Sermon delivered on Advent 3A, Gaudete Sunday, December 15, 2013, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

If you would prefer to listen to the audio podcast of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 35.1-10; Psalm 146.5-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What, if anything, jumped out at you as you listened to our gospel lesson this morning? Did you find it strange that the imprisoned John the Baptist sends messengers to Jesus to ask him if he is the expected Messiah or should John wait for another? After all, wasn’t it John who baptized Jesus and who declared him to be God’s son, the Messiah (cf. John 1.29-34)? So why was John now questioning whether Jesus really was the Messiah? If you have ever been tempted to believe some of the critics of Christianity who argue that the gospels really aren’t history but rather fanciful stories the early Church made up to convince folks that Jesus really was who he said he was, you needn’t look any further than today’s lesson to refute such a silly notion. Here we have the man who baptized Jesus and declared him to be God’s Messiah questioning whether Jesus really was the real deal, hardly a good strategy to convince others to believe in Jesus, and this is what I want us to look at briefly this morning. What are we to do with John’s doubt about Jesus as well as our own? It is important for us to answer this question, especially during Advent, because it encapsulates the glory and frustration of Advent itself.

None of us here are strangers to doubt. We live in a world of broken promises and sadly all of us have broken a few promises ourselves along the way. We grow cynical hearing politicians making promises and then not keeping them. And we don’t know what to do with the rare ones who actually do keep the promises they make. The same dynamic holds true in our relationship with God. Each week preachers like me stand up and make promises that God is with us, even in the midst of extreme adversity, and that a better day is coming. But then we ask God to heal us or a loved one and our prayer apparently goes unanswered. Or we look around our world and see the massive suffering and brokenness that is part of it—just this past week, for example, we’ve suffered another school shooting—and we can’t help but wonder if God really does love us or is in control of his world. The bad guys and the forces behind them just seem to keep on winning. I can see it on some of your faces every time I vocalize these promises to you.

And if we are honest with ourselves, many of us will admit that we really don’t understand this crazy notion of inaugurated eschatology that you hear me talk about regularly, the idea that we are living in the “end times” and that with the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God’s kingdom has started to come on earth as in heaven (that’s the inaugurated part of the end time—God has fulfilled his promise to his people to return to them and live with them), but not completely. That won’t happen fully until Jesus returns in great power to finish the work he started (that’s the fully realized part of the end time). The practical result of this teaching is that as Christians we must take the good with the bad because while we see many signs of the kingdom among us—people do get healed as a result of prayer (but not everyone), lives do get transformed by Jesus (but not all lives do and some who have been changed backslide), reconciliation happens because one or both parties were willing to forgive when there was no reason to do so, our little parish continues to be God’s faithful warriors—we also see rampant evil and injustice apparently going on unchecked or unpunished. There is a mystery here that perplexes and frustrates us. We don’t fully understand why this is and Scripture gives us every indication we are not going to understand these things fully. We have to live with the mystery and enigma of the kingdom come, but not fully realized.

And now we are back to John’s doubt about Jesus being the Messiah. As John languished in prison he had heard about all the mighty acts of salvation that Jesus was doing—healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, preaching good news to the poor, making the deaf hear, cleansing lepers, etc. All these were clearly promised signs of God’s in-breaking kingdom on earth as in heaven. We see part of that evidence in our OT and psalm lessons this morning. So what’s the problem? The problem for John was that he was still in prison and every good Jew knew that when the real Messiah came, he would free the prisoners and punish the oppressors of God’s people, just like the prophets and psalmists had promised. But Jesus hadn’t done that. John still languished in prison and Herod, the one who imprisoned and eventually had John executed, was still in charge and this was problematic for John. Doubtless John had many OT passages like we read today running through his head, passages that foretold the Messiah would not only bring God’s salvation (rescue from their enemies) to his people but also God’s terrible wrath and judgment on God’s enemies. In other words, the good guys would get rescued and the bad guys would get their just desserts. Justice would be served and evil would be vanquished.

