Comfort the Afflicted; Afflict the Comfortable

Matthew 3:1-12

            You brood of vipers! It’s not every day you hear a greeting like that, but if you did, I wonder how many of you would flock to hear the preacher who belted out those words, the next week. In our gospel text, John the Baptist indeed blurted out those words, directed at the Pharisees and Sadducees.  He was one of those preachers - the kind who doesn’t mince words. He told it like it was, or at least, like he saw it.

            Perhaps John went to the preaching school with the motto, “comfort the afflicted; afflict the comfortable.” I’m told that this is what all good preachers do. And I confess that all too often I feel unequal to the challenge.

You see, it’s tempting to make the Gospel good news of grace into a one-dimensional message of comfort and reassurance. We all need comfort and reassurance, and when we look at our lives, at the world around us, it seems we need buckets of it.

When we acknowledge the depth of our own brokenness, when we witness the heinous things human beings say and do to one another, we want a word of comfort. As we absorb our losses and pain, we need the comfort and consolation that comes from God. Comforting the afflicted I can do, and I have the good news of the gospel on my side.

But afflict the comfortable? That, I confess I struggle with.

But when John the Baptist burst onto the scene of 1^st century Palestine, he didn’t have my problem. While pointing to the one who is coming, he indeed afflicted the comfortable;

He challenged those who depended on their own righteousness more than they depended on God. The Pharisees fell into that category. They felt they were specially endowed and privileged by virtue of their ancestry. They followed the Laws of Moses, they claimed the patriarch Abraham as their ancestor, and therefore they claimed righteousness as their own.

The problem is, while they claimed to follow the law, they failed to bear the fruit worthy of repentance. In other words, they talked the talk but often failed to walk the walk. They neglected the relational part of the life of the faithful; to live with love, mercy, and compassion for the poor at the core of their being.

All too frequently they ignored the plight of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, they persecuted the foreigner, and the immigrant and they assumed their own importance. They turned a blind eye and became indifferent to the needs of those around them, and in Matthew’s gospel these are the one we consider the least, the last, the lost, the little and the lifeless. They forgot about addressing the injustice around them and caring for those who were disadvantaged and vulnerable. Instead, they stewed in the juices of their own well-being.

Then along came John the Baptist, and he preached a call for repentance out there in the wilderness; and this repentance involves a reorienting of one’s heart, way of thinking, and action. Real repentance, the kind of which John spoke and Jesus taught, brings us in line with godly living, and godly living bears fruit for the kingdom of God. This kind of repentance and attention to the circumstances of those around you, matters deeply to God.

            Repentance in this gospel is about such godly living. We get a glimpse of what that might look like when we consider the characteristics of those Jesus calls “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount which follows soon after this passage in the Gospel of Matthew.

The Sermon on the Mount describes how God blesses the poor, the humble, those who mourn, those who thirst for justice, those who are meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for righteousness sake. Indeed, not only are they – all those - the blessed ones, according to Jesus, but throughout this Gospel they are the ones with whom Jesus hangs out. This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Christ, the least are raised up, because their lives, their welfare, and their personhood matter.

As John stands in the wilderness, he preaches the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and he bids those who have come out to hear this news to prepare themselves, to prepare their hearts, to receive the one who bears this kingdom to the world. John points to the good news. He points to the one who will deliver and embody kingdom life, Jesus, Our Savior.

It is for this reason that in pieces of art, John the Baptist is almost always painted pointing to Jesus. When Lukas Cranach the Elder painted Martin Luther, he substituted Luther in that pose, with Luther in the pulpit, pointing to Christ on the cross in the tradition of John the Baptist. Pointing toward Jesus, John the Baptist shines the light on the one God sends into the world to redeem it, the one who comes into the world to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  

As we come to the manger, we must remember the cross. For it is on the cross that God demonstrates for us how much it matters that Jesus came for the sake of the least in the kingdom.

Late Yale Divinity School preaching professor William Muehl told this story to illustrate what Christ bringing this kingdom into being means:

“One December afternoon…a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to claim their children after the last pre-Christmas class session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his hands the “surprise,” the brightly wrapped package on which he had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and wave to his parents, all at the same time, slipped and fell. The “surprise” flew from his grasp, landed on the floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash.

