NewCreation

Homily for Second Sunday in Advent, Year A

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this the homily for the second Sunday in Advent. We continue our movement into Advent through Saint Matthew. Last time, if you remember, in the midst of rumors of convulsion and warnings of great disturbance, we were shown the difficulty of discerning, and how the discernment is going to be what is really important — with one person being taken, another left in different circumstances. And here we're coming closer to being on the inside of the discernment. We're not there yet by any means, because the discernment is going to be difficult. And the route we're taken into working out what's beginning to go on with the discernment is the very beginning of Matthew's Gospel. This is not the infancy narratives, which we'll get to later during the Christmas period, or immediately before the Christmas period, but the very beginning of Jesus's ministry — and before Jesus's ministry, the ministry of John the Baptist. So something is being set up from which we're going to learn how to discern, how to work out what it is to follow the Lord, to be able to say "Lord" and mean it, which is going to be a central theme in Matthew's Gospel. Our passage today begins with introducing us to John the Baptist. "In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea." So the wild place — just outside, a liminal space, the area around the Jordan — which marked an inside and an outside. It was the difference between the foreign and home. It was the difference between before Israel and Israel. There were a whole lot of symbolic references there that people would have understood as to the place chosen. And he's saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." The kingdom of heaven is more like: the presence of the Holy One is drawing close. So the powerful presence of the Holy One is drawing close. This is the message: that he's coming. And he's saying, change your minds, change your hearts. You know the kind of things that the Holy One of Israel demands of you. Now's the time to get ready, to actually receive the Holy One, because as things stand, your hearts are not ready. So here we have John the Baptist being described as: "This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, 'The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight.'" That's a quote from Isaiah 40, but with a very slight difference. Because the original in Hebrew reads as: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord." In other words, people are being told to prepare the way in the wilderness, but here it's the one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord." You may think that's a big difference, but it explains why the wilderness is being used here, and why John was inhabiting the wilderness as John began the preparation. Now he's being described with a whole series of references to previous life in Israel, stories that they would all have known. So he wore clothing of camel's hair — a reference back to the time of the patriarchs. He has a leather belt around his waist, a reference to the prophet Elijah, because that's exactly what Elijah was described as wearing. And his food was locusts — a reference back to the exodus — and wild honey, a reference to Samson. So he is somehow combining all those figures, all those people, with shared stories that people would have known about. Because we're modern and frivolous and we don't have such a shared culture, we would say he was doing prophet cosplay. But obviously he was actually living it out really, and inhabiting the space that they had inhabited, and therefore being in a space to speak powerful words. You know, nowadays any fool can go to Gettysburg and make a pronouncement and try to take advantage of the fact that it was a turning point, that it was itself a space with a before and an after. Or to get in a boat on the Delaware and cross it and make an announcement about themselves. Or go and sign a document and run a mead — in the case of Britain — to remind people of Magna Carta. Anyone can cosplay a figure from history, but actually to live into the role for a long time, to prepare yourself so that people acquire the density of what you're doing, so that what you're saying rings true rather than just another marketing campaign — that's more difficult. So that's something of what he's doing here. So he starts to announce this, he's saying this is coming, and people knew that this was a frightening thing. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him. It's important, precisely because of the passage from Isaiah 40, that it's all the people. Because in Isaiah 40, verse 3: "A voice cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low, the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together." So the whole point is that all people are coming up. This is something that actually appeals to all their shared common history. And furthermore, they want to be prepared; they understand that they're not living up to the calling to be Israel. And so they go and they seek this baptism which John has invented, and they confess their sins. It's interesting that Matthew doesn't describe it as… A baptism which forgives their sins: this is that as they were baptized, they confessed their sins. So it was a way for them to start over. But curiously enough, this great coming out of people also brought forth the religious and cultural leaders. So then it says, "But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism" — as many authorities have pointed out, the idea of Pharisees and Sadducees doing something together is unlikely. You were talking about groups that had a strong detestation of each other, were highly critical of each other. But it would be as if the media culture and business culture came out together. Each has its own interests, and each exists in a kind of symbiotic or parasitic relationship with the other in the interests of fooling people, corruption, making riches, and so on. But that would be something like what it seemed, for people at the time, for the Pharisees and the Sadducees to be there together. The popular religious pastors, the teachers of the way, the television pundits, etc., and the Sadducees — the rich people who owned all the property, were very keen on political stability, didn't want anything touched that interfered with money, and so on and so forth. So he says to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" And this image of the brood of vipers is actually worth thinking about, because the suggestion is that they are coming out especially from Jerusalem, which was obviously their center. A brood of vipers — small snakes would come out if, for instance, a pile of brushwood in which they were hiding or nesting was started to be burnt. That's when they would come out, and that's when they