Below is the "ish" text of my Advent 2 sermon preached at Epiphany yesterday morning. I say "ish" because I ascended the steps of the pulpit with a general outline but elaborated and colored as the Spirit led. If you would prefer you can listen here.
Advent 2 Year A
Signs come in many
different forms.
When I was
growing up there was a little church near my house that we would pass on the
way to the store. For about 15 years they had a sign that read, “Jesus is
coming soon, are you ready?” it was on one of those deli signboards with the
removable letters. The reason it stood out was not because of the message, but
because the “N” in “soon” was backwards. For 15 years this sight amused and
fascinated me. “If Jesus really is coming soon, you had better flip that ‘N’
around.”
But, if the “N” wasn’t backwards I probably wouldn’t have
taken much notice then, and I surely wouldn’t remember it now. So, I now
wonder, did some clever church member do it on purpose to give us pause? …to
force us to keep awake? Whatever the reason, I was a little sad when I went
home for a visit a few years back and discovered that there is a new message
up. I don’t even remember what the sign says now, but I miss that backwards
“N.”
Signs come in many different forms.
Matthew makes it a point to tells us about the absurdity of
John’s dress and eating habits for a reason: they were outlandish even at the
time. When John came a’ Baptizing – you noticed. I cannot tell you how many sermons I have heard for this day
on our liturgical calendar that have started with the preacher singing “Prepare
Ye the Way of the Lord” from Godspell. (Despite great temptation, I will not be
doing that this morning.) And while some of those sermons have been terrific, I
find that we spend so much time parsing Isaiah out of John’s speech that we
lose track of the rest of the message. We all remember this imperative that
John echoes forward from Isaiah: “Prepare ye the Way of the Lord!” But before
John calls us to prepare – he explains how we are to prepare – he calls on us
to repent. – Or does he?
Repentance, as we
commonly accept the term, brings up images of self-chastisement, guilt, and
feelings of inadequacy. We think that if we use our time to repent we are being
called to feel badly about our actions and ourselves. But that is not the
repentance we are called to here. The word that is translated into “repent”
here is the Greek verb metanoia.
While this word was translated into the English “Repent” starting in the second
century, scholars insist that a more accurate translation would be to say that
we are called to “Turn our hearts from sin and towards God.” How different
would your interpretation of today’s Gospel passage be if we heard John cry
out, “Turn your hearts from sin and towards God; The kingdom of Heaven has come
near!”?
Suddenly we are
able to hear John in a different way when the repentance he is crying out about
is a call to recognize God’s power to transform our lives. Metanoia, is a call to mindfulness, the
kind of mindfulness Liz Kinchen urged us to pursue through our New Year’s intentions last week, and through that
mindfulness we are opened to receive vision from the mind of Christ. Through
that mindfulness we open ourselves to receive the Grace that is constantly
being offered to us by a God who wants only to be in relationship with us. Suddenly,
when we hear the Baptist’s cry as it was intended, we hear it in a new way
because some of the prickly edges have been worn away by our new knowledge.
Signs come in many different forms: there are men in camel hair clothes,
sticky with honey from the midday meal screaming about repentance – a stranger
on a frigid street corner with a cardboard sign asking for help – the way the
light hits you on a particular afternoon, or even the news of the death of an
amazing world leader who spoke truth to power, spent years in prison, and freed
a people – signs come in many different forms. Whatever the sign is, we have to
be open to noticing it. Sometimes, we might even get called upon to be a sign
for others. Whatever the sign is, be open to noticing it. Regardless of when it
presents itself, we may never be ready for the message or maybe that message
will be exactly what you need to hear to get ready for the coming of the King.
We all need a backwards “N” in our lives to make us stop
long enough to ask, are we ready? We need that backwards “N” because I am
fairly certain there won’t be anyone wearing a camel hair tunic cinched with a
leather belt showing up in our lives anytime soon.
Whatever the
backwards N is in your life this Advent season I hope it invites you to go home
and ask yourself, am I ready to have my heart broken open by God? Am I ready to
turn away from sin and turn my heart toward God? Don’t worry if you aren’t
there yet, we are only in Advent 2, and it is the beginning of the year… and
God issues that invitation every minute of every day. Listen to the cry of John
the Baptist. Give yourself over to metanoia.
And remember: Jesus is coming soon,
and His birth will change you if you let it.
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