life at risk to protect his son’s, someone who chooses mercy over judgment. Joseph is a reminder to us that those qualities are just as essential to what it means to be a man and a father as they are to what it means to be a woman and a mother.
Sermon Text(s): Matthew 1:18-25
Much of our focus during the season of Advent is on Mary. She is, after all, the one who carried Jesus in her womb, the one who waited for his birth like no one else ever has, like only an expectant mother can do.
Earlier this season I mentioned that using blue during Advent instead of purple emphasizes that Advent is not simply a mini-Lent, that the season of Advent is about waiting, watching, hoping, longing, not just about repentance. But for some, using blue during Advent also is about drawing our attention to Mary, since blue is the color traditionally associated with her in art and iconography. The Virgin Mary, “great with child,” is our icon of the season of Advent, the personification of what it means to wait and watch expectantly.
But today’s Gospel reading invites us to focus on Joseph rather than Mary as we consider the story of Jesus’s birth.
We don’t actually know a whole lot about Joseph, Mary’s husband, who was Jesus’s earthly father in a practical sense if not biologically. The scriptures mention him only a few times, mostly in the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. Perhaps as the official theology of the church about the Virgin Birth began to form, Joseph’s presence in the narrative made some people uncomfortable. If it’s a Virgin Birth, why is there a man in the story at all?
Well, uh… because in that culture a woman couldn’t be pregnant and single without being at risk for her life, so maybe Joseph was more like a guardian for Mary. And since it was probably an arranged marriage, and Joseph was probably a lot older than Mary (some traditions say he was as old as 90 when he became engaged to a teenaged Mary!), maybe they never slept together at all and she was a “perpetual virgin” – as the Catholic Church later came to hold as official doctrine.
Let’s face it, the story’s really all about Mary, the Holy Spirit, and the miraculous birth. Joseph’s kind of a third wheel, an inconvenient interloper, an awkward stepfather to God’s son. Christian tradition has tended to let him fade into the background as the spotlight shines on Mary and the Christ Child. Joseph becomes just a placeholder in a society where a woman couldn’t exist without a man’s protection.
But what if there was more to Joseph’s role than that? While we’ll never know specific details of what his day-to-day relationship with Mary or Jesus was like (unless an archeologist discovers Joseph’s diary in a cave in the Middle East somewhere!), we do know that in a society in which he would have had every right to reject Mary when she shows up pregnant with a child he knows is not his, he not only accepts her as his wife, but raises the child as his own. He chooses mercy over strict obedience of the law; if he’d been a stickler for the law he would have called for Mary to be stoned to death when he discovered her pregnancy.
He goes to great lengths to protect Jesus; as the story continues in Matthew, Joseph moves the entire family to Egypt to escape King Herod’s attempt to kill the child that he feared might be a threat to his throne.
When he and Mary take Jesus to the Temple to dedicate him to God, Joseph offers the sacrifice prescribed for the poor: two turtle doves, rather than a year-old lamb, which was the sacrifice expected of all who could afford it. This tells us he was likely a man of humble means, but even so, according to Luke, he took the family to Jerusalem every year for the Passover. The fact that he made this long, expensive trip every year despite the fact that it would have stretched his budget shows that he prioritized the practice of his faith over other things in life.
Matthew calls him a “righteous man.” But his way of being righteous, his way of practicing his faith, seems to have been a way that always focused on what matters most, a way that never allowed rituals to get in the way of relationships, a way that emphasized mercy over sacrifice, a way that focused on compassion and protecting the vulnerable. Maybe Jesus learned those things not only from his Father in heaven, but from his father on earth.
Last Sunday, Father John talked about how devotion to and veneration of Mary has given the church a counterbalance to the traditionally masculine imagery attributed to God. It’s given us a way to remember that the more traditionally feminine qualities – “nurturing, supporting, protecting, healing, loving” – are also part of God, however much human nature has tended to focus on the “masculine” qualities of “aggressiveness, anger, judgment, decisions, and action” when thinking about God.