But as we’ve just seen, Jesus was only doing part of what the expected Messiah was to do. He was only bringing about healing and salvation to God’s people. Where was God’s punishment on his enemies? Why was Jesus not freeing his own cousin from his unjust imprisonment by Herod? If you want to understand the fundamental reason why most Jews reject Jesus as their Messiah, look no further than this issue. Jesus might have been a miracle worker but he did not bring God’s accompanying wrath on God’s enemies. Evil was not banished nor were God’s people vindicated. And this is the reason why many reject Jesus as Lord and Savior today. They look at what Jesus didn’t/doesn’t do while ignoring or denying what he did/does. All this reminds us that we are not the only ones who struggle with the ambiguities and mystery of the “already-not yet” of inaugurated eschatology.

And lest we are tempted to think that Matthew (or even Jesus himself) did not consider Jesus to be the real deal, we must look closely at Jesus’ response to John’s questions because it shows us clearly that both Matthew and Jesus thought Jesus was the real Messiah. Jesus invites John to look at Jesus’ deeds, the good he is doing and preaching, and then to draw his own conclusions about Jesus’ identity. If John will look beyond the God’s judgment and see the resulting picture Isaiah painted for us in today’s OT lesson, he will surely conclude that Jesus’ actions are fulfilling OT prophecy about the Messiah. In this way Jesus gently encourages John. But Jesus also gently rebukes John for his doubt when he says “blessed are those who do not take offense at me.” The Greek for take offense is scandalizo, which means to cause someone to sin or lose faith. Jesus then goes on to quote Malachi 3.1, “See, I am sending a messenger ahead of you.” But who is this you? It is God. And from the context in which he quotes this passage, it is clear that Jesus sees himself standing in God’s place in fulfillment of OT prophecy and that John was the designated messenger to announce Jesus’ coming. This is why folks are blessed who do not take offense at Jesus and this includes not only John but every one of us!

So what do we do with this? How do we deal with the hope and frustration of inaugurated eschatology that this season of Advent encourages us to observe? We take our cue from both Jesus and his brother James. First, as our Lord himself reminded John, we need to examine the evidence and draw the right conclusions. Instead of focusing on what Jesus didn’t do, we are to focus on all that he did, the signs of the kingdom he performed and the good news he preached. These are part of the historical record and demand a fair hearing. In other words, when considering if Jesus is who he claims he is, we must focus on the presence of salvation, not on the absence of judgment, focusing especially on the historical reality of his resurrection and ascension. This will not resolve the ambiguity and mystery of the “already-not yet,” but it will allow us to deal with it on the level we are capable of dealing with the inscrutable ways of God. This, of course, requires a profound humility on our part. We must acknowledge we are not equals with God and our humility will allow us to wait patiently for God to work out his good purposes for his creation and creatures. Simply put, when we focus on what is missing, we sow doubt. When we focus on what has been accomplished, we sow faith in the power of the Spirit.

And as James reminds us, we are to do this together. As do all our other lessons this morning, so James reminds us of the “already-not yet.” He tells us that we must wait patiently for the Lord’s return and in the interim we are not to grumble against each other because Jesus our Judge is standing at the door! Notice James teaches that Jesus is quite near to his people but has not fully appeared to us as risen Lord and Judge over God’s creation.

But why would James tell us not to grumble against each other, especially in this context? Well, what do stressed-out and fearful people do to each other? They turn on each other! We see it happen all the time in families and other close-knit groups. Precisely because evil has not been fully vanquished, precisely because we are under attack by the enemy, we as Jesus’ followers are subject to the dark pressure of powerful forces and so we must resist our fallen urges to turn on each other in times of great stress. Here again we see the wisdom of patience, which itself is one of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22-25). When we patiently endure our trials and tribulations, we are less inclined to become angry or fearful and turn on each other. We are Christ’s body, the Church, and we are to help encourage one another in matters of faith, especially during times of great personal or collective crises.

