Every year, on the Second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness with a stark message: “Repent!” he says, “for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 3:2)

John is the cousin of Jesus, sometimes called the “forerunner.” He’s often depicted in art literally pointing the way to Christ. His prophetic ministry comes right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and it’s clear that many of John the Baptist’s followers soon became followers of Jesus as well. But John’s message in our gospel this morning, is hardly about Christ at all. He doesn’t mention Jesus by name, or say that he is the Messiah. He makes this vague reference to the “one who is more powerful than I” simply to increase the urgency of his message: if you don’t repent now, you’re going to be chaff, not wheat, when the Messiah comes. Like everything else he says, his messianic prophecy is another variation on a single, simple, theme:  “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (3:2)

Except that simple theme of “repentance” is not that simple, because this is the Bible, and when we read the Bible, two thousand years later, things are almost never quite as simple as they seem.

In the modern American Christian tradition, when we hear this message of repentance, we often assume that John is addressing us as individuals. In our culture, we tend to think that “sin” means an individual moral failing. So it sounds like John’s message is that you and you and you should repent. John says to the crowds, I baptize you and you and you with water for repentance, so that you will be saved from your sin.

Depending on your exact spiritual orientation and your own beliefs, you may either love this or hate it. Some people find an emphasis on individual sin, repentance, and forgiveness to be incredibly life-giving. Other people can’t stand it. So if you love this idea that you as an individual need to repent, and if it draws you into a time of reflection and self-examination during Advent, then that’s wonderful; and I want to invite you into another, broader way of looking at it. And if you hate the idea that you, as an individual, need to repent, if it makes you shut down and write John off as yet another crazed street preacher, yet another Puritan consumed with “the haunting fear,” as H. L. Mencken put it, “that someone, somewhere may be happy” … then I want to invite you into another, broader way of looking at it.

Because when John the Baptist calls the people to “repent,” there’s a sense in which he’s addressing each individual. But there’s another, very real sense in which the call for repentance is not addressed to “you” and “you” and “you,” but to “you,” to us, to all of us, humankind as a whole.

The whole story, after all, is told in collective terms. Matthew doesn’t say that “many people from Jerusalem” came to him, but that “the people of Jerusalem and all Judea” came, and were baptized, confessing their sins. (3:5) And he actually doesn’t say “confessing their sins.” He says “confessing their sin,” in the singular; and our translators translate it “sins,” plural. It’s easy for preachers to make too much out of this sort of thing, but I think in this moment it’s important, because it fits with the story. It maintains that same focus on the collective. It suggests that what John the Baptist is out there preaching about is not only individual sin. It’s a collective, social state of sin.

Jesus and John lived in a society continually wracked by violent revolution, by attempts to establish or reestablish the kingdom of God on earth through the force of arms, by rebellions whose leaders often turned against one another as much as they did the Romans. Jesus tried to teach another way to establish God’s kingdom, a way of peace and love. And John was trying to tell the people that the kingdom of heaven had come near—not through their attempts to create it by force, but through the coming of one who was more powerful than he was, but whose power would turn out to be a paradox: whose moment of greatest strength would look like weakness, and whose greatest success would look like failure. The kingdom of heaven was coming near, not with the sword but on the Cross, and that made all the difference.

We, too, live in a world that’s full of violence. We live in a world very unlike Isaiah’s vision, a world in which we do still “hurt” and “destroy,” in ways small and large. (Isaiah 11:9) We do not live “in harmony with one another,” as Paul writes to the Romans. (Romans 15:5) We—as a society, as a species—need to repent. We need to turn away from the path of hatred and violence and turn toward the way of reconciliation and love.

But that doesn’t mean the burden is all on you.

My favorite thing about this passage from Isaiah—and the one thing to remember from this sermon, if you remember nothing else—is that peace is not a compromise between predators and prey. Peace is a world of vegetarian wolves. It’s not the armed peace of mutually-assured destruction we have in this world. It’s not that the wolves eat the lambs on Mondays, and the sheep eat the wolf pups on Wednesdays. No. The wolf and the lamb live together. The leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling, dwell in peace. The bears graze, and the lion eats straw like the ox. (Isaiah 11:6-8) It’s the predators who need to repent, not the prey.

