The Third Sunday of Advent, December 13, 2009

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black, preaching
Zephaniah 3: 14-20
The First Song of Isaiah - Isaiah 12: 2-6
Philippians 4: 4-7
Luke 3: 7-18

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. AMEN.

Rejoice! Gaudete, in Latin, sounds out so boldly from Paul's letter to the Philippians-so why is John the Baptist shouting at us, calling us vipers? This is Rejoice Sunday, named for the antiphon from this Epistle that traditionally began Advent III. Rejoicing permeates the readings, but there is John shouting, scolding at people, railing against them, and then, claiming it's all good news. How are we to put these opposites together?

Zephaniah, a 7^th century BC prophet during the reforms of Josiah, had worked to eliminate the worship of pagan gods and such, after the collapse of the Assyrian Empire. Zephaniah scolded Israel for its idolatry and corruption, while warning about the coming day of the Lord. This morning's reading comes from the end of his work where he offers hope, as he describes a vision of a restored Israel. "Rejoice and exult with all your heart! The Lord is in your midst, so no more disaster. The Lord is in your midst as a warrior who gives victory. Israel will be famous and praised among all the people of the earth, when its fortunes are restored."

Isaiah also is as confident in the Lord's oversight and protection. "Surely it is God who saves me- I will trust and not be afraid, so give thanks to the Lord and call upon his name." Even Paul rejoices. He also reminds people "Do not worry about anything (The anthem we'll hear words it: "Be careful for no thing..." but it means don't worry,) but by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. God's peace will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

The worrying Zephaniah, Isaiah, and Paul are each alluding to in his own way, is deep worry. They are not urging people not to worry about trivial or surface worries, like daily annoyances and nagging irritations. People have those twitches. Instead each of these three men is urging us to notice that we are not alone, that God is taking good care, leading Israel home, to security and fortunes, and that God is always near.

Luke presents John the Baptist as a bold and wild person, a bigger than life man, who is sure, in a visceral way, that God's care, is real and present. He knows, not because he's close to his cousin or that he thinks about him, but because he, himself, experiences that God's personal involvement, God's saving work, is near. Because he preached about God's nearness, people kept wondering and asking whether he was the person bringing about that salvation. He knew he was not the savior, because he knew that about himself, but he was sure the savior was almost there.

In our Eucharistic Prayer, we pray, "in these last days," and on occasion, people ask why are these the "last" days? John was sure he was living near the time that the Savior was coming, while we are sure and repeat, that we live in days leading to his coming again. My guess is that while John meant that the savior was coming right then, few of us believe Jesus will physically return right now, in 12 days, or any time soon. We do say together that we believe we are living in those days leading to the Christ's return. We say that Christ has come and will come again, but few of us have the feeling of immanence that John demonstrates. (One of my kids, when she was about 3, used to carry around a book held tightly against her stomach, hoping, hoping, hoping that this would be the day she would be able to read. She knew it was coming soon, that welcome day, and she just wanted to be, book in hand, ready for the moment.) I think that's John, but we remember that there has already been a long line of people who've been that ready, and he hasn't come back yet, so we are more metaphorical or formulaic in our waiting. It's less that we don't believe "he will come again in glory," but more that we don't expect that day to be this day, or any day we need to be personally ready for. There's an order of nuns, with even a small house in Brookline, who have no beds. They sleep upright, or leaning, in catnaps and snatched sleep, because they want to show for their whole lives that they are not asleep on the job, and that they're really, really ready. Most of us are pretty sure that that's nuts, but wouldn't it be nice if the second coming were that immediate, or would it?

Suppose it were? John was pretty sure it was just that immediate, and he wanted the people to whom he preached to be as ready as he felt necessary. Like any good evangelical preacher, he urged and cajoled his folk to be ready. Like a sweeper in curling, he was preparing the way in direction and velocity for the power, the force, and the winner to come. John was preparing the way for Messiah. He wanted his people to be ready, but he feared that the people he was preaching to would be carelessly unready.