The child…began to cry inconsolably. His father, trying to minimize the incident and comfort the boy, patted his head and murmured, “Now, that’s all right son. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.”

But the boy’s mother, somewhat wiser in such situations, swept the boy into her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal.” And she wept with her son.”[1]

            In Jesus, God becomes the one who, rather than patting us on our head to console us, joins us in our suffering, as did that mother,  because the pain in this world, our pain, does matter – it matters a great deal.

            Our lives do matter to God. Christ’s coming does matter. How we prepare for him does matter. Repentance, that is, opening our hearts, making adjustments to our lives, bringing our lives into communion with God’s purposes in God’s kingdom come, does matter.

John’s cry of repentance is the call to turn away from our indifference to engage, at a life-changing level. The coming kingdom reorders our relationships and priorities. John’s words are words a challenge to us all. Do we care enough to change our lives and the world in which we live?

Do we love enough to get angry about the suffering and plight of other human beings and to declare that broken dreams and broken lives do matter, they matter very much? Are our hearts aligned with God’s enough to declare that this is true for every child of God, even if we’ve never met them?God cares.

That’s why divine wrath, axes, and fire are good news. God loves enough to get angry. The good news is that God is not indifferent. God is not indifferent to creation, nor to the evil and suffering in this world. God is not indifferent to God’s people. God is not indifferent to your life or my life.

God’s concern and love for creation are the source of God’s anger. Anger is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. The last thing we need is more indifference. The last thing we need is to hear from another that our very existence doesn’t matter. And God forbid that we should ever say or act as if another’s very existence is of no consequence to us.

            So, that’s what we’re about this season of Advent.  Our Advent worship, Advent hymns, Advent expectations, and Advent comforts bring us the reminder that John the Baptist makes so clear. We need to prepare. Our Advent activities, prayers and behaviors point to Christ’s coming. They help us focus. They bring about a different emphasis to our lives. They help us open our hearts and prepare room not only for the Christ child to enter in, but for the comfort of all God’s people.

            Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. Prepare for the one who comes, the one who will make all things new, who will bring about newly formed hearts, who will call us to new understandings to reorient ourselves, to turn from our former ways to change our attitude and perceptions.

            Repentance is about God’s desire to realign us to accord with Christ’s life. Repentance is about God’s power to transform us into Christ’s image, and it is a transformation worth preparing for.  

            And so, John’s wilderness sermon points beyond him and toward God and what God is doing. John the Baptist points to Jesus. Advent points to Jesus’ coming. The texts point to the reality that Jesus is bringing a changed way of living, thinking, understanding, operating.

How do we, in our lives today, do the same? How do our lives point to God and what God, in love for humankind and all of creation, is doing? How does it make a difference?

Whatever our message, our lives, our witness might be, it must point to Jesus. We do not point to the church, but to the gospel. We do not point to what we are doing but to what God is able to do through and despite us.

Our lives must point ever and always to Jesus. Today, as we lit the second candle of the Advent wreath, we sang, “Christ be our light, Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness….Make us your own, your holy people, light for the world to see….Christ be our light!” May it be so, that in true repentance, our lives might reflect the light and love of God in Christ Jesus, not only in this holy season, but throughout our year and our lives.

Amen.

---

[1] William Muehl, Why Preach? Why Listen? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 82.

Blessing and Challenge of the Promise

Sermon on texts from Acts 2:1-21 and John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Creator Spirit, heavenly dove, descend upon us from above;

                With graces manifold restore your creatures as they were before.   

         

To you, the Comforter, we cry; to you, the gift of God most high,

                True fount of life, the fire of love, the soul’s anointing from above.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verses 1&2)

Beautiful words, yes? Inspiring words. Comforting words.

With its evocative melody, this chant, Creator Spirit, Heavenly Dove is frequently sung during  ordinations, consecrations and commissionings of individuals set apart to serve in specific ministries in the church.

This chant is selected in part, I am sure, as a means to inspire the newly commissioned, consecrated, or ordained, as well as to remind us all of what God is doing in our midst- calling us together, equipping us for ministry, teaching us the ways of God, feeding us, and then sending us out in mission and service to the gospel. 

