Sermon: December 4, 2022

Preacher: Rev Ryan Slifka

Scriptures: Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12

Today’s scripture from the Good News according to Matthew doesn’t quite scream “Christmas” does it?

We’ve got huge crowds at the banks of the Jordan River. And we’ve got John the Baptist, who’s a kind of survivalist. Camel-hair coat, huge scraggy beard, and he subsists on locusts and wild honey. He’s shouting at people, echoing the call of Isaiah to prepare the way of the Lord. Calling the people to repent, to turn their lives around. A message that’s apparently quite popular. People are lined up around to block to confess their sins and get dunked. He’s baptizing them in the river. One after another after another.

But then it says this gang of “Pharisees and Sadducees,” show up and get in line. And when they show up, John just lays right into them, calling them “a brood of vipers.” Not exactly seeker-sensitive.

It’s kind of weird, because these guys are kind of prime candidates for baptism. They’re righteous and principled. The problem for John is that in spite of their outward piety, they are spiritually unproductive. “Bear fruit,” John shouts at them. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

The Pharisees and Sadducees are—in a nutshell--complacent. Publicly they’re pious, they endorse all the right causes and make all the right donations. They attend worship, they say the creed, they know all the prayers off by heart. They identify strongly as children of Abraham—cradle believers, and so were their parent’s parents. But then when it comes down to it they are trees unable to bear fruit. On paper, they look great. But inwardly, they’re the same people they ever were. They’re judgmental, self-righteous, self-interested, and self-satisfied. The trees are there but the branches are bare. John says they’ve missed the point of being a tree. Trees bear fruit. And these guys haven’t got a single bud.

And so this kind of complacency’s going to have some severe consequences.  “Even now,” he says. Even now “the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” If you know your Bible, you’ll know that John is channeling the book of Malachi, which comes at the very end of the Old Testament. “See, the day is coming,” Malachi says. “The day is coming burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” Here John issues a warning. If you guys aren’t careful, John says. If things don’t change fast, you trees who can’t seem to sprout a measly bud are gonna wake up trimmed. Or worse.

Now, I’ll admit that all this talk of fire makes me kind of nervous. Some of us are here in this church specifically to escape judgmental faith traditions that rely exclusively on law, and messages of fire and brimstone like this one. The United-Churchiest liberal Christian part of me reacts like it’s like being attacked with a flu. With John it’s Yahweh or the highway, turn or burn. Repent or else. Get him out of the Nativity scene already, cuz he’s blocking the baby Jesus.

As nervous as John might make me, though, there’s something here that we need to hear. On the day before Halloween I was in Home Depot, and I noticed that all of their Halloween decorations were already down. And what was in their place? Smiling, happy Santa. This pretty much says it all about Christmas, even for Christians. We tend to take one step in November and end up with our foot joyfully in the manger with Jesus. Joy is turned straight up to eleven with nothing in between.

But the thing about the Christian message is that it’s all about drastic change.

You heard our scripture passage from Isaiah last week. In the end, it says, swords will be beaten into ploughshares. Just this past week, the Economist reported that some of the treaties limiting nuclear weapons are set to expire, and we could have another nuclear arms race. To get from here to Isaiah represents a huge, drastic change.

You heard another passage from Isaiah this morning. In the end the poor will be judged with righteousness, and the meek of the earth will be treated with equity. And yet, a lot of our own Christmas depends on what can only be described as slave labour. To get there from here is a drastic change.

Wolves will live with lambs, Isaiah says. Cows and bears hanging out over coffee. Children will put their hands into a snake hole and will simply find a new friend. All of the antagonisms between humanity and creation will cease. And yet, now, ecological crisis after crisis threatens the earth’s fragile balance. To get there from here is a drastic change.

And as John says, our own lives simply aren’t what they gotta be. As the Apostle Paul says, none are righteous, all fall short of the glory of God. Or, as the Psalmist says, if you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand?” Our own lives are rife with hypocrisy, selfishness and self-righteousness. To get to where we oughta be from where we are here. Again, a drastic change.

