Prayer
With righteousness, you judge the poor, O steadfast and faithful God, and with justice, you decide aright for the meek and lowly of the earth. Shatter the silence of Advent’s wilderness with the voice of the one who cries out to prepare your way and to make straight your paths that we may bear fruit worthy of repentance, lie in harmony with one another, and be gathered at last into the peaceable kingdom of your Christ who was, who is and who is to come. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
The Kingdom was coming all right, he said, but if you thought it was going to be a pink tea, you'd better think again. I f you didn't shape up, God would give you the ax like an elm with the blight or toss you into the incinerator like chaff. He said being a Jew wouldn't get you any more points than being a Hottentot, and one of his favorite ways of addressing his congregation was as a snake pit. Your only hope, he said, was to clean up your life as if your life depended on it, which it did, and get baptized in a hurry as a sign that you had.
Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text
With righteousness, you judge the poor, O steadfast and faithful God, and with justice, you decide aright for the meek and lowly of the earth. Shatter the silence of Advent’s wilderness with the voice of the one who cries out to prepare your way and to make straight your paths that we may bear fruit worthy of repentance, lie in harmony with one another, and be gathered at last into the peaceable kingdom of your Christ who was, who is and who is to come. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on Matthew 3:1-12
"John the Baptist," Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures.
"Repentance, or metanoia, to use the Greek word, refers to far more than a simple being or saying one is sorry for past sins, far more than mere regret or remorse for such sins. It refers to a turning away from the past way of life and the inauguration of a new one, in this case, initialized by an act of baptism."
Commentary, Matthew 3:1-12, Ben Witherington, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"Repentance is a correlate of freedom. The tearing away that takes place in detachment is only possible because a deeper, more powerful and superior attachment has come: the attachment of faith, the grip of the kingdom."
The Matthean Advent Gospels, James Arne Nestingen, Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry, Luther Northwestern Theological School, 1992.
"Repentance is a correlate of freedom. The tearing away that takes place in detachment is only possible because a deeper, more powerful and superior attachment has come: the attachment of faith, the grip of the kingdom."
The Matthean Advent Gospels, James Arne Nestingen, Word & World: Theology for Christian Ministry, Luther Northwestern Theological School, 1992.
It is clear that in this passage set for today we have two pieces of important and foundational messages which add to our Advent work of preparation and are also signals of what the Gospel of Matthew is all about. On the one hand, we have the expected “Brood of vipers” speech of John the Baptist to begin our season and call us into repentance. However, and I believe more importantly, as we begin a reading cycle of Matthew we have an inauguration underway.
We begin with words that tell us that times are changing. The simple statement of “now in those days” is deeply rooted in the ancient psyche of storytelling within our scripture as an indicator that we are moving into a new time.
We are in a new play, we are in the desert, in the wilderness - an apt setting for an Advent message. More importantly, we imagine the parallels with the ancient Abrahamic ancestors and their dessert/wilderness wanderings.
The message from this man is clear: repent.
Here we begin to see something important and uncomfortable emerge in the Gospel. Repentance is tied to the eschatological, our actions of changed mind (which is the literal Greek translation in this case) is very much a partnership with the coming reign of God. The kingdom of heaven is near and this act of repentance is a component of preparation.
We then receive the quotation from Isaiah. The voice and the wilderness here would have been powerful images in the minds of the listeners to John, and to the first readers of Matthew’s Gospel. This is a new time, we are in a new place with ancient meaning, we must act in accordance with the drawing near of the reign of God, AND it is a particular kind of reign. Our deliverance which is coming is the fulfillment of God’s prophetic words to the captives in Babylon. God’s promise is coming true in a new and revelatory manner which shows a link to God’s Word of the past with the incarnation which is at hand. The listeners could not but help hear the powerful words of the prophet Isaiah that are linked with John the Baptist’s quote:
Then our author, our narrator tells us that ALL were going out to him. This was powerful and a new time was coming to a new emerging message and revelation. It was a time of renewal for the people and they wanted to be a part of this ritual. These first images of baptism are rooted in this hope for something new and for change. And it is clear in the text that this model of baptism is clear: the word is proclaimed, the individual is moved to change their way of being, they are baptized to mark this repentance and confession.