Here, then, are the needed tools for us to live faithfully during the “already-not yet.” When we realize that Jesus has helped us see God’s timetable for rescuing his world and its people from captivity to evil, sin, and death in a new light, we have reason to hope. By focusing on all that Jesus has accomplished for us instead of on what is missing, we can count on being strengthened in the power of the Spirit so that we can not only cope but rejoice that we have Good News, both in good times and bad, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon delivered on the second Sunday of Advent A, December 8, 2013, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

If you would like to hear the audio podcast of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 11.1-10; Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19; Romans 15.4-13; Matthew 3.1-12.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning’s readings provide us as Christians with ample food for prayerful thought and reflection during this season of Advent and that is what I want us to look at briefly this morning. Specifically, why should we take seriously Paul’s prayer for us to be people filled with all joy and peace in believing so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit?

As Fr. Philip reminded us last week, Advent, which has its root in the Greek word parousia (to arrive or be actively present), is an appropriate time for us to stop and take stock of that for which we hope. Advent is a time of anticipation when we prepare for our Lord Jesus to return in great power and glory to consummate his victory won on the cross over the powers and principalities and their dark and evil reign by bringing in God’s promised new creation. As Christians, we believe that we live in the end times between Jesus’ first and second comings.

We see some of these wonderful promises of God’s new creation in all our lessons this morning, but especially in our OT and psalm lessons. The prophet Isaiah speaks of a day when all the disordered things of the natural world will be restored to their proper order. The wolf will live with the lamb and humans will no longer have to fear dangerous animals like poisonous snakes, lions, and bears because they will no longer hurt or destroy. This will happen because the entire earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (cf. Isaiah 65.17-25; Romans 8.18-25). And how do the waters cover the sea? The waters are the sea! In other words, humans and the rest of God’s creation will be living directly in God’s presence in the promised new heavens and earth! What a magnificent hope and prospect for those who love God!

“That’s all well and good, Fr. Maney,” you say, “but dude, get back on your meds so that you can get a grip on reality. None of these promises have come true. Look around you. Last time we checked, wolves like to live with lambs so they can eat them and there is no way we’re going to stick our hand into a nest of rattlesnakes. Only a lunatic would do that. And what about the massive injustice in this world, not to mention all the evil and suffering we must endure? Just look at the length of our intercessory list and some of the heartbreaking things that are afflicting individuals and families. We haven’t seen much evidence of God’s promises being fulfilled.”

And there is the rub, isn’t it? Sometimes (often times?) we find it hard to believe in God’s promises that we read about today precisely because they have not come about, at least on the scale we might hope for. Nature is still disordered. Injustice, suffering, and evil are rampant, and God is apparently nowhere to be seen. This is the challenge that confronts us as Christians and especially so during this season of Advent with its promises of hope and anticipation. It is hard for us, precisely because we live in the last times when all the promises of God have begun to break through in his good but fallen world but have not yet reached their full conclusion. Put another way, because we haven’t seen how God’s history is going to turn out, we do not have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight like we do with other stories of the Bible. So we have to live by faith and that is not always an easy thing to do.

That is why Paul exhorts us to keep our nose in the Scriptures because in them we find the story of God’s eternal plan to rescue his good but fallen world from the ravages of human sin and the evil and death it has unleashed, mysterious and ambiguous as that plan can seem to us at times. As all our lessons indicate, at the heart of God’s rescue plan is his call to his people Israel, beginning with God blessing the patriarch Abraham and his descendants so that they could be a blessing to others, i.e., so that Israel could bring God’s good and righteous rule with its healing love to all the nations (Genesis 12.1-3), and consummating with the coming of Jesus the Messiah, God embodied fully as a human being.

As both Isaiah and John the Baptist emphasize, when God’s kingdom (i.e., God’s reign) comes fully on earth as it is in heaven, God’s perfect justice, wisdom, and righteousness will be fully implemented so that all evil and those whose lives are patterned so as to propagate that evil, will be swept away. This will be the Messiah’s doing and judgment, not ours, and that is why Advent is also a time for sober reflection on how we are conducting our lives and who or what we are patterning them after. Is the way we live our lives helping King Jesus to bring in the Father’s kingdom on earth as in heaven or impeding it? You see, God in his marvelous wisdom and grace calls us as Jesus’ followers to be part of his kingdom building project so that he can use us to bring his healing love to others who do not know Jesus or follow him. That is what we are being saved for, not so that we get to go to heaven when we die!