I clearly remember hearing this hymn chanted at my own ordination – some of you were even there. Referred to as the Hymn of Invocation, the entire assembly sang that day as many pastors surrounded me and prepared to lay their hands upon me.

Hearing these words and then feeling those hands upon my head, my shoulders, my back, my arms - was a powerful experience, and not only for me personally, but for all present; each hand, each voice presenting the Church at large, united by the Holy Spirit.

In you, with graces sevenfold, we God’s almighty hand behold;

                While you with tongues of fire proclaim to all the world

                                God’s holy name.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verse 3)

Perhaps these words are meant to comfort and inspire, since these are part of the work of the Holy Spirit. But I know that on that day, I felt the weight of those hands, too.

For while the ministry of God is an important and life-giving ministry in which we all have a share, the truth is that there are also forces in the world which oppose God’s purpose and will. As Jesus points out in our gospel lesson, these forces do not believe in Jesus, or in his message of grace and love. They – those forces – those voices – can sometimes weigh us down, calling us to hate when we know we should love. They can create confusion, beseeching us to doubt, when we want so badly to believe. They can tear at our fabric of our faith, attempting to drown out the message of God’s grace and mercy.

They can cause despair to creep in. They can discourage. They can sometime lead us down the path of least resistance – the path of denial not only of God’s existence, but of God’s supremacy in our lives.

Come Holy Spirit!

Perhaps, we are all in need of a little soothing, inspiring and comforting from time to time, as we come up against those forces, and feel or witness their impact in the world. At those times it is good to know that God’s Holy Spirit is walking beside us each day in all ways encouraging us, inspiring us, and yes, comforting us. But these are not the only things that the Holy Spirit of God does.

If we look at the reading that we have from the book of Acts this morning, we see some words that do not evoke the sweet scenes of a gently descending dove sent to lull us back to peaceful reverie when we become disturbed by the cacophony of worldly sound and voice. Instead, in this reading, we get images of confusion and are reminded that in the beginning, God’s spirit hovered over the waters and did what? – Stirred them up.           

Those in attendance on that Pentecost day are described as being perplexed. The Holy Spirit is a rushing wind, stirring things up, filling the place where they were staying–

The text describes it as a violent wind – powerful, perhaps even relentless. Fire appeared among the people gathered there; divided tongues of fire rested on each one of them.

After checking for singed hair, the disciples start babbling to one another, even more startled and confused, because low and behold, suddenly, these friends who formerly spoke only Aramaic or maybe, a little Greek, were speaking in many other tongues!

Imagine this scene with me, if you will:

Look! There is our friend, John, is that Persian coming out of his mouth?

And what about James – he has never been to Babylonia, how can he be speaking their language, and so clearly, too!                                      

Bartholomew? Is that you? But it sounds like Elamite coming from your lips!

And is that really Nathaniel – speaking Egyptian, of all things? How? How can this be?

And people from throughout Jerusalem gather in the street outside the place they are staying, drawn by all the noise and captivated by what they see – by what they hear.

I’ll bet comfort isn’t a feeling that was much felt in that moment. Bewilderment, yes; maybe, fear; and amazement, surely. I’ll bet there was astonishment, excitement - and confusion.  

And then, there were those other voices too,

                the ones speaking in opposition to God’s powerful,

                                miraculous work on that Pentecost Day.

                                                “They are filled with new wine,” they sneered.

As I reflected on these scriptures this week, I began to wonder how this reading of the text might affect the way we understand the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, beginning at our Baptism. Most of us present today were baptized as infants, as were our confirmands, who will each affirm her baptism in a few moments during the Rite of Confirmation. As babies, we might have missed the rushing wind and astonishing feeling of the Holy Spirit descending upon us – or perhaps we didn’t miss it – we just didn’t know what it was. We were babies, after all.

Others of us came to faith, or at least to the font of living waters, at an age of discretion – either as teens or adults. But, distracted by the human words that surrounded us that day, the music, perhaps even our own nervousness, we, too, may have missed the immediate feeling of God’s Spirit covering us and filling us up – although I have to tell you that the adults I have baptized describe an experience of amazing and powerful clarity and the power of the Holy Spirit palpably present on that day.