This was a powerful movement and the Gospel’s witness to the fact that John was a powerful actor and player in the politics and religious life surrounding Jesus’ own emergence.
We then add a second scene to our already meaty story of proclamation and repentance. It is here that we begin to see the architecture of Matthew’s storytelling for we see that the narrator moves us quickly from the idea and the Word to action and then into community and community action.
John sees that some of the people (Pharisees and Sadducees) are coming for baptism are arriving and that perhaps they are seeking something other than true amendment of thinking and being that will lead to transformative action.
John and the Gospel are clear: your heritage does not save you, your fruit will reveal who you are. The scholar Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. writes: “The Pharisees and Sadducees are warned not to imagine that the mere ritual of baptism will preserve them from God’s wrath. Rather they must do the good deeds that are appropriate to genuine repentance in view of the coming kingdom…Belonging to the children of Abraham will not protect those who refuse to repent and do good works. There may be an allusion here to the rabbinic idea of the “merits of the fathers” according to which the righteousness of the patriarchs is charged to the account of Israel.” (Matthew, Sacra Pagina, 56)
Now I want to be very careful here by identifying too much the Pharisees and Sadducees and to name and recognize the all too easy way Christian preachers scapegoat them and the anti-Semitism that is all too prevalent in our culture. When we make too much of them we miss the powerful message of the Gospel.
You and I are the ones to hear John the Baptist charge. We are the ones who must hear that perhaps we are about our religious life in a manner that must change. We are the ones who must look at the fruit of our faith and what it is or is not bringing about in our community. The question is not for someone else, but for us: Have we for too long stood on the shoulders of our ancient traditions and ancestry as Anglicans and Episcopalians? Are we bearing the fruit of the kingdom of God?
Are we as we sit in our pews on Sunday morning able to bring to the altar labors this week which were not simply prayers and offerings of our hearts but the glorious work of changing people’s lives?
You and I as we sit and ponder the words of John the Baptist can see that this Gospel of Matthew holds for us a clear message that we are to be at work in the world around us bearing fruit fitting our loving God’s reign. The proclamation of the word leads to transformation and repentance, which leads to real works of faith. Bearing fruit for the reign of God is not an ancillary to the life of faith but an essential component to healthy spirituality in the family of God. “Repentance and return to the Lord,” those words from our Baptismal Covenant are essential keystones in a life well lived with a God who reveals himself incarnationally. We must make real in our world – outside of ourselves - our hearts transformation.
We begin with words that tell us that times are changing. The simple statement of “now in those days” is deeply rooted in the ancient psyche of storytelling within our scripture as an indicator that we are moving into a new time.
We are in a new play, we are in the desert, in the wilderness - an apt setting for an Advent message. More importantly, we imagine the parallels with the ancient Abrahamic ancestors and their dessert/wilderness wanderings.
The message from this man is clear: repent.
Here we begin to see something important and uncomfortable emerge in the Gospel. Repentance is tied to the eschatological, our actions of changed mind (which is the literal Greek translation in this case) is very much a partnership with the coming reign of God. The kingdom of heaven is near and this act of repentance is a component of preparation.
We then receive the quotation from Isaiah. The voice and the wilderness here would have been powerful images in the minds of the listeners to John, and to the first readers of Matthew’s Gospel. This is a new time, we are in a new place with ancient meaning, we must act in accordance with the drawing near of the reign of God, AND it is a particular kind of reign. Our deliverance which is coming is the fulfillment of God’s prophetic words to the captives in Babylon. God’s promise is coming true in a new and revelatory manner which shows a link to God’s Word of the past with the incarnation which is at hand. The listeners could not but help hear the powerful words of the prophet Isaiah that are linked with John the Baptist’s quote:
Isaiah 40:2-5These are words of great comfort and wisdom from a new Elijah. The clothes that he is wearing are clearly the clothes mentioned in the text from Malachi 3:1. This is not only a prophet with powerful words calling people to repentance, but he is also and must be promising great deliverance and hope for all those who feel trapped and consumed by their sin and brokenness.