And if we doubt that the way we live our lives is important to God, we need look no further than the interchange between John and the religious leaders of his day. John calls them a brood of vipers precisely because the way they had fashioned their lives prevented God’s love from flooding out into the nations. The religious leaders of John’s day (and sadly some from our own) saw their nation Israel as being privileged and superior to the other nations because God had only called Israel to be his people. So instead of acting in ways that would expose gentiles (i.e., the nations) to the righteous and healing ways of God’s kingdom as they had been called to do through Abraham, they were all about exclusion and outright condemnation, and John would have no part of that. Likewise for us as Christians today.

There is real hope in all this, of course, because it is God who acts on our behalf through Jesus his Messiah to bring about his righteous rule and justice so that God’s curse on Adam and Eve’s sin can be reversed and evil decisively defeated so that God’s good world will once again be fully restored to its original goodness. We believe God has done this primarily through the death and resurrection of Jesus and that this healing and redemptive work will be fully consummated when Jesus returns in great power and glory at the parousia. It is therefore important for us to note the positive dimension of God’s justice and accompanying judgment in all this. The only ones who have to fear God’s terrible judgment and wrath are evildoers who steadfastly reject God’s gracious gift offered to everyone in Jesus and refuse to pattern their lives after God’s righteous, good, and just rule.

Here too we can find hope for all that afflicts us, even when our prayers apparently go unanswered. The God who became embodied in Jesus to suffer and die for us so that we could live with him forever in his kingdom starting right now is hardly an indifferent or distant God. To be sure, unanswered prayer to relieve human suffering is a great enigma and can be deeply vexing and puzzling. But the death and resurrection of Jesus stand as an eternal testimony to the love, faithfulness, and nearness of God for his broken world and creatures, irrespective of our ability to understand fully how this can be.

But how can we believe these promises? Because as Paul reminds us, we are to take real encouragement from Scriptures and Scriptures tell us how God consistently works for the welfare and benefit of his people, even when we refuse to cooperate with him. For example, the gracious words we read from Isaiah were written at a time when the dominant world power of Isaiah’s day, Assyria, was threatening to overrun Judah. This, of course, made the leaders and people of Judah very afraid. But instead of turning to the God of power, the God who had delivered his people from their slavery in Egypt and brought them to the promised land, they turned to their former oppressors in Egypt for help. So here we see God appealing to his people to turn to him for help by letting them in on the promises he has in store for them. And while this particular passage does not contain a reference to God’s mighty deliverance of his people in the Exodus, if we read further on in Isaiah, we see God reminding his people that he is a God who has a track record of delivering them and therefore they can have confidence to trust in his promises.

There are many other stories in the Bible about God’s rescuing his people, not to mention stories of God continuing to rescue his people today. But if we do not know these stories, or if we do not tell each other about our own personal stories and experiences, we remain ignorant of how God acts to rescue us and are prone to fall into despair, not to mention disbelief over God’s ability to deliver on his promises. This is why it is critically important for us to use this season of Advent to focus on God’s promises and why they are trustworthy so that we can have real hope, even in the midst of all the chaos in the world and our lives.

So what do we do with these lessons besides learn to keep our nose in Scripture? First, we must take John the Baptist’s exhortation for us to repent seriously. To repent means to turn away from something and turn toward something else. But hear me carefully. When we speak of repentance, we need to keep in mind God’s big picture of his kingdom coming in full. We should examine ourselves to see what is in us that prevents us from bringing God’s healing love and light to the world so that Jesus can use us to help build on the foundation he laid for the kingdom through his death and resurrection. What are we doing/thinking/saying that is at odds with Jesus, our example? What are we doing that prevents us from denying our selfish desires and taking up our cross so that we can follow him? For example, if we are not keeping our nose in Scripture because we are “too busy,” this might be a good place to start repenting of the way we use our time! But the good news about this business of repenting using the criterion of bringing in the kingdom is that almost everybody in our little congregation is focused on kingdom building. Just yesterday, for example, some of us helped take care of a widow in our family by helping her get moved into her new digs. In doing so, irrespective of whether we can see it, the kingdom comes because Jesus is Lord.