So what are we to do, we little lambs in a world full of wolves? Is it safe yet to stick our hands into the adder’s den? Maybe not. But we can recognize and cherish the power of the lamb. We can build communities of peace. We can live with one another as if the kingdom of heaven had not simply come near, but had already come. We can “welcome one another…just as Christ has welcomed us.” (Rom. 15:7)

And we can recognize, as well, that there is within each one of us a little bit of wolf, and a little bit of lamb; a little bit of cow and a little bit of bear. We are not either chaff or wheat, but each one of us is a grain, consisting of both. The threshing process that John the Baptist foretells doesn’t happen between us, as if “you” and “you” were chaff and “you” and “you” were wheat. It happens within us, not only as a whole society but within each one of us as well. We all have wolves and bears within us who need to give up meat. We all have chaff that needs to be burned away.

It sometimes feels like there is nothing I can do about the violence and anger of this world, nothing I can do to bring us closer to Isaiah’s vision of peace. But I know that there’s a little bit of the wolf in my heart, too, that would sometimes rather growl at the lamb than lie down with it in peace. I pray that the Holy Spirit may come and thresh us all, to burn away the chaff that is within my heart and your heart and our world, allowing us to live with ourselves and one another in something a little more like peace. So “may the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant [us all] to live in harmony with one another,” and “may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Amen. (Rom. 15:5, 13)

Sermon — November 27, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

What is it that keeps you up at night?

Is it anxiety or fear about the state of the world, about mass shootings or car crashes or the small-but-real chance that the already-horrible war in Ukraine might escalate even further? Is it the midnight realization that it was Bill from accounting, who was laid off last week, who always filed Form 4562 before the end of the fiscal year and that it was Bill, and Bill alone, who knew exactly how to calculate (and I quote) “the portion of the basis attributable to section 263A costs”—and that now that responsibility is yours? Is it the grief of a difficult loss, or the memory of a painful conversation, that keeps you up at night? Or is it, perhaps, that one glass too many, one hour too late, disturbing your sleep? Or that extra helping of late-night Thanksgiving leftovers now sitting like a brick in your stomach as you lie in bed?

Maybe it’s something else. Or maybe like me, you sleep like a log all night and then wake up at 5am with your heart pounding, and you don’t know why. But I suspect that most of the adults in this room occasionally address their souls in the night with a variation on Paul’s words: “Do you know what time it is? It is not the moment for you to wake from sleep.”

Of course, there are better reasons to be up in the middle of the night, and for them we have to turn to the lives of children and teenagers. It’s one thing to wake up with your heart pounding the middle of the night worrying about Bill’s secret formula. It’s another to stay up late into the night, whispering with your friends by flashlight-light at a sleepover. It’s one thing to be up at 3am because you’re worried that the world is falling apart. It’s another to be up at 3am because you’re simply so excited that Christmas is finally here.

So what is it that keeps you up at night? Is it fear or anxiety or grief or pain, friendship or excitement or joy—or just the late-night shift at work?

Whatever it is, it’s an Advent kind of thing.

In our gospel reading today, Jesus exhorts his disciples to practice constant vigilance. I am going away, and I will return, he warns, “but about that day and hour no one knows.” (Matthew 24:36) Just as Noah’s contemporaries knew nothing of the Flood that was about to wipe them away, “so too will be the coming of the son of Man.” (24:39) Two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. (24:41-42) “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (24:42) “Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (24:43)

I’m not sure how they make you feel, but over time, Jesus’ words have evoked a number of different emotions among his followers. Some feel that adult anxiety and fear: will I be the one who’s brought along with Jesus when he comes, or will I be the one’s who’s left behind? Others feel that child-like excitement and anticipation: this world is good, in many ways, but the promise of “days to come” in which we “beat [our] swords into plowshares” sounds so much better that it keeps us up at night. (Isa. 2:1, 4)

But if I’m being honest, I mostly find Jesus’ words exhausting, which is its own kind of Advent emotion. You cannot, after all, keep awake indefinitely, if you do not know the day on which your Lord is coming; not for two nights, let alone for two thousand years. And I’m not just being overly literal: spiritual alertness, practiced indefinitely, is exhausting. There’s a reason that our weeks and our years and our lives come with a certain rhythm of spirituality. There are times in which we need a more active spiritual practice, and there are times in which we need to take a break, just as there are times to sleep and times to be awake.

I could stand here and urge you to practice constant vigilance, to stare out into the darkness keeping watch for God to appear, and let’s be honest, I’m a pretty charming guy. I could probably inspire one or two of you to really dive into a new spiritual rigor this Advent, an extra hour of meditation every day, or whatever it may be. But by the end of the week, you’d be worn down. Your soul needs rest just as much of your body. So “keep awake,” Jesus says. But how?

