En el nombre del Dios único, santo, y vivo. Amen. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen.
Today is the third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for “rejoice,” but it also means 'to welcome.' On this Sunday then, we make an intentional choice to welcome the joy God is waiting to give us – joy that anticipates the redeeming love of God; joy that trusts that nothing is impossible with God.
Our Collect today is an intriguing one. It reminds us that there is power out there that can set right whatever has gone wrong. That power is love. That power is God.
When we talk about God as Almighty, that’s what we mean. We may use metaphors of earthly power, as Zephaniah did, calling God a “warrior who gives victory” but let’s not overlook how God then describes what that victory is. Speaking through the prophet God promises to rejoice and exult over us and renew us. God promises to redeem disaster, deal with our oppressors, save the lame, gather the outcast, and change our shame to praise. That is what divine victory looks like and it’s why we rejoice.
Paul affirms this in his letter to the Philippians saying that when we stay in relationship with God, we are assured that all will be well, as Dame Julian of Norwich famously said, and our assurance feels like peace – peace in our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. Peace that often makes no logical sense.
What, then, do we make of the Gospel reading from Luke? How does this story fit the Gaudete imperative to rejoice? How did John the Baptist’s listeners hear his words as good news? How do we?
John tells the tax collectors, who were notorious for getting rich by exploiting the poor: Be honest. Take no more than is required. To the soldiers, John said, don’t use your power to extort others.
Using apocalyptic language, which was familiar to his listeners, John proclaims that those who have strayed from the path of righteousness, including some from the family of Abraham, will be cut off at their roots and thrown into unquenchable fire.
Good news, right? Actually, it is.
Since fire is Bible-talk for the presence of God, John is describing a kind of spiritual do-over. The fire is unquenchable – just as God’s love for us and desire for our redemption is unrelenting.
The fire of God’s love will consume us, purify us, and make us new. That’s exactly what the River Jordan, where John was baptizing people, represents: a place where new life begins. It is the place where the Israelites left their 40-year exile and crossed into the promised land, and their promised new life.
God is love – and doesn’t use threats to accomplish Their plan of salvation. And as former PB Michael Curry used to famously say (say it with me): If it's not about love it's not about God.
When the people asked John how they should repent, what they should do, he answered them: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."This is Good News on so many levels when we hear John’s words like a prayer.
John opens the people up to a world in which they are not the center of attention. Being the center of your own or others’ attention is a way of life that seems attractive, but it is actually a trap that soon becomes an obsession: my reputation, my money, my rights… John’s words enable them to close the ‘us vs. them’ gap by building in them empathy, respect, and a willingness to enter into relationship with people they otherwise wouldn’t have – the coatless and the hungry.
John’s teaching also frees them from their attachment to things. We all have to ask ourselves: how much is enough?
Currently, there are 2,781 billionaires in the world, and most of them have hundreds of billions of dollars. (Source) If a billionaire were to spend $1,000 a day, it would take them 2,740 years to spend just one billion dollars. (Source) And there are nearly 3,000 of them representing hundreds of billions of dollars each.
Is there enough to lift everyone in the world out of poverty? Yes, but only if whoever has two coats and enough food shares with those who don’t.
Imagine also what Good News John’s proclamation is to the weak, the poor, the exploited, and the hopeless. They would receive the coats and food no longer being held from them. Let’s say that again in prayer language: the ‘have-nots’ will receive the protection and basic sustenance that is being withheld from them by the ‘haves.’
These have-nots are also at the river and are hearing John tell the ones who have been exploiting and harassing them, to change their ways. They know that would set them free from their suffering and lack.
Good News, indeed.
In this story, John clarifies to his listeners that he is not the Messiah. He is baptizing with water and calling for repentance. The Messiah, who will come after him, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Muslim poet and Sufi mystic, Rumi, once prayed, “I have one drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.” It is our awareness of our connectedness with God and one another, and our choice to live that way, that will transform the world. Then the will of God will be made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.
For that to happen, however, each of us and all of us must look honestly at ourselves and notice where we’re acting like the tax collector and soldier who needed to change their ways. In what ways are we giving ourselves and our comfort priority over others, especially those others who have no protection and lack the basic necessities of life?
What is the chaff in ourselves we need to be set free from in order to be made ready to receive the transforming love that will come again at Christmas? We all have chaff that needs burring off - and God, who loves us so incredibly much, knows we can only deal with so much truth about ourselves at once, so God reveals it to us in small doses, enabling us to repent a little at a time, year after liturgical year.
It’s a kind of controlled spiritual burn of our souls. It looks destructive and we worry that it might get out of control, but our faith assures us that God has it and us in hand, and this process will create in us a more favorable environment for new life, just as it does for crops in the fields.
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