John shows us that we are completely missing something on the way to Bethlehem. John tells those of us who are preparing for the coming of Christ that this is no easy path of instant joy. John is here to hold up a mirror to us. To show us that we, like the Pharisees and Saducees, can become so complacent, so accustomed to our yearly rituals and traditions, that we slide into them every single year with ease without hesitation. We go through the motions, rest on our laurels jump through the hoops. And forget that Christ’s coming represents a drastic change from the way things are. We can’t simply jump from joy to joy. We’ve gotta cross the Jordan if we wanna get to Bethlehem. To get to Jesus, we’ve gotta go through John. We’ve gotta feel the heat of judgment.

Now, at this point in the sermon it might make sense for me to pull a little John the Baptist on you. To tell you to get preparing the way. Give up this, take up that. Change your lives. To lay down the law, so you’ll wake up and get bearing fruit already.

As much as I’d like to call you a bunch of snakes, the thing is that life doesn’t really work that way. Christianity doesn’t work that way. A couple years ago a very conservative friend of mine put a decal of Greta Thurnberg shaking her finger over the gas tank of his truck bearing the words “how dare you!?”

Can’t say her confrontational pose made him more carbon-sensitive. The thing about law is that it rarely, if ever, truly accomplishes what it asks.

The truth is that we need something more. And John knows it, too. John knows that his zealousness isn’t enough. He knows we need something more than cajoling, something more than threats. He knows we need something, someone outside of us to bring about this drastic change.

“I baptize you with water for repentance,” he says. “But one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

This sounds like a terrifying image… at first. Still more punishment and destruction. But the thing is that the One he’s talking about is Jesus. The one who came not to serve, but to be served. The one who came not bearing a whip and a new law, but the one who was whipped and condemned by the law. The one who came not wielding a sword, but the one whose side was pierced by the ones he forgave. The one who came not to condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through him. The one who came not tossing trees in the fire, but the one who endured the furnace of hell on the cross. The “greater one” John’s talking about… is Jesus. The one who came to us at Christmas, in total weakness as a baby.

Which means this image is actually good news. Christ comes not to destroy our lives. Because the fire he comes to baptize us with is the fire of divine love.[i] The great novelist Franz Kafka once said that he believed that literature was meant to change people, to provide them with a new way forward. To provide “ice-axes for frozen seas.”[ii] The coming of Christ is like this. Christ comes to us not to bully or coerce us into changing, because he knows it’ll never stick. Instead he goes to the source. To cut through and melt the frozen seas of our hearts. To burn away all that is not of God in us by the power of God’s life-giving Spirit.

Like a forest fire that burns away old rotten stumps and deadfall, Christ comes again and again and again to burn away all that is cold, all that is hard, all that is dead in us. Everything that holds us back from full and abundant life. To clear it all away, so to bear fruit again.

So the question for each of us—for you--this season is this: what is Christ coming to burn away in you so you can bear fruit?

Maybe Christ is coming to burn off your anger, your jealousy, your selfishness and resentment, so mercy and compassion grows in its place.

Maybe Christ is coming to incinerate your guilt and regret so the freedom of forgiveness might blossom instead.

Maybe Christ is coming to cremate your greed and self-centredness that the joy of generosity might take hold and takeover.

Maybe Christ is coming for you this year to burn away past pain and suffering. To permanently cauterize old wounds to your body, mind or soul.

Whatever he comes to scorch: though it’s difficult, it’s painful to see where we fall short, know that Christ comes only to save, to raze the old world to the ground and in its place plant a new creation. 

Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ. This time for us, Advent, Christmas, this time for those of us who follow the way of Jesus Christ is a special time. It is not a special time because it is an easy inoculation of candy and sweet dreams. But it is a special time because it’s a time that we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. That we are able to look at ourselves in John’s mirror for who we truly are. Those things in us that are dead, are dying, or need to die. Without shame or self-delusion. Those things that need to be burned away. But we can do it without fear. Though the fire of judgment burns hot, we know it’s the refining fire of God’s love, making room for Jesus to take up residence in our lives. Yet again. Year after year after year. Until it’s for good. Until it’s forever.

Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. Get ready for his coming. Let ev’re heart prepare him room.

AMEN.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 48.

[ii] “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)