Luckily, Paul has an answer. (As usual.)

His charge to the Romans begins on a similar note to Jesus’ words, with this exhortation to wake and keep watch, for “it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” (Romans 13:11) Salvation is close at hand, Paul says. “The night is far gone, the day is near.” (13:12) So “let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably as in the day… Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” (13:12-13) And it sounds just like Jesus’ message: “Keep awake.”

But there’s a difference. The picture we get from the Gospel reading is one of Advent darkness. It is the middle of the night, and it is your job to stay awake, for you do not know when the Lord is coming. Paul gives us Advent light. It is no longer nighttime; it is day. It is no longer the time to strain to stay awake; it’s the time to wake from sleep.

Jesus warns us to stay awake in the night, because we do not know when he will come. Paul reminds us that it is no longer night, because Jesus has already come. And we are not left alone, our eyes straining in the darkness. We are left with the Holy Spirit, with the presence of Jesus, with God’s light shining out all around us, to show us where God is in the darkness.

We “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” every time we turn our minds to prayer, and the light of God that is within us seeps out through us. We put on Jesus Christ when we come to worship, to sing his praise and to receive his Body and Blood. We put on the Lord Jesus Christ when we reach out to help our neighbors in love, within this church community or outside it. And when we put on this “armor of light,” it is as if it is both day and night, because his brightness is as bright as the sun, and it drives away the darkness before our eyes.

And so we live, as always, in that “now and not yet” of Advent: in that “day and yet night” of a world in which Jesus has been born, and the Holy Spirit is among us, and yet God’s vision of a realm in which we shall learn war no more is not yet fully real. And even while we wait and watch in the dark night of this world for God to make things right, we know that it is already day, and God is already making things right in and through and for us.

So “keep awake,” this Advent. I don’t mean keep awake with anxiety or fear—at least not for Jesus’ sake—but with excitement and anticipation. Keep awake like a five-year-old on Christmas Eve, desperate to catch a glimpse of Santa’s reindeer. Keep awake and watch for what God is already doing all around you.

But remember that it is not your sharp spiritual vision that will show you the way. It is not your exertion or caffeination or even your excitement that will make this a holy Advent for you. It’s only the grace of God that will slowly turn on the lights and show you the beauty of the things that are unfolding all around you.

So put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. May you know what time it is when it is the moment for you to wake; and may God give you a peaceful night’s rest when it is time for you to sleep.

Sermon — November 20, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

When I was a kid, we spent a fair amount of time in the car, for New Englanders: five-hour drives to visit my grandparents in New Jersey, sitting in traffic on I-95 North for summer vacations, a continuous stream of errands and activities driving around the suburbs. And as the younger of two children, I soon became familiar with some of the phrases traditionally used by parents driving a car:

1) “No, we’re not there yet.”
2) “I will turn this car around.” and
3) “Don’t make me come back there!”

If you’ve ever been a child or, heaven forbid, a parent, you may have heard or said one or two of these things yourself, especially the last one. You’ve got two or three or five kids loaded in the back of the car, and they’re hitting each other and yelling at each other and you’re more than a little focused on not getting rammed by some guy crossing all three lanes of traffic at Sullivan Square and you shout over your shoulder: “Don’t make me come back there!” As in, “if you can’t work this fight out, I’m going to have to come break it up myself, and then you’ll be sorry. As will I.”

If you ever find yourself in this situation, it may be some comfort to know that God knows exactly how you feel. The driver of a car full of children may shout, “Don’t make me come back there!” And the god of world full of adults is sometimes has to say, “Don’t make me come down there!” 

This is the whole point, after all, of our reading this morning from the prophet Jeremiah. “Woe to the shepherds,” says the Lord, “who destroy and scatter my sheep!” (Jer. 23:1) He’s not talking about actual shepherds, of course. And he’s not talking about religious leaders, pastors, the spiritual shepherds of spiritual sheep. “Shepherd,” in fact, was a traditional ancient image for a king.

The god or gods of the city are the owners of the flock. The king is the shepherd, the hired hand who leads and guides the people on their behalf, tending to those entrusted to him and caring for them… or not. And it’s the “or not” with which God is concerned this morning. “Woe to the shepherds who shepherd my people!” They “have not attended to” my flock. (23:2) They have not, it seems, “execute[d] justice and righteousness in the land.” (23:5) And so, God says to these kings, “I will attend to you for your evil doings.” (23:2)

“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock… and I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them.” (23:3, 4) Like all prophecies, it’s one part prediction and one part warning: this is what’s going to happen if they don’t change their ways. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord…” (23:5) and if you don’t get your act together, God tells the kings of the people, “I myself” will come to take charge of the sheep.