2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Then our author, our narrator tells us that ALL were going out to him. This was powerful and a new time was coming to a new emerging message and revelation. It was a time of renewal for the people and they wanted to be a part of this ritual. These first images of baptism are rooted in this hope for something new and for change. And it is clear in the text that this model of baptism is clear: the word is proclaimed, the individual is moved to change their way of being, they are baptized to mark this repentance and confession.
This was a powerful movement and the Gospel’s witness to the fact that John was a powerful actor and player in the politics and religious life surrounding Jesus’ own emergence.
We then add a second scene to our already meaty story of proclamation and repentance. It is here that we begin to see the architecture of Matthew’s storytelling for we see that the narrator moves us quickly from the idea and the Word to action and then into community and community action.
John sees that some of the people (Pharisees and Sadducees) are coming for baptism are arriving and that perhaps they are seeking something other than true amendment of thinking and being that will lead to transformative action.
John and the Gospel are clear: your heritage does not save you, your fruit will reveal who you are. The scholar Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. writes: “The Pharisees and Sadducees are warned not to imagine that the mere ritual of baptism will preserve them from God’s wrath. Rather they must do the good deeds that are appropriate to genuine repentance in view of the coming kingdom…Belonging to the children of Abraham will not protect those who refuse to repent and do good works. There may be an allusion here to the rabbinic idea of the “merits of the fathers” according to which the righteousness of the patriarchs is charged to the account of Israel.” (Matthew, Sacra Pagina, 56)
Now I want to be very careful here by identifying too much the Pharisees and Sadducees and to name and recognize the all too easy way Christian preachers scapegoat them and the anti-Semitism that is all too prevalent in our culture. When we make too much of them we miss the powerful message of the Gospel.
You and I are the ones to hear John the Baptist charge. We are the ones who must hear that perhaps we are about our religious life in a manner that must change. We are the ones who must look at the fruit of our faith and what it is or is not bringing about in our community. The question is not for someone else, but for us: Have we for too long stood on the shoulders of our ancient traditions and ancestry as Anglicans and Episcopalians? Are we bearing the fruit of the kingdom of God?
Are we as we sit in our pews on Sunday morning able to bring to the altar labors this week which were not simply prayers and offerings of our hearts but the glorious work of changing people’s lives?
You and I as we sit and ponder the words of John the Baptist can see that this Gospel of Matthew holds for us a clear message that we are to be at work in the world around us bearing fruit fitting our loving God’s reign. The proclamation of the word leads to transformation and repentance, which leads to real works of faith. Bearing fruit for the reign of God is not an ancillary to the life of faith but an essential component to healthy spirituality in the family of God. “Repentance and return to the Lord,” those words from our Baptismal Covenant are essential keystones in a life well lived with a God who reveals himself incarnationally. We must make real in our world – outside of ourselves - our hearts transformation.
Some Thoughts on Romans 15:4-13
"Just as Scripture's purposes for humanity are inextricable from the very nature of God, the inclusion of the Gentiles is not a back-up plan nor a course-correction: this has been God's intention all along."
Commentary, Romans 15:4-13 | Kara Lyons-Pardue | Assistant Professor of New Testament, Point Loma Nazarene University | A Plain Account
"Unity according to Christ also means that differences are not erased. Members do not have to conform to one particular pattern of behavior, but they do have to realize that the essential and defining character of their identity is now Christ."
Commentary, Romans 15:4-13, Valerie Nicolet-Anderson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"Paul is not making vague and pious statements about scripture but drawing attention to a particular orientation of scripture towards inclusivity and compassion which even enables one to say yes and no in scripture itself or to forego one's freedom for the sake of unity at some points."
First Thoughts on Year A Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Advent 2, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.