This is certainly true, but in reflecting on Joseph this week, I’ve been noticing how much Joseph emphasizes those nurturing, supporting, protective, healing, loving parts of God.
John told us a joke last week to illustrate his point: a man dies and is greeted at the pearly gates with judgment, with an accounting of everything he did wrong in his life. The man pauses, thinks for a moment and replies, “Um, excuse me, could I please speak to Mary?” Behind this joke, John says, is “a sense that the male judgment may happen, but Mary will soothe and calm and ease the situation and will be forgiving.” But based on our Gospel reading for today and what we know about Joseph from the rest of the scriptural witness, I think I’d be just as likely to ask for Joseph at the pearly gates as I would Mary if I were looking for compassion and forgiveness.
It’s always bothered me that our society characterizes qualities as “masculine” and “feminine” the way that it does, in a way that stereotypes men as aggressive and judgmental and women as nurturing and compassionate. Because, of course, it’s not that simple. I’m sure we’ve all known women who are aggressive and judgmental and men who are nurturing and compassionate. No human quality is exclusively the purview of any one sex or gender. And Joseph is a particular illustration of that case in point.
Critique of the image of God as “Father” has rested on the assumption that a “Father” is a stern, emotionally distant figure associated with rules and punishment. We need a female image of God to balance this stern male Father figure, feminist biblical scholars have argued. But from what we know of him, Jesus’s earthly father didn’t fit that stereotype. So to the extent that as a human being, Jesus’s concept of what a “father” was came from his own earthly father, it seems that what he meant when he talked about God as a father was someone who was kind, loving, compassionate, forgiving – someone who would put his life at risk to protect his son’s, someone who chooses mercy over judgment. Joseph is a reminder to us that those qualities are just as essential to what it means to be a man and a father as they are to what it means to be a woman and a mother.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
"Let every heart prepare him room" through repentance during Advent
Sermon delivered Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016 (Second Sunday of Advent, Year A), at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Matthew 3:1-12, Isaiah 11:1-10
Repentance and joy. They may sound like opposites, but the season of Advent pushes them together in close proximity, making a connection between the serious soul-searching of repentance and the ability to celebrate with abandon, to be free enough to experience true joy.
As we wait expectantly for the coming of Christ – both for our annual celebration of his birth at Christmas and for his Second Coming which is yet to come, we take time to prepare our hearts to receive him. Part of that preparation involves repentance. It involves conducting a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of our lives, in order that we might make amends where amends are necessary and be at peace with ourselves, with others, and with God, so that, as the preface for Advent in our Eucharistic prayer says, when he “come[s] again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.”
In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist, that great prophet who prepared the way for Jesus to begin his preaching and teaching ministry, reminds us that we all need to repent, even those who are sure they are already part of God’s people and have found favor with God.
“Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor;’” John tells the Jewish leaders of his day, “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
John reminds any who might have felt that their lineage as sons and daughters of Abraham entitled them to a sort of “free pass” at the last judgment, who might have thought that they were worthy just by virtue of the fact that they were part of God’s “chosen people,” that they must also live an authentic life of faith that bears visible fruit in their actions. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he tells them. Being a son or daughter of Abraham means nothing, he says, if your life does not bear witness to God’s justice and love.
According to John, bearing fruit is the standard by which we will be judged, not our membership within a particular religious community. We will be judged not by what we’ve said we believed, but by the testimony of our hearts and our lives.
I’m sure that at some point in your life you’ve heard someone comment on the good deeds and sound life of someone who professes no faith at all. The statement usually goes something like this: “I know some atheists who are better Christians than some Christians I know!” What they are pointing to is the issue of bearing fruit. They see many people who say they believe in Christ judging others, saying one thing and doing another, going to church on Sunday but engaging in corrupt business practices or questionable moral behavior during the week – while they see many people who say they have no religious faith feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, working for justice – the very things Christians are called to do. And so, they sigh and say, “Some atheists are better Christians than some Christians I know!”
That’s actually a very biblical statement. It’s essentially what John the Baptist was saying to the first-century Jewish community, and what Jesus would wind up saying to them as well. “Tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you,” Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day (Matthew 21:31). In other words, the supposedly “unfaithful” can actually be more faithful than the faithful at times. This is why the prophets continually call us to repentance, and remind us that bearing fruit is of utmost importance.
