What then should we do?

Advent 3-C Dec. 13, 2009
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 9: Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:1-13
Luke 3: 7-18

The news this week has been filled with horrific images of the effects of global warming: melting icebergs, flooded deltas, thousands of displaced people in places like Bangladesh which are only give us a hint of the millions who will be washed out of their homes as the planet warms and the water levels rise. The leaders of the nations now meeting in Copenhagen seem at a stalemate: the bottom line vs. the lives of millions? What then should we do?

Pick an issue, any issue. It seems like nearly everything we face in the world is overwhelming. Global warming. This neighborhood, how messy and blighted it is. This church, how many leaks it continually seems to spring. Household bills, how can we ever make ends meet. Poverty. Hunger. Homelessness. Drug addiction. Gang violence. Yow. Let’s just hunker down and forget it all, because, really, what can we do? What can we possibly do?

I think we need John the Baptist. How lucky then we get him this Advent for two weeks in a row.

John was a powerful preacher, whose bold words attracted many people around him. The message at first read seems harsh: Repent, you brood of vipers! That does not exactly sound like a sermon that would pack them in, yet …

The power of John’s message is that he described the world as it was: it is a world turned upside down. The world of 1st century Palestine was ruled by corrupt and brutal leaders at the top, and put-upon peasants at the bottom. John preached a message that began to allow the people to “unforget” the promises of God, to “unforget” that the world is God’s, and that God rules with justice and compassion and mercy, to “unforget” that even poor people and old people and disabled people have dignity. The people at the top definitely want the people to forget those kinds of messages, to forget that religious faith in God has something to do with life in the here and now and not only in the by and by, that the beneficiaries of the abundance of God’s creation are the people of God, not just the fatcats at the top.

The mists of history make it easy for us in 2009 to forget that the world of John the Baptist was so messy. It was so long ago that we forget that politics and war and economics and all those things that consume our 24-7 news cycle were the ever-present realities for the people who came to listen to what John had to say. The rose-colored glasses we often put on when we read the Bible make us think that words like “repent” have to do only with personal sins. The powers-that-be in our world certainly benefit if we, too, forget that the promises of God mean that there IS enough to go around, that the world CAN be a peaceful and beautiful place, that EVERYONE is entitled, by virtue of being a child of God, to a home to live in and food to eat and a life of dignity and meaning and worth.

Once you get to thinking about it, it is overwhelming. What then should we do?

When the people asked John that question, his response was direct, and simple. Share. Be honest. Be content with what you have. God promises us abundance and life and enough to go around: start living every day as though you believed it. It’s kind of like the old proverb that says if your house is messy, then this is where you start, here, at your feet, and clean this area that you can reach. If the world is overwhelming, and out of control, and we have no power to change those big things, then start where we are: if we have two coats, we share one. If we have enough food for our family, then share with a family who has none. John acknowledges that the people who come to hear his message live in the world: they are not just “do-gooders” but tax collectors, soldiers – people not known for being honest or generous, people caught on the bottom rungs of that upside down world of violence and greed. Be content, John says to those people. Be honest. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal from people who have less than you do. John’s big, grand, global message comes down to these simple instructions. The kingdom of heaven is coming – and this is how we should start to live, now.

What then should WE do? How would John the Baptist answer that question for you, today?