Advent 2 YrA

John the Baptist: wild haired, camel skin wearing, locust eating mad-man standing in the middle of the murky Jordan River, preaching a message of repentance---accusing the world of sin and challenging everyone, especially the Jewish elite of his day---to make their way straight and get ready. For the Kingdom of Heaven was coming and there was no time for arrogant self-serving piety.

No doubt the Pharisees and Sadducees wished he would just go away. Or at least be quiet.

But it was too late. Word had gotten out about this prophet—was it Elijah?—who was baptizing people with those muddy waters, promising them a new kind of baptism—with fire and the Holy Spirit no less---to be rendered by a messiah—the messiah. His shtick, if he was to be believed, was just the opening act, the main event was about to burst on the scene. And John, John was trying very hard to get everyone ready.

Of course getting ready is what Advent is all about and it’s why the Baptist takes up two of our four Advent Sunday Gospels---because we are to be aware, to get ready and to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is about to arrive. God is coming to be with us, we best be ready. We best repent.

Repentance. To turn from sin and dedicate oneself to amendment of life.

To turn from sin. Sin is such a tough word for our 21 st century ears---well at least for my 21 st century ears—its been tossed around by so many tele-evangelists, folks who profess to be holier than thou but who, in the stark light of day, turn out to be a lot more human than holy.

We sin when our actions take us away from God. The German Jesuit Theologian Karl Rahner puts it best when he says that all human behavior moves along a continuum—a continuum that is either moving toward God or moving away from God. Are our actions moving us closer to God or farther away from God? If we’re moving farther away from God we’re sinning. All sins are not the mortal sins we here our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers talk about. To sin is to miss the mark. To sin is to do something, which furthers our own self-interest instead of moving along with the divine plan. You know the divine plan I’m talking about—loving our neighbor as yourself, loving God with all our heart and soul and mind. Sinning isn’t always headline news. Sin, more often is simply missing the mark. Sinning moves us away from God.

The goal of our life, according to Rahner, should be to move toward God—because God is always—always—reaching out to us.

Of course, during Advent this is particularly poignant for us because in the Christmas event—in the birth of Jesus, God not only reaches for us, God becomes us.

With God coming to dwell among us, the time seems ripe for us —to repent, amend our lives and head toward the outstretch arms of our loving God.

So we visit the stories of John the Baptist, this wild man on the banks of the river, screaming at us to straighten up and fly right.

He saves his most venomous wrath for the religious elite of his day—the Pharisees and Sadducees—they figure by virtue of their heritage—being children of Abraham---they’re set. They assume the Baptist has come on the scene to help the gentiles, the pagans, the fallen away Jews---but not them.

The arrogance of piety—the thought that his message of repentance was for other people---people who don’t follow the law, people who don’t tithe, people who don’t offer the appropriate sacrifices at the temple—it was this arrogance which fueled John’s You Brood of Vipers rage.

Because John knew that such arrogance was just one of the many things which draw us away from God…and that all of us==Pharisees and Sadducees, Gentiles and Pagans, you and me…that we all need to day in and day out turn around---repent----change direction and start heading toward God.

Changing direction. That’s what repentance is. It ‘s a turning around. And that, according to Episcopal priest Sam Portaro, is exactly what John the Baptist is asking us to do. It’s what he was telling those who trudged to the banks of the Jordan to do, and its what we are to do. How can we increase our holiness, our piety, our faithfulness? How can we be better Christians? How can we best prepare ourselves for the coming events of incarnation, how can we ready ourselves to receive God among us? Pray more? Tithe more? Go to church more? Now all these are good things and many of us find them very helpful but they’re instruments of our faith---they are not our faith. Faith isn’t lived out in these pews. Faith is lived out in the world…in the offices, the homes, the grocery stores, the banks, the regularness of our lives. Faith---true faith---life changing faith, faith that will bring the reign of God fully into this world---is exercised out in the world.

So as we settle into our second week of anticipation, our second week of preparing for God among us, we are to go out into the world, loving and serving one another as Christ loves and serves us. We are to walk the streets of our lives with the truth of our faith---that God so loved us God came to be among us ----straightening our paths and turning us around, because when we do that—when we live our lives as Christ directs us, we will be a beacon—attracting others to us bringing people toward the light of Christ, a light which, when we live toward God instead of away from God---shines on the darkness of this world, a world which desperately longs to be wrapped in the loving embrace of God.