Paul begins this passage in verse one. I think that is important because without it the words he writes are without context. Paul is writing to the strong in faith and he is clear that not everyone is faithful, not everyone is in the same place. He says some people are in fact weak in their faith. Regardless of what New Testament scholar you read you will quickly become aware that whole households (servants and family) were baptized when the leader of the household became baptized. This means that the early church was used to churches existing with many different kinds of people. They were all on a journey and many were at different places on that journey. What Paul makes clear is that those who are strong in faith are to be hospitable and kind. The individual is to work for the greater cause in their neighbor and work for their success. They are to be patient with those around them. Even Christ, Paul reminds us, was accepting of others and well...put up with a lot. These are the important words that come before our passage.
Just as we are to be strong for others and leaders, we are to remember that we too were given instruction. We are upheld by the writings of the Old Testament and we are given in them a vision of hope. Just as God was faithful for our Abrahamic faith ancestors - God will be faithful to us.
The God we believe in is the same God. God is faithful and steadfast, God encourages us, and gives us life. The life we are given by God is one meant to embrace neighbors and live in harmony with them. We are to share the hope that is in us and share God's promises with them so that together we may become an ever new community.
We the faithful are to welcome others as Christ welcomed us. Not by expecting perfection first but by truly opening ourselves up to be helpful to them in the journey. God in Christ Jesus did not do this but instead welcomed us and served us and even died on the cross for us. Christ was faithful and loving to us to prove not only the truth of God's love but also in order to convince us of his grace. We too are to do the same for others. We confess, sing, and tell of God. We are to walk with our neighbors and help them as they grow to know this God. We like the first disciples who reached out to the Gentiles are to also find the other God-fearers and spiritual pilgrims of our day and walk with them.
Paul concludes this part of the passage with a prayer that we will be filled with hope and joy in this work; for surely any other sentiments fail to glorify God and fail to attract others to his cause. We shall surely fail if we do not have hope about our future and the future of our faith. For who wishes to be attracted to hopelessness.
Some Thoughts on Isaiah 11:1-10
"What if we believe this fragile sign is God's beginning? Perhaps then we will tend the seedling in our hearts, the place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our disbelief."
Commentary, Isaiah 11:1-10, Barbara Lundblad, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
Some Thoughts on Isaiah 11:1-10
"What if we believe this fragile sign is God's beginning? Perhaps then we will tend the seedling in our hearts, the place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our disbelief."
Commentary, Isaiah 11:1-10, Barbara Lundblad, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.
"This is the mountain of God's holiness. This is the promise, the glorious, abundant resting place where the root of Jesse stands. This is the vision of security. The shoot will grow tall and become a visible sign for the nations. Not a battle standard, but a standard of peace."
Commentary, Isaiah 11:1-10, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"The kaleidoscopic portrait of God's power in the prophets both comforts and confuses us. Yet within the biblical text, there is a compelling vision of power that can transform the whole of creation, if only we have eyes to see and minds to engage it."
"I Am About To Do a New Thing," Carol J. Dempsey, O.P., "Prophetic Ethics," Christian Reflection, 2003.
Commentary, Isaiah 11:1-10, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.
"The kaleidoscopic portrait of God's power in the prophets both comforts and confuses us. Yet within the biblical text, there is a compelling vision of power that can transform the whole of creation, if only we have eyes to see and minds to engage it."
"I Am About To Do a New Thing," Carol J. Dempsey, O.P., "Prophetic Ethics," Christian Reflection, 2003.
What is delightful about this passage is the many potential meanings. The new womanist perspective helps us understand that it is possible that this is about the future prophet, a prophet's son. The message is clear: God is doing a new thing. Let us read the words of the Message as it brings this poetry to life:
A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse’s stump,
from his roots a budding Branch.
The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him,
the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength,
the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God.
Fear-of-God
will be all his joy and delight.
He won’t judge by appearances,
won’t decide on the basis of hearsay.
He’ll judge the needy by what is right,
render decisions on earth’s poor with justice.
His words will bring everyone to awed attention.