 “Don’t make me come down there!”

But they did. And so he did.

This morning we observe the “Last Sunday after Pentecost,” the day sometimes known as “Christ the King.” It’s a kind of hinge between two seasons, between the long season of “Ordinary Time” after Pentecost and the short run-up through Advent to Christmas. And if you look at it in this context, you might think of “Christ the King” as one answer to the question, “Why Christmas?” In other words, “Why was Jesus born? Why did God choose to become human?”

There are many answers to this question, and each one pulls out a different facet of who Jesus was and what he was there to do. Did Jesus come to teach us a new way of love? Yes, and… Did Jesus come to heal our fragile and fallible human nature? Yes, and… Did Jesus come so could finally become King; because the shepherds of the people were letting them down, and God Godself needed to take charge? Yes, that too!

Because if Jeremiah’s prophecy was supposed to be a warning—“Don’t make me come down there!”—then when we read it five weeks before Christmas, it should be clear that it failed. We did not change our ways. We did make God come down here to set things right, and thank God he did.

Because it’s the way God came down here that really changed the world. You can easily imagine things turning out differently. Imagine that the shepherds and kings of the people had practiced evil instead of righteousness, and God was mad. God warned them to mend their ways, or God would come down. And they did not change their ways, and God came down with a punishing wrath, God came down with an army of avenging angels and destroyed those who had exploited the people, casting them into the fires of hell and establishing his throne for ever and ever, Amen.

That’s not what happened. Look at our Gospel reading today.

God came down, not to dispense violence, but to endure it. God came down, not to mete out justice at the end of the sword, but to face injustice and a crown of thorns. God came down to reign as Christ the King, not from a jewel-encrusted throne but on the hard wood of the cross.

God came down and absorbed all the violence and injustice of the rulers of this world—of Roman governors and mocking soldiers and even Death itself—and broke their power over us. God came down not to destroy us, but to be destroyed by us, and in so doing to destroy death for us. God came down to do what our shepherds could never do, and to lead us into greener pastures than we could ever imagine, to “reconcile us” to God, “by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (Col. 1:20) And this is the upside-down kingdom of Christ, in which the good shepherd lay down his life for the sheep.

God came down to where we were, and for a moment our little fists wailed on God, instead of on one another, but God was too big and too calm and too strong to be hurt by us, and God’s love transformed our anger, and showed us a new way of love. It wasn’t a permanent fix. God knows we’ve been violent since, Christians certainly included. But the power of a calm and patient love, in the face of a violent and impatient world, began to show us the way of another kingdom. And God is inviting us to follow that way of self-giving love that Jesus laid out, and to live as though his law of love was the law of our land, as if Jesus truly were our rightful King, as if God really had “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” (Col. 1:12)

If you ever feel like that child melting down; if you ever feel the need to rage at God, or throw a punch; if you ever feel the guilt of having whacked your sibling over the head with a toy, and you’re ashamed, or you’re afraid—take heart. Remember that God will come down here, not in anger, but in love. God will come down here, and hold it all for you. God will take whatever you throw at her in prayer, because she is patient with you when all your patience has run out, and then some. God will absorb it all, and, in time, transform it all, for you.

So as you prepare yourself, in this coming season of Advent, to celebrate the birth of our newborn God and king, I pray with Paul that the Holy Spirit may continue to fill you with God’s love. “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience… joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (Col. 1:11-12)

Amen.

Sermon — November 13, 2022

The Rev. Greg Johnston

Lectionary Readings

When I walked here last Sunday morning for church, I saw a flatbed truck and a crane being operated by the Department of Public Works right over in Thompson Square. (Did anyone else see them?) Do you know what they were doing?)

If you walk by on your way home you’ll see a new tree. A tall, slender, evergreen tree. One might even call it… a Christmas tree.

And this was on November 6.

But I am not a Scrooge, and the reality is, even if Christmas is still six weeks away, even around church it’s “beginning to look a lot like…” Advent, at least.

Look no further than our readings this morning. If you don’t know much about how churches traditionally observed the season of Advent, they may not seem like they really capture the spirit of “the holiday season” that’s being celebrated in our lovely November Christmas tree. To be fair, our first reading from Isaiah gives you a certain kind of Christmassy feel: peace and joy, eternal life and new creation, the wolf and the lamb feeding together. In this reading from Isaiah you may already start to feel the joy of Christmas: the sweetness of the Prince of Peace lying in the manger, and angels bringing glad tidings of great joy.