The savior's coming was, at that time, in the wind. John wasn't the only itinerant preacher readying for Messiah. Jewish baptism was a common thing in John's time, converting or renewing people's commitment to being Jews and living right. John was part of that movement, but he knew he wasn't the one, and that the one to follow would baptize with the Spirit, whatever that would turn out to be. John knew he was the one leading the parade, but was not the event of the parade. We don't here actually go to or participate in many parades, but we do go from time to time, Red Sox or Celtics permitting, maybe sometime the Patriots, or even the Bruins, I suppose. There's a sound and a frisson in a crowd while it waits. Then there's a distant, but approaching sound, and feeling of coming movement, and then the crowd feels more alert and thicker, and then the lead of the parade comes and then the event is coming and comes, and vanishes in the shouts and distance of sound and space, and blowing paper.

John knows he's at the front of such an event, but not far in front. He is desperate that we be in the parade, not left behind as the series of contemporary books depicts. His listeners at his time heard his concern and wanted to know what could they do.

Oddly for such a vivid and shouting person his suggestions of ways to be ready are pretty straightforward, although have a ring of almost cynicism. He tells people with enough to share it. He tells tax collectors not to extort more money than they're supposed to collect, turning over what is the government's due and collecting no more than that. He tells soldiers, working for the army of occupation, not to bully money from people and to accept the paltry wages due them. I'd guess as few of his audience, as are here, were other than his first group. However, in a bigger group there are apt to be some kind of government employees who could take more than their due. Years ago I used to see people collecting the coins from the parking meters on Cambridge Street, who off-loaded the change into canvas bags which they slung into their own car trunks, and as it turned out to few people's surprise, into their own hands and accounts. My guess is that there is no generation of people then or now without some close experience with tax types collecting and keeping more than the law allowed.

There are surely, too, soldiers in every level and kind of army who use their clout to get more from those who are unarmed in their path, than their soldier pay permits. Somehow an inadequate government salary is easy to augment with the muscle of weaponry and group presence that soldiers have, but-on the other side- to be fair, there is rarely enough citizen will to pay soldiers enough for the dangerous and difficult jobs we expect and hire them to do. These are not new or unknown situations. The first is the one nearly all of us live from time to time. Many of us have a second, if not fifth or seventeenth coat. We do share them and pass them along. (Few people are like my friend who neither sews, nor cooks, nor does other domestic things, but who throws away any clothing if it loses a button or needs a stitch.) We have been told to share and recycle, and we do some of that, but perhaps not enough to feel it has ever been enough. There may be times when we don't have enough food, or clothing, or even books to share around, but for most of us those times have neither been continuous nor frequent. If we really thought Jesus was returning next week, there would be a whole lot of closet emptying and other downloading and reapportioning of stuff, let alone avoiding acquiring more stuff-that would be Christmas presents. John shouts to get people ready-and because John shouts by nature. He is a bold person. He wants people to hear urgently, so he shouts and scolds. He wants people then, and still wants, people to be ready and we're pretty comfortable in not needing to be right ready.

Even though he whips people up, he knows the savior in close at hand. He is sure of that, as sure as are Zephaniah and Isaiah. His voice is not in the key of rejoicing though, but rather in the key of shrill shouting, and John spoke neither in the language of Isaiah nor of Paul. His "clean up your act" harangues were still backed up in and bound by his sure knowledge that the Lord was at hand, in their midst. It scared him, because he was so sure, that people wouldn't be ready. He cared enough to hammer away at people, but even then, he knew to keep proclaiming that it was good news. Some crowd members must have said, "If you're so sure it's good news, why are you shouting at us and calling us vipers?" "To get you ready" is always the reply whenever the "you" is asking John. "If you're so sure the savior is coming, what should we do?" is still a right question. Clean up our acts, share more, don't cheat-that's one mode of response, but also, "Rejoice in the Lord, don't worry, let your requests be known to God-that is: pray for what you need-and God's peace will guard our hearts and minds in Jesus. Would we hear Paul and his rejoicing option if we didn't do a little of what John shouts at us to do? Would we be able to do what John chivvies us to do, if we didn't know with certainty the savior's coming to us, in all times? He comes to John's weary people as he comes to us.

Each of the people writing this morning was really asking the more important question than what should we do, but rather, "What is God doing now?" Each answers in his own way: The Lord is always watching over us. God cares for us and protects us, loves us and guards us. The Lord is near. The Lord is right in our midst. The Lord is at hand. That's Good News.

~ Katharine C. Black, 13 December 2009