might be dangerous. Snakes in general try to keep away from humans, but if suddenly frightened by something coming, they will come out and be dangerous. So here the image is that he understands that they are hearing the warning that something terrible or terrifying is going to happen to their system, their nest, if you like, and that the little vipers are now coming out and that they're dangerous. And they can cause trouble. But he knows that they don't share the same values as the people who come out sincerely saying, "Yes, we are failing to be Israel." These are the people who want to control what Israel is for their own interests. So they're coming out, and yes, they're prepared to go through the mechanisms so as to be seen to be like everybody else, to share the same values as everybody else — which they don't. But what they're really interested in is not having their castle disturbed. So he says, "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." In other words, actually show that you need your hearts changed and you want to change your hearts. "Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'" — meaning, because we're part of the promise, we can rely on… everything. We are just going to be the good guys, and that's a fixed thing. Nothing anyone can do about that. In other words, don't be presumptuous that your belonging is going to save you, for "I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham." The Lord alone knows which stones he's referring to — presumably some stones in the river Jordan, or by the river Jordan. Anyhow, the notion that a completely different temple might be built up is now part of the prophecy, and that of course is part of what is in fact being prophesied, whether John the Baptist knew it or not: that children of Abraham, offspring of Abraham, who will be in fact the stones of the new building that is being prepared. Then he says to them, "Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees." What would that mean? How would they have interpreted that? Maybe that the Romans are already around, you know, that the situation is grave, you know, that there is going to be a threat to Jerusalem from the Romans eventually. Everyone can sense that. Are you going to resist that? Are you going to start to produce good fruit to make sure that doesn't happen? "Every tree that does not have good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." So he's moving from the imminent threat to the possibility — just the possibility — that they might be able to step outside, but only if they're actually genuinely prepared to change. Then he says, "I baptize you with water for repentance" — in other words, those of you who want to change their hearts, come here and get covered so that your repentance can be seen — "but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me." The powerful one — in fact, that's a key term for the Lord — "and I am not worthy to carry his sandals," as opposed in other Gospels to "undo the strap of his sandals." And the carrying of the sandals obviously would have been a servant's task. But in this particular case, it may also be a reference to the levirate law, whereby an elder brother who refused to marry his elder brother's wife, the younger brother to him could come along, give him his shoes, and say, "I will take the wife." So the giving of the shoe would be a sign that this person was going to take on the marriage. So John the Baptist is saying, "I'm not worthy to be conducting the marriage, but the one who is to come will be the spouse of Israel." And I'm not up to that, but that's the one who's coming. "And he will baptize you with Holy Spirit." Again, they put here in the Bible in our translation "the Holy Spirit," but it's "with Holy Spirit and fire." This is a reference again to the apocalyptic quality of the coming of the Spirit, as John understood it at any rate. And we'll see later if that's what's really going on, if that's really what will happen, because in the book of Malachi, where one is coming before the end of the prophet Malachi, one is coming before the end, the promise is that he comes with fire. So what's going to look like, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and what will it look like when fire comes? Will these be two sides of the same coin? Will some people receive it as something holy and others as something utterly destructive? We're heading for the beginning of this discernment. "His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor." Again, they would have picked up that this refers to the place where the Temple was, which was the threshing floor on which the vision of the Most High gave David permission to set aside this space for the Temple, which eventually Solomon built. But that was the basis — it was the threshing floor in Jerusalem. "And he would gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." So the winnowing fork is going to do the separating out; it's going to separate between the grain and the chaff. Again, this fulfills elements of Malachi which refer to the food being taken into the granary. And the chaff, of course — actually, winnowing is quite a good way of separating out the grain for food and chaff, which is then generally used for burning. It's a good quick way to start a fire, is to have a sufficient amount of chaff, which then helps you burn stronger fires very quickly. "The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." So here we have John coming in, indicating, if you like, the threatening nature of what's going around, and people knowing that they must do something to change. And already there being all sorts of political, religious reaction of the sort to which we're entirely accustomed. As we live this, how do we hear this? What would it be like for someone to come and occupy one of our liminal spaces — someone who has proved themselves capable of speaking wise words, someone not just someone who's very rich and happens to buy a multimedia project and then trash it for immediate political interests, but someone who has acquired credibility, so that they're not perceived as enacting cheap cosplay but are actually able to say a word? What would it look like for us to feel moved by that person, say, "Gosh, yes, there's a point there, something must be happening"? Would it be someone like Greta Thunberg, for instance, coming out and causing us concern? I'm just giving you an idea, but in each of your countries you have these liminal areas; you have the possibility of people occupying the space. What would it be like to hear the words and start to repent? What would it look like then to start being discerning about what the one coming in is bringing? How will we know? How will we be able to follow? How will we recognize and be recognized? That's how our… Advent journey is developing. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.