What can we say come December 7? Advent 2

For preaching in Advent, check out my "God Became Small" blog on preaching in this peculiar, lovely, challenging season.

   Advent 2.  I'm focusing on Matthew 3:1-12.  But first, I'll mention that Isaiah 11 is a rich text, almost like the joke which you explain and the explanation isn't nearly as funny as the joke; I preached on the same Isaianic theme, which reappears in Isa. 65, a while back, evoking Edwin Hicks's "Peaceable Kingdom" paintings, and how we need wolves to lie down with lambs post-political divisions... 

Romans is mildly interesting.  Psalm 72 more so - as it establishes the standard for kings at their coronation in ancient Israel, and the measure is all about caring for the poor, the downtrodden, the stranger.  A great word for today...

But I'm focused on Matthew 3:1-12.  As I picture people streaming down to the Jordan to hear John and be washed, I think what isn't a Christmas carol -- the wonderful Alison Kraus singing "Down to the River to Pray" - and then the bawdy but profound scene in "O Brother, Where Art Thou."  Worth listening as you meditate, or showing your people, or exploring in the sermon.

Years ago, I heard a sermon in which the preacher pointed out that John the Baptist is all over the birth stories of Jesus, but you never ever see him on a Christmas card.  I mentioned this in a sermon, and someone rose to the challenge are created the world's first ever John the Baptist Christmas card.

Hard to talk people into the idea that Advent is a season of repentance.  It's kind of the season that actually creates new reasons to need to repent... I'm never sure how wise or helpful it is to harangue people about the absurdity of our customs during the holidays - especially when most of us clergy are as enmeshed in the froth and frenzy as everybody else.

John the Baptist would probably nod over Mike Slaughter's memorable book and curriculum title: Christmas is Not Your Birthday.

Yet it's easy (at least it has been for me) to become a bit Scrooge-like during Advent, railing against or at least murmuring about all the consumption - and then the party animals blithely say something trite, like "Jesus is the reason for the season."  Sometimes I think about a clergy friend of mine who texted a photo of a General Conference session to me with his comment: "An unintended consequence of the resurrection."  I guess December is an unintended consequence of the incarnation.

There's beauty in it, and a gut-level comprehension that the little lights in the darkness, the gift-giving, the travelling to be with the people you're stuck with, the generous mood somehow do grasp in fledgling ways the glory of the birth of the Savior.

I wonder if there was a beauty to John the Baptist.  I think a lot about his tone of voice.  I have always pictured him with a gravelly, loud voice, like one of those street preachers.  But maybe his tone was plaintive, pleading, tender and loving.  Please, oh please, repent. 

I love the elegance of the St. John's Bible's depiction of the baptism of Jesus by John.

What is repentance anyhow?  It's not grovelling in guilt.  It's a turning toward God (the Hebrew shuv), a change of mind (the Greek metanoia), it's a homesick prodigal son deciding I so very much want to go home.  John Wesley spoke of repentance as the "porch" (with "faith" as the door, and "holiness" as the house).  I wonder if in preaching I might exploit this porch image.

What's on my porch during December?  A Moravian star, some garland, a tacky flashing Santa, a Christmasy welcome mat.  I hope some carolers will appear and sing to us.  What is your best porch memory? 

Mine relies entirely on a photo.  It was Christmas.  I wasn't 2 yet.  But there I am, perched on my grandfather Papa Howell's lap.  My deepest joy, and sense of belonging, and my richest Christmas memories took place in that house.  Are these little reminiscences, these little tremors in the soul one of the ways God calls us home?

Even if his voice is gentle, John the Baptist sounds threatening when he says "The axe is at the root of the tree."  I wish I'd grown up in, or that my children had grown up in one of those families that went up into the mountains and physically cut a tree to haul home for Christmas.  There must be something about the cutting of what is lovely that needs to happen?  Of course, John is obsessed with "fruit" - another staple of this season (fruitcake, fruitbaskets).  The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) is always in order, and somewhat out of sync with or even at odds with the moods and impulses of the season.

But maybe he's shouting, and God is really angry.  I hope not.... and yet there is so much down here that angers me, and you too.  How to speak prophetically without sounding mad? How to connect deeply with listeners instead of just making them angry at you?  Ministry Matters ran my blog on this subject right after the election.  Unsure it has answers - but maybe some commiseration, and hope?