Now you may well ask, what is all this stuff
about repentance doing here? After all, we are in Advent, not Lent. True,
but here a little history might help. While the date of Christmas was set
around 380, the season of Advent took longer to develop. It was first a season
of six weeks of fasting for monks, then reduced to four weeks and, by the time
of Pope Gregory the Great (late 6th c.) enjoined on everyone and especially for
those to be baptized on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. Later, it was
called a “little Lent”.
A sermon by Jan Robitscher
“Bear Fruit that befits repentance.”
(Luke 3:8)
Year C Advent
3 (RCL) Jan
Robitscher
Zephaniah 3:14-20 St.
Mark’s Church
Canticle 9 Berkeley,
CA
Philippians 4:4-7 December
16, 2012
Luke 3:7-18
In the Name
of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What is the crying at Jordan?
Who hears, O God, the prophecy?
Dark is the season, dark our hearts
and shut to mystery.
(Carol Christopher Drake)
The words of Carol Christopher Drake, of our own hymn, St.
Mark’s Berkeley, tell us that we are in the middle days of Advent, the days
of John the Baptist. But did you hear that last verse of the Gospel
reading?
“So with
many other exhortations, he (John the Baptist)
proclaimed the
good news to the people.” (Luke 3:18)
What? Does this sound like Good News to you? And on the Sunday of
Gaudete (the first word of the Latin introit, Rejoice) and rose
vestments? It is not hard to imagine John waist-deep in the Jordan yelling
at those coming to be baptized,
“You
brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the
wrath to come?
Bear fruits that befit repentance.” (Matt 3:7)
Now you may well ask, what is all this stuff about repentance
doing here? After all, we are in Advent, not Lent. True, but here a
little history might help. While the date of Christmas was set around 380, the
season of Advent took longer to develop. It was first a season of six weeks of
fasting for monks, then reduced to four weeks and, by the time of Pope Gregory
the Great (late 6th c.) enjoined on everyone and especially for those to be
baptized on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. Later, it was called a
“little Lent”. But this still begs the question, what’s with all this penance,
and John’s words, “Bear fruits that befit repentance”?
 |
| St Mark's, Berkeley, California |
John the Baptist. The Eastern Church calls him John the
Forerunner. This man who lived alone in the desert and ate locusts and honey
was anointed by God to proclaim a disturbing message to an apathetic people: that
the Kingdom of God was at hand and would soon become tangible in the person of
Jesus. The world’s darkness was about to be shattered by God’s light--a light
so penetrating that even the most secret sins of the heart would be exposed. So
John preached a baptism of repentance--the outward sign of a converted
life--and he did it with very uncomfortable words:
“You
brood of vipers! Who told you to flee from
the
wrath to come? Bear fruits that befit repentance,
and
do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as
our
father.’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones
to
raise up children of Abraham...” (Luke 3: 7ff)
And, almost in a parallel of the Parable of the Vine and Branches
in the Gospel of John, where those branches that bear no fruit are cut away, so
John the Baptist cries out that
“even
now the axe is lying at the root of the
trees;
every tree therefore that does not bear
good
fruit will be thrown into the fire and
burned.”
(Luke 3:9)
Maybe this is the way into John’s seemingly harsh words. We
must abide in Christ if we are to bear any fruit, and there can be no fear or
coercion in this abiding. John would never accept these as motives for
receiving his baptism. What he did accept was the person who came face to
face with the sinfulness of the human condition and was willing to turn around
(the literal meaning of conversion) and walk in another direction. For John
knew that only in this unburdened condition could one greet Jesus, the long-awaited
Messiah and Lord.
But what of us? We have received an even greater baptism
because Jesus, himself sanctified it and gave the Holy Spirit in its waters.
Yet we find ourselves in Advent, hearing again those words of John “Bear fruits
that befit repentance.”
In recent years Advent has become a much less penitential
season. This is good. No longer is Advent a “little Lent”. But the Church
in its wisdom (or the lectionary writers in theirs) did not excise this lesson
and I, for one, am grateful. For it forces us to examine just what we are
preparing for in this season. Are we looking for Jesus’ comings--in the
past at his birth, in the present in Word and Sacrament, in his coming again in
glory? John knew this, for he stood at the crossroads of the Old Covenant and
the New. And he preached that the only preparation for Jesus’ coming was to
repent of the sins of the past in order to look forward with joyful
anticipation to Jesus’ coming.
Perhaps what we need to repent of is that we would rather look
elsewhere. Do we look at the drawings on Christmas cards, dwelling in a
sentimental past without seeing the wonder of God becoming human? Or maybe we
are so busy shopping that we don’t see beyond the lights and advertising. Or
maybe we must admit that we live in a culture of an awful convergence of guns
and violence and mental illness with no help, that has no room for the
prophetic words of John or the comings of Jesus and leaves the death of the
innocent children and their teachers of Newtown, CT in its wake. Or maybe we
don’t see the worth of looking back--or forward--at all and we succumb to our
despair. But it does not have to be so! What are the fruits of which John
speaks?
 |
| St John the Baptist in the Desert, Collantes Francisco |
Repentance is one thing, but bearing fruits is quite another. I
believe these fruits are not much different from the ones John gave in answer
to the question “What then should we do?” John said:
“Whoever
has two coats must share with anyone
who
has none, and whoever has food must do likewise...”
John’s reply makes clear that preparation for Christ’s comings
involves a willingness to look beyond ourselves. Gift-giving is not only for
each other under the Christmas tree, but is for those who have nothing to give
back. And so we collect socks and toiletries for the homeless here in Berkeley,
create Christmas stockings for the residents of Berkeley Pines and we give to
others beyond our neighborhood through Episcopal Relief and Development and
other charities, year-round.
And reconciliation is not only for Lent. We must strive to live in
community with one another, bearing with one another and practicing “holy
listening”. And the guidance of the Holy Spirit is not just for Pentecost. We
must earnestly pray, as a community, for the presence, comfort and guidance of
the Spirit through these days of Advent and beyond, for ourselves and for each
other and for our world.
Only by repentance and, as the monastic vow puts it, conversion of
life, can we truly make room to celebrate Christ’s comings. St. Paul’s words
from the letter to the Philippians (and the introit for this day) ring true:
Rejoice
in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice.
Let
your gentleness be known to everyone. The
Lord
is near... And the peace of God which surpasses
all
understanding will guard your hears and your minds
in
Christ Jesus.
Toward the end of the 4th century, St. John Chrysostom wrote a
sermon on John the Baptist. In it, he included some thoughts about the biblical
figure at the crossroads which are also appropriate to the Advent season which
would not enter the church calendar for another hundred years:
[John the
Baptist] then let us emulate, and forsaking
luxury
and drunkenness, let us go over unto the life of
restraint.
For this surely is the time of confession both
for
the uninitiated and for the baptized; for the one, that
upon
their repentance they partake of the Sacred Mysteries;
for
the others, that having washed away their [sins] after
baptism,
they may approach the Table with a clean
conscience...”
 |
| St John the Baptist baptizes, Nicolas Poussin, 1635 |
Maybe John was not so much yelling at those who came receive his
baptism as he was begging them to make the kind of preparation one would make
to receive an honored or beloved guest. Let us do the same as we come to this
Table to receive Jesus, and so become Christ-bearers to a hurting world.
Remember the humble birth of God into our humanity and clear away everything
that hinders us in anticipation of greeting him when he comes again. This
is the good news John preached so that we might greet with joy the
comings of our Lord.
Our own hymn invites us this way:
(Sung) Now comes the day of salvation,
in
joy and terror the Word is born!
God
gives himself into our lives;
O
let salvation dawn!
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