At our Baptism, the pastor said these or similar words, while tracing the sign of the cross, perhaps in oil, on their forehead: “(Your name, Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

My friends, rather than words of comfort and consolation, these are words of invocation.

They are a declaration not of who you are but whose you are:

They claim us, Child of God, and they challenge us, Child of God!; they charge us – You are a Child of God and they send us out – Go forth, Child of God!

It occurs to me that at the moment of our Baptism, these words do anything but comfort us.

The good news however, is that while they do all of those things – claim, challenge, charge, and send, those words – “child of God” - come with the promise that in faith God’s Holy Spirit goes with us. God’s Holy Spirit walks with, in, and beside us. God’s Spirit is there to inspire us when we soar   and to brush us off, heal our wounds, and send us back out when we fail.

Jesus makes the promise that he will send his Spirit upon us. A Spirit who will guide us in all we do and say, that in the vast experience of our lives, we might glorify God.

On this Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, we stand with all the faithful to proclaim that the powers of evil have been vanquished through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

We proclaim that through his victory over sin and death, Jesus has claimed the victory and that as he promised, Jesus sends the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to ensure that God’s vision and determination for the world will come to fruition.

As our young people are confirmed today, we celebrate with them and with all those in other places similarly being confirmed, together with the whole church, the power of God’s Holy Spirit to be present in every circumstance, providing exactly what we need to be God’s people.

We accept the Spirit’s challenge to be the church which acclaims the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit as alive, present and active, constantly inspiring, leading, challenging, teaching, feeding, and sending us forth to be the hands and feet and heart of God in the world. We invite the Spirit’s stirring us up and renewing us to live the Way of Christ.

                                 

               

News Worth Waiting For

Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8     

        Have you heard the news? Just a little over a year from now, on December 18, 2015, the new Star Wars movie is debuting. Back in the late 1970s, when Jim and I had just started dating, the first of the Star Wars movies had just come out, and I think we actually went to see it on one of our first dates. Jim loved the pyrotechnics and the special effects not to mention the Science Fiction storyline, a favorite genre for him. I loved watching Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, - and Chewbacca, of course. Every three years after that, a new episode of the trilogy was released on the big screen, each one a blockbuster in its own right. I have to confess that we made our own contribution to the billion dollar-plus draw of the franchise.

        Sixteen years later, three more Star Wars movies were released, once again, at three year intervals. Now, these movies were not sequels. They are what are  level, and the rough places a plain.” As the incarnation of God in John’s own time, Jesus will, once and for all, level all the obstacles placed before humankind to receive God’s mercy and grace; Jesus will level the playing field of people of every time and every place to take part in the glorious kingdom of God.

        Back in the 6^th century B.C.E., the People of Israel, exiled for more than a generation in Babylon, needed to hear these words of comfort and promise from Isaiah. But these words, repeated by John the Baptist also fed the hope of the people of first century Palestine, oppressed and living under Roman occupation and rule. And in the 21^st century world of today, we acknowledge that these are words that we, who are living in an often hostile, violent, and broken twenty-first century world hunger and thirst for as well. In the wilderness of our world, we witness and absorb acts of brutality of one person or nation against another played out daily on the local, national, and international scene. Yes, we need these words of promise, and we acknowledge that we continue to hunger and thirst for the love and grace of Jesus to dwell with us, and in us, and to abide in our world today.

        Comfort, comfort now, my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,…” For years, the people of Israel had been inhabitants of the great city of Jerusalem, with its temple, the central symbol and locus of their religion. Their status as God’s chosen people was central to their lives and to their identity, and yet, they had forgotten about their role in keeping covenantal relationship with God, had sinned appallingly against God, had neglected the poor, the widows and the children.

        And then they became a conquered people, long exiled to Babylon. A generation passed away and another came of age following the conquest destruction of their city and the desecration and annihilation of the Temple, the locus of their ritual life with God. Finally, the prophet calls out the word of the LORD, “Comfort, O comfort…cry to her that her penalty is paid.”