This brings us to our second major lesson, this time from Paul. We are to have confidence in the Lord’s promises to bring his kingdom in full on earth by the very fact that our little congregation exists and loves each other the way we do. Mysterious and puzzling as this may seem to us, as Paul reminds us, when members of Jesus’ body, the Church, behave in ways that imitate Jesus in his suffering love, it is proof positive that Jesus is alive and well and God’s promises are true. Don’t ask me to explain how this works because I cannot. Just believe it with all your mind and heart and you will see for yourself that it is true. As Paul reminds us, when we keep ourselves firmly rooted in Scripture so that we do believe God is good to his word, we will most certainly have the abundant hope in the power of the Spirit he talked about because we know first-hand that we have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon delivered on Advent Sunday, December 1, 2013 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

If you would like to listen to the audio podcast of this sermon, click here.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 2.1-5; Psalm 122.1-9; Romans 13.11-14; Matthew 24.36-44.

The word Advent means “coming” or “arrival.” The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. Thus, Advent is far more than simply marking a 2,000 year old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. Scripture reading for today and the days to come will reflect this emphasis on the Second Advent, including themes of accountability for faithfulness at His coming, judgment on sin, and the hope of eternal life.

In this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and a congregation, as they affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. That acknowledgment provides a basis for Kingdom ethics, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live “between the times” and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people. So, as the church celebrates God’s inbreaking into history in the Incarnation, and anticipates a future consummation to that history for which “all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption,” it also confesses its own responsibility as a people commissioned to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  Which of course echoes what we believe in st. Augustine “changed by God to make a difference for God”. This is better illustrated by what the church did last week by rapping Christmas gift for the kids through the good Samaritan purse.

Advent is marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. There is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet who have hope of deliverance from a God who has heard the cries of oppressed and brought deliverance!
It is that hope, however faint at times, and that God, however distant He sometimes seems, which brings to the world the anticipation of a King who will rule with truth and justice and righteousness over His people and in His creation. It is that hope that once anticipated, and now anticipates anew, the reign of an Anointed One, a Messiah, who will bring peace and justice and righteousness to the world.

In our OT reading Today What Isaiah sees is not taking place now, but “in the days to come.” People of every nation will stream to Mt. Zion, including those who were enemies of Israel and Judah. God’s instruction will go forth from Jerusalem; God will judge between the nations. The people will be transformed by this teaching. And there will be peace all over. Thus Israel is called to walk in the light of the Lord.

The community in Rome reflects the diversity that Isaiah saw and is a result of God’s action in the world through Christ. When Paul talks about sôteria (salvation) in Romans, he refers to the manner in which God has revealed God’s people as composed of Jews and Gentiles.

If salvation is understood in terms of God creating a people for God, then the implications of salvation become community-oriented and are concerned with the ways in which different nations can live together and give glory to God in their life together (Romans 15:5-6). Salvation needs to be realized socially.

As we anticipate the coming of the Lord what is expected of us church?

1. We are invited to walk in the light of the Lord Isaiah 5.  Pauls put its it that we put on the armor of light and lay aside works of darkness

– walking in the light is an invitation  COME!
– walking in the light is communal: O HOUSE OF JACOB

Realize that Jesus is the “Light of the world,”  and as Christians we are called to let His light shine in this world through us.

1. We are called upon to be ready so that we will not be found unaware Matt. 24:35-44

All seems beautiful and peaceful. These are signs of vigilance. So, to adhere to what is said in the text, believers in Christ will likewise be vigilant for the coming of Christ in his own good time — a time that cannot be predicted. Therefore it is appropriate, as the saying goes, to live each day as though it may be the last. We cannot postpone fulfilling our commitments to be the persons we aspire to be.

God has established the Church as a city on a hill in order to serve in God’s universal mission, to be a place where all the nations of the world learn peace.

As we long and anticipate for God to come, may it be our prayer that God help us to walk in the light and shine fourth His light to the world. In the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.