A mere breath from his lips will topple the wicked.
Each morning he’ll pull on sturdy work clothes and boots,
and build righteousness and faithfulness in the land.
The wolf will romp with the lamb,
the leopard sleep with the kid.
Calf and lion will eat from the same trough,
and a little child will tend them.
Cow and bear will graze the same pasture,
their calves and cubs grow up together,
and the lion eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will crawl over rattlesnake dens,
the toddler stick his hand down the hole of a serpent.
Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
on my holy mountain.
The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.
On that day, Jesse’s Root will be raised high, posted as a rallying banner for the peoples. The nations will all come to him.
I like the NRSV version for study but I always keep a couple of different texts nearby. The Message translation does a couple of things for us. First, it helps to see the prophecy in a more poetic form. Secondly, I think it captures the Hebrew imagery a bit better. You really get a sense that the new green shoot is going to grow out of this very old (previously thought of as dead) tree stump.
It is clear to me that the prophecy is clearly about future prophets. In fact, because we know the rest of the story, this message of hope will indeed come to be. The prophetic school shall raise up a continuing message of hope for God's people in exile. In the midst of their own belief that nothing can change, everything is as it is, and there is no hope, there will rise up among them prophets' sons who will continue to bring the good news of God to the people.
Why is this important? It is important to remember its context and original hopeful meaning because it is important to remember that God has continually brought hope to the downtrodden and to those who are almost dead. God has since the very beginning been doing a new thing. Regardless of who utters the words of God's message (a prophet, a prophet's son, and member of the prophetic school, a disciple, an ancestor or descendant).
The gospel author Mark will merge this prophetic hope with the vision of eschatology - that all the people's hope will culminate in God in Christ Jesus and his ultimate hope. It is here that the Gospeller Luke will turn in bringing forth the news that God is doing a new thing. It is here that John will turn when understanding how God will judge - with mercy and with heart. the first Christians, captured in their writing, will understand this prophetic message as speaking about Jesus himself. (Note the work of Richard B. Hays in Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels; 34ff, 231, 298.)
In one act of reading the past, they bring forth a positive theological vision of who Jesus is - he is one that has come with the words of God. He has come with the prophetic hope. He has come to judge with mercy and heart. He has come to vindicate God's people - the poor, the hopeless, the least and the lost.
Moreover, this passage then invites us to consider who brings this message of hope today? How do we as disciples who follow, and apostles who are sent, go out and speak this prophetic message to a world that believes nothing has changed?
We can look at the church as the dead tree stump, or our own hearts, our political and social predicaments that are all around, or even our families. Let us be curious about the word of hope that is required in just such a time as this and ask who will go for God?
Sermons Preached
The Best Sermon EVER for Sinners
Dec 10, 2013
Sermon preached Advent 2A St Albans Waco 2013
The gospel author Mark will merge this prophetic hope with the vision of eschatology - that all the people's hope will culminate in God in Christ Jesus and his ultimate hope. It is here that the Gospeller Luke will turn in bringing forth the news that God is doing a new thing. It is here that John will turn when understanding how God will judge - with mercy and with heart. the first Christians, captured in their writing, will understand this prophetic message as speaking about Jesus himself. (Note the work of Richard B. Hays in Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels; 34ff, 231, 298.)
In one act of reading the past, they bring forth a positive theological vision of who Jesus is - he is one that has come with the words of God. He has come with the prophetic hope. He has come to judge with mercy and heart. He has come to vindicate God's people - the poor, the hopeless, the least and the lost.
Moreover, this passage then invites us to consider who brings this message of hope today? How do we as disciples who follow, and apostles who are sent, go out and speak this prophetic message to a world that believes nothing has changed?
We can look at the church as the dead tree stump, or our own hearts, our political and social predicaments that are all around, or even our families. Let us be curious about the word of hope that is required in just such a time as this and ask who will go for God?
Sermons Preached
The Best Sermon EVER for Sinners
Dec 10, 2013
Sermon preached Advent 2A St Albans Waco 2013
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