        Isaiah is announcing to the people that something spectacular is about to happen. God is about to come, to rescue God’s people, to lead them home. God will give them the comfort, God will deliver them from their hopelessness, and God will transform their lives. Have no fear, the messenger is telling his people – wilderness, mountains, valleys and rough places hold no threat against this coming of the LORD. God will indeed come. God will lead them home.

        What must it have been like for those people, who have languished their entire lives in this land of Babylon, to hear those words, “Comfort, comfort now my people,….The glory of the LORD shall be revealed and all people shall see it together…” What was it like, for the people in first century Palestine, living under Roman occupation, watching and waiting for the promised Messiah, the anointed one to arrive, to deliver them from their oppression, to hear the words of John, words that connected them to their backstory – to their beloved Scriptures – “As it was written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”?

        As we read these words today, I wonder if we can see the remarkable way in which they reach out and draw us into this story of God’s advent? I wonder if we can see parallels in these stories of the ages? Like the people of Isaiah’s time, we might often feel that we, too are languishing. We might feel that we, too have lost our way. Whether we are personally experiencing a rich harvest or famine in our lives, we have to acknowledge that that are so many points of connection between our story and the Israelites – or the people of 1^st century Palestine – or any time in between.

        Throughout the history of humankind, we have seen cycles of conquest, exile, rebellion, and the continuing fight of good against evil. The Israelites lived it. The people of first century Palestine experienced it, and it is part of the landscape of our world today.

        Our Old Testament and gospel readings each refer to the wilderness. Wilderness can be described as inhospitable terrain, empty or pathless region, uncivilized, wild, or uncultivated state. Wilderness is symbolic of much of human life. Wild. Unpredictable. Uncontrollable, no matter how much we like to think we can and do have control. In many ways, especially when we consider its vast potential, the wilderness of our lives is barren.

        Yet it is in this barren place that we hear God’s promise. “Comfort, comfort” proclaims the prophet – our God promises and will provide, Comfort. In Jesus Christ, every valley is lifted up, every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground is smoothed out, and all those rough places are made a plain; leveled, like a field.

        And yet, we know that the fulfillment of this promise is not yet complete. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this leveling, this comfort, this promise is breaking through the wilderness, and we are part of its revealing. The good news of this gospel is that God is now present, now working, now comforting and consoling, now coming, now feeding empty stomachs, now clothing, now encountering, now embracing the suffering, the hungry, the thirsty and the lowly ones. In the mystery of the ages, God has come among us in Jesus, who remains with us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus will come again, bringing this promised leveling and lifting up to a complete and glorious end.  

        We are surrounded each day by images that stay with us and inform our world view. Lately, many of those images are disturbing: Violence in Ferguson, Ohio and New York, terrorism in Syria and Somalia, racial and ethnic unrest, disgraced celebrities and politicians, beheadings, massacres, innocent children suffering every manner of torment, and more. But the scriptures we have read today deliver God’s word to us that is more powerful than any worldly power or the power of evil itself. Comfort, comfort, now my people….I am sending my messenger….Every valley shall be lifted up…every mountain and hill be make low…uneven ground become level….the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.

And so, I would like to leave you with other images today…images from just the past week: Pope Francis I and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I  of the Eastern Orthodox Church embracing, and the pope bowing for blessing by the patriarch in an historic moment of reconciliation; white police officers embracing young black men; black women holding the hands of white officers and praying with them and for them; lists of names published daily in the local paper, of people in our community who have contributed to a fund to help the needy; piles of Christmas gifts forming in my office, donated by Grace members to provide Christmas for poor families; people of many backgrounds coming together to contribute to the needs of refugees; there are so many more.

        In our text from Mark, a messenger has come once again. John the Baptist delivers the good news that God has entered human history in an amazing and unprecedented way, and the same message is given, “See, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” WE are part of the good news of the advent of Christ. May we be comforted in our work and in our lives. May we be inspired to daily acts of loving kindness and reconciliation. May we pray and daily support peaceful resolution of worldwide conflict. And may we, who live yet in the wilderness, find our rest in Christ, the one who came, is coming, and will yet come again, freeing every captive from every thing that binds us. Amen.