Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near
The Rev. Scot Sherman
The Second Sunday of Advent, December 4, 2022
Isaiah 11:1-10 • Romans 15:4-13 • Matthew 3:1-12
I just love these weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas. The coziness, the beauty, but just as you settle in, John the Baptist shows up yelling! Calling people snakes! Telling everyone to change, warning them that there is one coming after him who will separate the wheat from the chaff with a pitchfork and burn the chaff in unquenchable fire. Merry Christmas!
Years ago I made a joke in a sermon, talking about John the Baptist, I said “he’s not exactly the kind of character you’d see as a cheerful Christmas ornament.” Well, the following week, a 10 year old girl walked up with a wonderful handmade John the Baptist doll ornament, with a camel hair cloak, a grizzled beard, and bright Christmas beads across his chest that say REPENT. It hangs on our tree every year!
John is out at the river Jordan dressed in protest clothes. In this case, not a pink hat, but a hairy coat and a leather belt, clothing associated with the prophet Elijah. The people got the reference. If I showed up today having shaved my mustache and wearing a stovepipe hat, you’d say what? Well, Lincoln (... put on weight)! In Jewish expectation at the time, Elijah was considered a signal, a forerunner of the Day of the Lord, of the coming of the promised Messiah.
So it’s significant that this is the context where Jesus takes center stage and begins his public ministry. The promise of a new reality of life with God has arrived! But in this context, it’s clear that to share this new life, it will require change. The Messiah is coming, but we have clear a straight path. John says, you need to REPENT, that is, rethink your life, change direction.
Our reading from Isaiah, and quoted in Romans, frames the work of the Messiah in hopeful terms. He is the promised one who will engage with the gentiles, with all people, in a way that will cause them to HOPE. In Paul’s words, to abound with hope! Now, how do you square that with the pitchfork?
I think we need to view the pitchfork through the lens of Isaiah 11. Jesus is the one who’s come to lead us to wholeness. As individuals, as a nation, as a planet, we need to get rid of our chaff.
Chaff isn’t necessarily bad. It’s an essential part of wheat. When wheat is growing, the chaff protects it in its earliest stages of development. But when the wheat matures, it gets shed. Winnowing is the process where the farmer raises the wheat into the air, the edible wheat falls to the threshing floor, and the chaff is carried off by the wind.
Winnowing is John’s analogy for Jesus’ baptizing us with the Spirit. In the same way the wind winnows the wheat, the spirit winnows you! (Spirit is the same word in Greek as wind). John says, “I’ve just got water, but the one coming after me will saturate you with God’s spirit, God’s fire, God’s life.”
I love the way Eugene Peterson translates this passage in The Message:
“I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next: The main character in this drama–compared to him I’m a mere stagehand–will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house–make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
For the mystics, this is the first developmental stage of contemplative spirituality, “purgation.” It’s an encounter with the transforming love of God that begins to cleanse and purify you. We are all both wheat and chaff, and the chaff must fall away. The axe has to cut out whatever in you does not bear the good fruit God intends.
The emphasis here is all about what God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit does within us. But it raises the question, what does our action look like? How do we participate in “Operation Dechaffification?”
John’s preaching doesn’t exactly tell us what to repent of. He just gives us images of preparation—God is coming, clear the way, smooth out the bumps, lift up the low spots, straighten out the curves. But what are we being asked to do?
Well, maybe see it as an invitation to practices that strengthen your spiritual self awareness; to take a breath, look around, and listen to God. What are the low spots that need to be filled in? Ask yourself, are my reserves of kindness, gentleness, patience—the fruits of communion with God’s spirit—running low?
Are there things in the way that need to be cleared out? Maybe the problem is mountains of busyness, consumption, self- absorption, mountains of grudges and resentments! What’s in the way that needs to be made low?
In the novel Saint Maybe, Anne Tyler tells the story of 3 children who become orphans. Their 19-year-old Uncle Ian, feels responsible, so he decides to leave college, set aside his life plans, and bring up his brother’s children. It’s tough, but in giving up he finds himself. When the children leave, he’s overwhelmed by the accumulated mess of his house. At which point, a no- nonsense, clear eyed “clutter counselor” named Rita, barrels into the picture, throws out 90 percent of the contents of Ian’s fridge, and half of the junk in the attic, the basement, and every other room. Spoiler: this causes him to fall madly in love with her! She returns him to the simplicity of getting down to what really matters, the clarity he had when he decided to adopt the children.
I think of Rita when I reflect on John the Baptist. When God drew near to us in Jesus, God decided to also send along a clutter counselor for us, saying, “don’t miss what God is doing, what God is saying. This is what matters!”
Advent is a season when we ask ourselves, how do I rediscover what matters? How do I declutter my life, to commune with God and love my neighbor more freely? Am I filled with joy and peace in believing abounding in hope by the Holy Spirit?