Luke, today, gives us something else entirely: destruction and deception, famines and plagues, hatred and betrayal and portents from the heavens: the end is drawing nigh. And this, in fact, a traditional theme of theme, of the season leading up to Christmas. We sometimes associate the four Sundays of Advent and their candles in the wreath with the four themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. But the readings we get during Advent tend more toward the four traditional themes of Advent: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. They prophesy calamity and destruction, peril and alarm. They tell the story of a world being turned upside down. Advent doesn’t begin for another few weeks, but you can already feel the mood start to shift: The long summer where we listened to Jesus healing people and telling parables as he traveled toward Jerusalem is over. Jesus has arrived in the city where he will die, and he’s starting to predict some pretty scary stuff.

The Temple, Jesus says, is going to be destroyed. The center of his people’s religious life, the place where the people come to worship God, where heaven and earth intersect, is going to be dismantled stone by beautiful stone. When the disciples ask him when this will be, he warns them against trying to predict it. And he tells them that first they’ll have to go through trials and tribulations, to endure great suffering, not only the shared social suffering of natural disasters and political upheaval, not only the collective grief of losing the Temple that’s at the heart of their spiritual lives, but a specific and personal process of persecution and arrest. Everything will fall apart, in their lives, in their nation, in their whole world.

And in fact, it would and it did. But not quite yet. Everything Jesus said would in fact come true. There would be wars and insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues; his followers would be arrested and stand on trial because of his name. It would take months before his followers were arrested; years before the famines and the plagues. The Temple would survive for decades before it was destroyed at the end of a long war.

But it’s at this very moment—when the disciples are admiring the beauty of the Temple on their trip together to the big city—that Jesus tells them it will one day be destroyed.

And interestingly enough, that same paradox applies to the reading from Isaiah as well. It’s sometimes helpful to remember, when reading the Bible, that most authors don’t say things that go without saying. This beautiful prophecy comes from the very end of the book of Isaiah. It’s likely that it was written a few decades after the destruction of the first Temple, at the end of the people’s long years spent in exile, and maybe even after some of them had begun to return to Jerusalem. When the people began to return, many of them felt joy. They’d been refugees for fifty-something years. But it was mixed with sadness, because the city was not the same. The Temple had been destroyed. The population had been scattered.

And so when Isaiah offers this prophecy of hope, it’s not because the people are feeling hopeful, it’s because they’re disappointed. When he shares these words of eternal peace, it’s because they’re just recovering from the trauma of war. When he promises that he is about to “create new heavens and a new earth,” about to “create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight,” it’s because they’re sorely missing the old Jerusalem and they’re not feeling much joy or delight.

And so just as Jesus delivers his word of warning and woe at the very moment the disciples are feeling most comfortable, Isaiah delivers a prophecy of comfort when the people are feeling their most uncomfortable.

And there’s some wisdom in that. There may be times when you are feeling pretty good. You’re proud of what you’ve accomplished. You’re proud of what you’ve built. You want to stop and admire the beautiful stones and gifts that decorate your life. And it can be tempting to think that it will last forever. But the inconvenient truth is that it won’t. None of it will. Everything we have, and everything we’ve built, will one day be dismantled stone by precious stone. And we might find ourselves in the situation of the people in Isaiah’s day, people cast away in exile, grief, and loss.

But when we find ourselves living among the ruins, wondering where God could possibly be in all of this, that’s when Isaiah’s prophecy is there, promising new things, joyful things, a world without weeping or distress, violence or pain.

This kind of cyclical pattern is common in life, and of course recognizing it can give us a good perspective on things. It’s good to remember, when times are hard, that a better future lies ahead. It’s good to remember, when things are good, that they are not permanent, so we should appreciate and enjoy them while we can.

But the same pattern applies beyond just the scope of this life and extends past our deaths. For many of us, myself included, it’s a difficult truth to accept: nothing that we have can be held onto forever. And this is true whether you believe in Jesus or not. Every human being, of every faith and none, will one day die. Every building, no matter how beautiful or beloved, will one day crumble into dust. Nothing, however good, will last forever.

And yet God makes us a promise, which is a second and perhaps-even-more-difficult truth: that nothing we lose will be lost forever. That God is preparing a new heavens and new earth, like the old ones in many ways but much improved. That when it feels like our lives are being torn down around us, a new home is already being prepared for us, and we will one day reach that land of everlasting peace.