But lest we think that “bearing fruit” is simply a matter of doing the right things, the prophets also remind us that doing the right things without the right intentions is equally as empty as trusting in the fact that you were born into the “right” religious community. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” John the Baptist says. Repentance is a matter of the heart, of the inner orientation and intentions underlying our actions. Not only is it not enough to be children of Abraham, but it is also not enough to observe the right rituals if our hearts are not in the right place.
“For you have no delight in sacrifice,” writes the psalmist, “if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17). The prophet Amos brings this word of God to the people: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them… but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-22, 24). The prophet Hosea said God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), and Jesus quoted this in his teachings.
In all these passages, the issue is not that the rituals themselves were bad – the people believed God had commanded them to do them – but that the people were doing them without the proper intentions in their hearts, and their lives were not bearing the proper fruit. The apostle Paul echoed this theme in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he insisted that without love – without one’s heart being in the right place – all the most praiseworthy actions on behalf of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ were utterly worthless. “If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing,” he wrote (1 Corinthians 13:2). This is a common theme, from the earliest of the Hebrew prophets all the way through the New Testament. Although our faith engages our heads – in our assent to certain beliefs or doctrines – and our hands and feet – in our actions in the world – at the end of the day, the life of faith is ultimately a matter of the heart.
This is why we pray the Collect for Purity at the beginning of every Eucharist: “Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your Holy Name, through Christ our Lord.” Today’s passage from Isaiah tells us that that “branch from the root of Jesse” that Christians understand to be referring to Jesus will “not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear,” but will judge “with righteousness,” the kind of righteousness that comes from knowing what is in one’s heart. So when we come to church, we might appear to be doing all the “right” things by being here, participating in a ritual that we believe Jesus commanded his followers to continue in his name, but if our hearts are not in the right place, our actions will not please God. And so we pray in the Collect for Purity for God’s assistance in orienting ourselves toward God and cleansing our hearts of any sin within them so that our worship of God may be an authentic expression of love and praise.
The word “Advent” means “coming,” and the early church fathers spoke of three “advents” in the Christian religion: the first coming of Christ, in his birth at Bethlehem in the first century, the second coming of Christ to judge the world at the end of time, and the daily coming of Christ into the hearts of individual believers. Without that third advent, the first and second advents won’t have much meaning to us. In the season of Advent, we do not only remember what has already been and wait for what is to come, but celebrate what currently is: the presence of Christ with us every day in our hearts -- and in the hearts of believers around the world.
“Let every heart prepare him room,” says the Christmas hymn “Joy to the World,” and that is indeed the work of Advent, the work of examining our hearts and opening them to receive the coming of Christ that is available to us every day. It is through the heart-cleansing work of repentance that we might be able to experience the joy of Christ’s presence among us.
Sermon Text(s): Matthew 3:1-12, Isaiah 11:1-10
Repentance and joy. They may sound like opposites, but the season of Advent pushes them together in close proximity, making a connection between the serious soul-searching of repentance and the ability to celebrate with abandon, to be free enough to experience true joy.
As we wait expectantly for the coming of Christ – both for our annual celebration of his birth at Christmas and for his Second Coming which is yet to come, we take time to prepare our hearts to receive him. Part of that preparation involves repentance. It involves conducting a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of our lives, in order that we might make amends where amends are necessary and be at peace with ourselves, with others, and with God, so that, as the preface for Advent in our Eucharistic prayer says, when he “come[s] again in power and great triumph to judge the world, we may without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.”
In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist, that great prophet who prepared the way for Jesus to begin his preaching and teaching ministry, reminds us that we all need to repent, even those who are sure they are already part of God’s people and have found favor with God.
“Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor;’” John tells the Jewish leaders of his day, “for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
John reminds any who might have felt that their lineage as sons and daughters of Abraham entitled them to a sort of “free pass” at the last judgment, who might have thought that they were worthy just by virtue of the fact that they were part of God’s “chosen people,” that they must also live an authentic life of faith that bears visible fruit in their actions. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he tells them. Being a son or daughter of Abraham means nothing, he says, if your life does not bear witness to God’s justice and love.
