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Sermon Archive - December 6, 1998
Pastor Gazzolo
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Matthew 3:1-2
Both Old Testament readings from Isaiah and the Psalms are poetic
visions...visions of God's Kingdom come...a kingdom where righteousness and
equity reign...where wolf lies with lamb and leopard with kid.... visions of how
things really ought to be.
In today's letter to the Romans Paul refers to Old Testament scriptures saying:
that by the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope...hope that one
day we may live in harmony with one another and in accordance with Christ
Jesus...He too had a vision of how things really ought to be...harmony with each
other and harmony with our Lord. Paul continues by saying that Christ came to
fulfill the scriptures..came to bring God's hope to the Gentiles.
Baptized into Christ, we are the children of that hope...a hope that makes us
dare to dream of a better world..a hope that claims our hands and hearts to make
it happen...We are children of that hope.
Obviously the visions of Isaiah and the Psalmist have not been realized, and
realists who know the nature of wolves and lambs, not to mention the stubborn
nature of human beings, would say those visions can never be realized.
Still...after 2500 years Isaiah's dream of righteousness and harmony has the
power to stir heart and imagination with how things were meant to be.
Is it foolish to hope for righteousness and harmony in our world? Is that hope
that pushes our best work forward only folly?
Millard Fuller often asks himself...is it faith or foolishness...when does faith
become foolishness...Yet Fuller dared to dream of a world in which each family
would have a home, and because of his faith or his foolishness...call it what
you will...over 50,000 homes have been built for families in the last 22 years.
Fuller's faith in his dream of how things ought to be produced fruit. It is from
dreams that new possibilities are born. But some of us don't dream, don't know
how to dream...even while our hearts may resonate to the visions of others..the
vision of Isaiah.
We may not see how we can make this place we know a better place, and even when
we do, sin stands in the way. Sin blocks the coming of God. Sin occupies the
place where our Lord should dwell within us. We are simultaneously saints and
sinners...imagining a better way ...and then confounding our better selves with
sin both blatant and subtle.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, John the Baptist proclaimed. The Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand...Repent...Make Way...Repent..Make Way.
For that is the Advent theme.
In our Gospel from Matthew today John the Baptist is doing all he can to clean
house for the Lord...make people spiritually receptive to the coming of the Lord
....calling crowds to repentance, cleansing them in group baptisms in the
river...like a farmer, John was tilling the field, readying it for the seed of
the Spirit.
John's was a prophetic call to repentance...Words were not enough for John. He
called people to action. "Bear fruit worthy of repentance," he
proclaimed.."Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire."
John hurled scorn at the unfortunate Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him to
be baptized...warning them that acts of love and charity were more important in
the eyes of God than their strict observance of the law and religious custom.
For no Kingdom of God ever came because people spent their time reading books,
adoring relics or lighting candles. Religious observance is only part of God's
expectation of us. Religious observance is nothing if it does not spur and
strengthen us for our real job which is to love our neighbor as ourself.
John's call to repentance resembled that of Jesus...Both men preached
repentance...repentance as a necessary prelude for life under the kingly rule of
God...a repentance that involved the whole person not just words, or half time,
but choices made hour by hour in the name of the Lord.
As Jesus said: "The tree is known by its fruits" .. or "Cleanse the inside of the
cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean."
Jesus raised the bar...and deepened the prophetic demand that John made, for
Jesus emphasized the inwardness of sin. Repentance means becoming another
person. Jesus call to repentance was radical...a little touching up wouldn't do.
For Jesus, repentance meant being a new person in Christ...meant then and still
means bearing fruits of righteousness.
A new person in Christ...and yet my own life experience echoes that of Martin
Luther...old struggling sinner that he was. We may see and repent our particular
sin...or see and repent our sinful nature, but once isn't enough for me. That's
why in our Lutheran prelude to communion we repent once more as we did last week
our sins of commission, our sins of omission. Each time before communion we
repent and cleanse ourselves, make way for the Lord in our lives.
New sins, like weeds, or old sins in new disguise, keep cropping up in the
garden of our lives...we are never done weeding the garden of our soul, though
sometimes the weeds get smaller or harder. Luther would begin each day asking
for forgiveness, reclaiming the cleansing of his baptism, seeking to start the
day with a slate clean in the eyes of God.
The weeding of our soul is an ongoing job...even after we have repented. Yet I
do believe that a contrite heart more readily recognizes its sin and is quicker
to pluck it out before it takes tangly root within.
The sin in our lives is not an abstract thing....it is very specific, very
real....Larry Block, champion of clean government as a Chicago alderman, has
admitted to taking bribes.
Four Northwestern football players first bet on games in which they were
playing, then later lied in court about it. The Clinton thing has haunted us for
months...first his immorality and then lying to cover it up. Now because of our
prurient curiosity Monica is being paid thousands of dollars to tell all on
television.
Where is John the Baptist now when we need him?
Sin aplenty...But when we in our time have to face our Lord, we are not going
to be asked...what did you think about that president of yours...or what about
O.J. or what about Larry Bloom? No, our Lord is going to get right to it and
ask, "How have you loved and served me, my child?"
We waste our time looking at the sins of others...Our national pastime is
reading about the mistakes and wretched excess of other people. We have to look
at ourselves. And thank God, Advent calls us to ourselves...calls us to think
about our own lives, our own choices, our own priorities..our own need to repent
and become more truly the Lord's.
Sometimes I look at my day, look at my heart and my concerns and conclude I'm
doing the best I can. But there is garbage there even if I don't see it. And we
need to see it. God calls us to ever greater self knowledge...self awareness so
that we may have eyes to see our own sin, not just that of our neighbor. What
Larry Bloom has done, what four football players have done, what the players in
Washington have done is not our most serious concern. Our concern is to look
into our own hearts and deal with what we find and repent of it.
But we need God's help to see the attitudes that affect our choices...Because in
all probability most of our sins are sins of attitude not action, sins of
omission, not commission. Our behavior may seem impeccable but we must be honest
with ourselves why we behave impeccably...we may live out of a distorted
motive...not to serve the Lord of life, but to be considered upright by our
neighbor..that's what John and Jesus abhorred about the Pharisee.
We were made by a master potter, but somewhere between the potter's hand and the
table, perhaps in the kiln, we got cracked...some cracks more obvious than
others...but cracked nonetheless.
Jungian psychology picked up on Jesus wisdom and helps us see our cracks better.
Jesus said that we must not try to take the mote out of our neighbors eye until
we take the mote out of our own eye...Jungian psychology tells us to pay
attention when we take strong offense to another person...Likely as not what we
take intuitive offense to in the other person may well be an unacknowledged part
of ourselves. Take note the next time you respond someone with an intuitively
negative reaction. There are ways to look inside.
In all probability, our sins will not make the front page nor lead to public
inquiries..but they can block us from a closer more living relationship with our
Lord...our pride, our blindness, our readiness to judge others and overlook our
own hearts, materialism, selfishness..not crimes surely, nor misdemeanors, but
blocks nevertheless to a more perfect relationship with our Lord. Blocks that
keep us from dreaming and doing for the kingdom.
God has not asked us to be perfect...God only asks that we put ourselves heart
and soul in his keeping. We may never see the lion and the lamb together, but
there is still much we can do to prepare our hearts and this world for its Lord.
Let us pray...Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the way for your only Son.
By his coming give us strength in our conflicts and shed light on our path
through the darkness of this world.
AMEN.
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