Second Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 8 2019

Audio    Second Sunday of Advent Yr A Dec 8 2019

Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12, Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

I don’t know about you, but John, this John who is the baptizer, always seems a bit crazy to me. I might even compare him to a street corner preacher, shouting and looking stark raving mad in his odd robes eating his bugs and honey. This John on the street corner might even be holding a sign saying not “the end is near,” but instead, “the beginning is near.” The beginning is near, the beginning of your new life, the life that is yours through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The new life that is yours because the kingdom of heaven draws near. Turn around, turn around and face the love that cannot be denied, turn away from the seduction of hate, and of darkness, and of chaos.

John the baptizer calls us to repentance, to turn around. And John doesn’t suggest a transaction, he doesn’t say if you repent then God will love you. John says, repent, turn around. Because John already knows that God is doing something amazing here, John already knows that the God of Abraham and Sarah, who were too old to have children and gave them a child anyway, is the God whose love is already turning us around. God, incarnate, God in the flesh, Emmanuel, Jesus, the one who is born in a born, born into all times and all places, the one who promises to bring all things to completion, this one is coming. Stay awake, get ready,

And John continues the theme of prophecy. Remember, we talked about prophecy as the call to repentance, the call to change, to turn around. John remembers to us, not just reminds us, because that is passive, but John remembers to us, makes real again, the story of those who came before, Abraham and Sarah. And John remembers to us his current reality, Jesus is the one who shows us the way to God. And John remembers to us the new reality, prepare the way of the Lord.

What is the sin in the world, in our lives, from which you must turn, and in the turning will ignite the kingdom life within you, will ignite a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. That’s the way Eugene Peterson translates Matthew in The Message, God’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of our lives. God will place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false, God will put out with the trash to be burned.

I’m pretty sure that’s the way repentance, turning to God, works. And I’m also pretty sure that it is the love that is lavished upon us that is the cause of our turning, the cause of refining. I mean, really, which one of us chooses the refining fire? It is my experience that repentance and refinement are God’s handiwork. Most of the time we are oblivious to the journey we are on, and how lost we’ve become, and the damage we are doing to ourselves and others, until we hit the bottom, or get thrown out, or can’t see our way out of the jam we’ve created for ourselves, and it becomes clear that we must change direction or die. God places everything true in its proper place, God puts order in our chaos, and what is not true, gets thrown out with the trash.

If repentance is turning to God, if repentance is changing course, if repentance is being found after wandering in the wilderness, and I believe it is, then sin and evil is that which brings us to the place of needing to change course. Sin is missing the mark. Evil is all of the intention and seduction and slipperiness that connives to create chaos and disintegration. But the kingdom of heaven draws near. God’s call is away from fragmentation, God’s call to us is the call to turn around and be healed.

But it’s not simple, is it, it’s never really simple. It is the murkiness, the messiness, the muddiness of life. It’s hard to hit the mark when our boots are caught in the mud. And healing doesn’t happen all at once or even once, it is a lifetime activity. But remember, the arc of God’s love bends toward mercy, and compassion, and healing.

As we continue our conversation with stories, stories that speak truth in our lives, I turn to a zombie story. Now, I love science fiction and fantasy, but zombies? No, not usually. Zombies are really not my cup of tea. But this one is …. different. Warm Bodies, and it’s really brilliant. One of the universal themes in zombie stories is answering the question, how did they become zombies? The answers range from disease to disaster. But Warm Bodies engages the conversation with sin, evil, and repentance because it is really a story about love.

The zombie hero is designated R, and R meets up with Julia, who is not a zombie. But rather than doing what zombies do, which I’d rather not talk about here, R befriends Julia. And what we have is a brilliant, poignant, truthful story about disintegration – sin and evil, and connection and life – healing and wholeness. You see, a zombie is a human being caught in decay and disintegration, a zombie is a placeholder for isolation and alienation. A zombie is someone who walks through life without really living, wandering in the wilderness, in exile. And the antidote is repentance, the antidote is turning toward the source of love, the antidote is connection. The antidote is to be changed, refined, from the inside out.

And when connection happens, in this wonderful zombie story, and in our own lives, when love soaks into our sinews and our muscles and our skin, God’s love as shown forth in incarnation, God’s love as shown forth in the body that is Jesus, we are saved from the wandering, we are saved from the disintegration of our bodies and souls, we are saved from the death of living in fear. You see death is not something that happens at the end of life, or the end of this story, death is what happens when no one cares about life, and one another, and the planet. Many are walking around zombielike, disconnected from the reality that is love.

Advent prepares us for that new reality. Advent prepares us to be alive, with God’s image stamped on us. Advent prepares us to lift our hands to God and to one another and turn away from all that would disconnect and disintegrate us. Advent prepares us to face the murkiness and messiness of this life and know that in the midst of the mud, we are full of God in the flesh. Advent prepares us to be cleansed in the refiner’s fire and come out scarred, but strong. Advent prepares us for the end of the story, while living in the middle.

Thanks be to God, for this life, for staying awake, for connection and for love.