According to John, bearing fruit is the standard by which we will be judged, not our membership within a particular religious community. We will be judged not by what we’ve said we believed, but by the testimony of our hearts and our lives.
I’m sure that at some point in your life you’ve heard someone comment on the good deeds and sound life of someone who professes no faith at all. The statement usually goes something like this: “I know some atheists who are better Christians than some Christians I know!” What they are pointing to is the issue of bearing fruit. They see many people who say they believe in Christ judging others, saying one thing and doing another, going to church on Sunday but engaging in corrupt business practices or questionable moral behavior during the week – while they see many people who say they have no religious faith feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, working for justice – the very things Christians are called to do. And so, they sigh and say, “Some atheists are better Christians than some Christians I know!”
That’s actually a very biblical statement. It’s essentially what John the Baptist was saying to the first-century Jewish community, and what Jesus would wind up saying to them as well. “Tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you,” Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day (Matthew 21:31). In other words, the supposedly “unfaithful” can actually be more faithful than the faithful at times. This is why the prophets continually call us to repentance, and remind us that bearing fruit is of utmost importance.
But lest we think that “bearing fruit” is simply a matter of doing the right things, the prophets also remind us that doing the right things without the right intentions is equally as empty as trusting in the fact that you were born into the “right” religious community. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” John the Baptist says. Repentance is a matter of the heart, of the inner orientation and intentions underlying our actions. Not only is it not enough to be children of Abraham, but it is also not enough to observe the right rituals if our hearts are not in the right place.
“For you have no delight in sacrifice,” writes the psalmist, “if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17). The prophet Amos brings this word of God to the people: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them… but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-22, 24). The prophet Hosea said God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), and Jesus quoted this in his teachings.
In all these passages, the issue is not that the rituals themselves were bad – the people believed God had commanded them to do them – but that the people were doing them without the proper intentions in their hearts, and their lives were not bearing the proper fruit. The apostle Paul echoed this theme in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he insisted that without love – without one’s heart being in the right place – all the most praiseworthy actions on behalf of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ were utterly worthless. “If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing,” he wrote (1 Corinthians 13:2). This is a common theme, from the earliest of the Hebrew prophets all the way through the New Testament. Although our faith engages our heads – in our assent to certain beliefs or doctrines – and our hands and feet – in our actions in the world – at the end of the day, the life of faith is ultimately a matter of the heart.
This is why we pray the Collect for Purity at the beginning of every Eucharist: “Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your Holy Name, through Christ our Lord.” Today’s passage from Isaiah tells us that that “branch from the root of Jesse” that Christians understand to be referring to Jesus will “not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear,” but will judge “with righteousness,” the kind of righteousness that comes from knowing what is in one’s heart. So when we come to church, we might appear to be doing all the “right” things by being here, participating in a ritual that we believe Jesus commanded his followers to continue in his name, but if our hearts are not in the right place, our actions will not please God. And so we pray in the Collect for Purity for God’s assistance in orienting ourselves toward God and cleansing our hearts of any sin within them so that our worship of God may be an authentic expression of love and praise.
The word “Advent” means “coming,” and the early church fathers spoke of three “advents” in the Christian religion: the first coming of Christ, in his birth at Bethlehem in the first century, the second coming of Christ to judge the world at the end of time, and the daily coming of Christ into the hearts of individual believers. Without that third advent, the first and second advents won’t have much meaning to us. In the season of Advent, we do not only remember what has already been and wait for what is to come, but celebrate what currently is: the presence of Christ with us every day in our hearts -- and in the hearts of believers around the world.
“Let every heart prepare him room,” says the Christmas hymn “Joy to the World,” and that is indeed the work of Advent, the work of examining our hearts and opening them to receive the coming of Christ that is available to us every day. It is through the heart-cleansing work of repentance that we might be able to experience the joy of Christ’s presence among us.
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