Prepare [Sermon]
Sometimes I prepare way in advance of a trip.
Not only have I reserved by mode of transportation or planned my route on the road and reserved the place or places where I will stay, but I have chosen what I will wear (and maybe packed it), what I will do when I get there, and taken some cash out of the bank days – or weeks – in advance.
Other times I don’t really prepare.
Then I end up rushing around at the last minute trying to get everything together, forget some things, and maybe even be late leaving.
One is more anxiety producing. Can you guess which one?
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
If you read the Hebrew prophets – and they are worth reading – you may see a couple of patterns.
One is that the people – especially the leadership – turn away from their God and to other gods. And the prophets say “stop worshiping idols and return to God.”
But the other is that the people – especially the leadership – keep the identification with and rituals of their religion, but ignored many of the teachings of how to be in community with others, especially the less powerful.
And the prophets say “your ancestry and your identity are not enough, and your rituals and sacrifices don’t please God, when you treat your neighbor unfairly.” The prophets are telling the leaders to prepare to be better followers of the teachings, or prepare for the consequences.
In the New Testament we have John the Baptist, telling leaders much the same thing. When the Pharisees and Sadducees – leaders of the temple – come to John for baptism in the Jordan, he calls them out on it:
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
8Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance,
9and 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.
10Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees;
therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 3:7-10, NRSVue
He’s telling them to prepare.
It’s not enough to trace one’s ancestry to Abraham. It’s not enough to be a leader in the Temple. It’s not enough to publicly and visibly carry out rituals of faith.
The preparation is repentance, to turn from treating others unfairly to caring for others.
Even our president has said
“I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven, I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. . . . I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make heaven. But I’ve made life a lot better for a lot of people.”
And if I were talking directly to him, here’s what I would tell him: “Repentance is always possible. God’s grace is always available.” In fact, I may even send him that message in a postcard. If I were on Truth Social, I might even post it to him there.
Because I truly believe that as long as we breathe, it’s not too late to be a better person. And perhaps the most important focus is to be better to the people who are the hardest to be good to.
For elitists, it may be the poor.
For people who don’t use mood-altering chemicals, it may be people with substance dependence.
For some, it may be the rich and powerful.
That may seem odd, but that’s exactly what the prophets did: they reached out to those with wealth and influence and told them “bear fruit worthy of repentance”
It’s good to call out the powerful on behalf of the powerless but difficult to call out the powerful out of concern for the powerful?
In times of change, it’s tempting to pull in and care for ourselves. It takes faith to step out and care for others, to love our neighbors. Bur we are called to do just that.
As the banner in front of the church this morning says
Our Gospel reading in Matthew says this of John the Baptist:
This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'”
Matthew 3:3, NRSVue
Matthew is calling back to Isaiah 40,
A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Isaiah 40:3, NRSVue
You may notice a subtle difference between “A voice cries out in the wilderness: ‘prepare the way of the Lord’” and “A voice cries out: ‘in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord’”
But this message is not only a call to repentance, but a call to hope.
Our reading from the eleventh chapter of Isaiah prophecies a time of peace through justice:
with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
Isaiah 11:4, NRSVue
and
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11:9, NRSVue
The emphasis is righteousness for the poor and equity for the oppressed. The promise is there will be no more hurt or destruction.
So what can we do?
We can trust in the promise of peace through justice, and for righteousness and equity. And we can prepare for it by participating in caring for others, for our neighbors.
John the Baptist said
“bear fruit worthy of repentance,”
Matthew 3:8, NRSVue
He also said that Jesus
will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Matthew 3:11b, NRSVue
And with the Holy Spirit and with fire, we can indeed bear fruit worthy of repentance.
So my challenge for all of us this week is to see how we can prepare for better days by participating in loving our neighbors,
no matter their mental health challenge, which includes those with and without challenges;
their immigration status, which includes those who are non-citizens, documented and undocumented, and citizens;
their sexual orientation, which includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and others including straight;
their economic status, which includes poor, working class, middle class, and even billionaires;
their gender identity, which includes transgender, cogender, bigender, agender, and cisgender;
their disability, which includes mobility issues, sight and hearing impairment, other disabilities, and the temporarily fully able;
their religion, which includes people of all faiths or none, including Christians;
no matter their race, including indigenous, East Asian, South Asian. African, Latino, and white.
Love our neighbors, especially the ones who are harder to love.
It will prepare us for better days.
Amen.
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
#Advent #love #loveYourNeighbor #preparation #prepare
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