"Who Invited Him?!"
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
December 17, 2006 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke 3:7)

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, also known as "Gaudete" Sunday - Gaudete meaning "Rejoice." It is considered the mid-point of Advent, a season originally intended as a forty day fast in preparation for the feast of Christmas, (today we observe just four weeks). From its inception, Advent was seen as a counterpart to Lent, a penitential season. However, on Gaudete Sunday we are given a momentary break of sorts, as the theme of joy replaces that of penitence, as the nearness of the Lord's second coming is emphasized and celebrated.

So why all this talk this morning about John the Baptist? Who invited him to our joyous celebration, to our Gaudete Sunday, this otherwise disagreeable unkempt spoil-sport with his downbeat rant about sin, judgment, repentance and destruction? What's that all about?

After weeks of preparation, with our houses and churches all spiffed up for Christmas, the decidedly uncouth John, instead of saying all the proper things about our beautiful decorations and our lovely Christmas trees, instead barges into our festivities, blurting out, "Merry Christmas, you bunch of snakes! It's time for you to repent." We can keep all our twinkling lights and our chrome-colored ornaments and our "ho-ho-ho's" as far as he's concerned. What God really wants from us, he announces, is not superficial piety, but evidence of authentic repentance!

I'm reminded of the time one of the churches I served celebrated its 250th anniversary, along with the town. As part of that celebration, the town hosted a huge parade down Main St., with floats and bands and all the trimmings.

Our church came up with the idea of building a miniature replica of the first meeting house and placed it on a flatbed truck. We also recruited a few of the church members to dress up in period costumes. Among those, at the head of the float, was a man dressed in clerical garb, replete with the requisite black robe and old-fashioned Geneva collar tabs. Alongside him was a woman, playing his wife, with a modest black dress and an accompanying bonnet.

As we were waiting for the parade to begin, I struck up a conversation with this man dressed as the church's first minister and jokingly suggested that while riding down Main St. he should consider yelling, "Repent ye sinners! Repent ye sinners!"

And to my abject horror, that's precisely what he did!

All the way down Main St., mile after mile, he pointed at the hapless and unsuspecting citizens of town menacingly, shouting out, "Repent ye sinners! Repent!"

I was mortified. I couldn't believe it. He, of course, thought it was grand fun.

Perhaps it is the same kind of embarrassment John the Baptist elicits in us still. Repentance, after all, isn't the kind of thing you're likely to discuss in polite company, much less riding down Main St. It's coarse and ill-mannered. Besides, we're not really all that sure it even applies to us, are we?

My brother-in-law, a retired UCC minister, commenting once on the frequent absence of prayers of confession in many New England congregational churches, joked that even when there is one, he often gets the feeling he's apologizing for being "a nice guy!"

There's something about the whole idea of sin and repentance that strikes us as altogether antiquated, if not offensive.

Part of the problem, it seems, is that we tend to judge ourselves in comparison to other people. We read the newspaper or watch the 11 o'clock news and content ourselves that it's not we who are robbing liquor stores or selling drugs. We go to church, after all, and pay our taxes. We're pretty much all-around good citizens and nice people, most of the time.

Then again, I've often been struck by the way the great saints of the church continually refer to themselves as sinners. Mother Teresa, for one, frequently would discuss her sinfulness and the need for God's help in overcoming her weaknesses. Which sounds pretty odd to us. After all, who better models the selfless, godly person of our day, if not Mother Teresa?

Maybe it's because the great saints tend to see God more clearly than we do. They dedicate their lives to getting close to God, enabling them to see with greater clarity what godliness looks like. As such, they tend to see themselves more clearly, in the way God sees them. They compare themselves to God and God's holiness, and not so much to other people and what they're are doing. Seeing godly perfection more concretely, then, enables them to see their failings in starker relief.

As a case in point, some years ago I bought my first brand new car. Up until then, I had driven only used ones, including an old, beat-up Corvair, the kind Ralph Nader famously declared unsafe at any speed (I suspect he was on to something!).

In any event, I remember the horror I felt when my brand-new, shiny car received its first scratch and then later on, horror of horrors, its first dent. The first minute little scratch stood out like, well, John the Baptist at a Christmas celebration, against an otherwise pristine factory paint job.

Over time, of course, as the scratches and dings and dents began to pile up, someone could have, and in fact did, back right into my car in a supermarket parking lot and I couldn't have cared one whit. What with all the other blemishes and imperfections, what was one more, I thought to myself? From then on, any additional scratches and dents went largely unnoticed.

When we can see or imagine perfection, we are apt to notice even the smallest imperfections. When looking through a squeaky clean window, even the slightest speck of dirt is noticeable. If that same window were to become smudged and covered with soot, that same speck of dirt most likely would simply blend in, largely invisible.

But I also think there's something else at work, beyond the mere inability to recognize shortcomings. And that has to do with how little merit we think there is in identifying our shortcomings. After all, what's to be gained by naming our faults? It probably will just leave us feeling worse about ourselves. Why not just think positively instead?

Part of the problem, I think, is that we don't fully believe what scripture goes to great lengths to affirm: that when we confess our sins, God forgives them. Completely.

The greatest challenge to believing this may have to do with how painfully difficult it is for us to forgive those who have hurt us, much less forgiving ourselves. So we project this same difficulty onto God. Over and over, though, scripture assures us that when we earnestly repent, God not only forgives but actually forgets! Time and again we are told that in God's forgiveness we are freed from our burdens in order to begin anew; that we are given a fresh start to truly live, without the weight of sin and failure wearing us down.

Part of our problem may be that we think of repentance as destruction, rather than justice. God's judgment is not some kind of arbitrary exercise of power, but a merciful restoration of right relations with God, neighbor and world. Repentance is a burning away of the wrongs we do to one another that restores a world in which all are fruitful grain.

At first blush, when John the Baptist comes, judging and berating, telling us to repent and change, we are hard pressed to interpret it all as "good news." On the other hand, John reminds us that our baptism urges and invites us to live in a freedom born of honesty. Not "owning" our mistakes, he understands, leads paradoxically to powerlessness and a conspicuous inability to change our fate. For the simple fact is: change cannot happen unless we take responsibility for our lives and actions. Relieved of self-deception, only then can we stand up and breathe.

The people of John's time anticipated that God was going to act in their time - and act decisively. Thus they ask, "What shall we do?" in order to prepare for the Lord's coming. John, sensing their half-heartedness, challenges them to be the people they were created to be, bearing good fruit and knowing the joy of God in their hearts.

John knows that God created us to live joyous and happy lives, and to share that joy with others. It is, in some sense, a magnificent burden we have been given, a "severe mercy," as one Christian author put it. To grow ever closer to God, to live each day focused on the joy that proceeds naturally and spontaneously from such a God, is to know the urgency of the tasks to which we have been called and the immense joy found in the faithful living of our days.

We ought not deprive ourselves of this joy, even if it takes a blunt spoil-sport to remind us of it.

Amen.