Reflections about the Third Sunday of Advent

The passage this week is Luke 3:7-18.


7John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

To connect to text week's resources for all the readings follow this link: http://www.textweek.com/yearc/adventc3.htm; to look at resources for the Gospel reading follow this link: http://www.textweek.com/mtlk/lk3b.htm


The passage can be found here at Oremus: http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+3:7-18&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

Some thoughts...
We continue this week the story of John the Baptist's proclamation of baptism. We remember the uniqueness of this baptism as a metanoia or turning that is essential bedrock within the catholic tradition of our church. While there were many prophets in that time and scholars recognize that baptism was not unusual, we see in the Gospel a self differentiation for the follower of Jesus in the lukan community that sees baptism as a primary way a Christian marks their choice to follow Jesus. We can easily imagine in this unique combination of accepting an ordered life in the manner of Jesus and the water of baptism as a cleansing ritual the growth of our understanding that sins are forgiven and life is forever changed in baptism.

John the Baptizer is not offering us an opportunity to adopt his way of life where home is the desert, clothes are skins, foods are grasshoppers and wild honey, there are no alcoholic beverages and prayer and fasting mark the hours of the day. John is offering us in his proclamation and act of baptism an opportunity to turn away from our previous life to a life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is very possible that some of these words, which make up the synoptic tradition, are deeply rooted in the earliest Christian documents of sayings and traditions. Sometimes these documents are called Q.

We know in the Gospel of Luke that the Pharisees and high priests will reject John's baptisms (7.30 and 20.5). Nevertheless, crowds of people looking for a savior come out to the Jordan to hear the message and receive the baptism, to take a sacramental journey into the wild places and wash as a pilgrimage towards ever new and transformed life.

They are met there by the wild John the Baptist calling them vipers! Jesus also will call those who live questionable lives with alternative and destructive intentions vipers (23.33). The people who come to John are recognized by him as people who are in need of change. They are in fact creatures of the desert place and the washing may prepare them for the coming kingdom, and deliverance from the wildness of this world into the grace of the coming reign of Christ.

We might well remember Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians 1:10 where Paul says, "you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming”.

In verse 8 we see the word “repentance," metanoia. The word in Greek literally means returning, or coming back to the way of life charted by the covenant between God and Israel. See also Exodus 19:3-6 (where God commands Moses to tell the Israelites “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation”); 24:3-8; Jeremiah 31:31-34 (“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts ... they shall all know me ... I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more”).

John the baptizer is demanding right living based on a sincere search for God’s will (Matthew 7:15-20; Galatians 5:22-23) and suited to the promise of repentance. We see this ancient covenant connection and the life of our faith ancestors throughout Luke's Gospel and Jesus teaching as we are reminded of “Abraham our ancestor”. See also Luke: 1:54-55, 72-73; 3:34; 13:16, 28-29; 19:9; 20:37; Acts 3:13, 25; 7:17, 32; 13:26; 26:6; 28:20; John 8:33, 39; Romans 2:28, 29. We are then named a desert people who have found our life and our faith in the bosom of God and deep within the well of his heart. For those who choose to live a life oriented on the Christ and his reign we see the promise and potential of a life lived not in scarcity but the bounty of grace which promised manna from heaven, that the lilies be clothed, that the poor would have good things and the hungry fed.

Verses 10 - 14 are unique to Luke's Gospel. Here we see the Gospel's proclamation that right living has to do with sharing what we are given, and that it is characterized by a special concern, sensitivity and action on behalf of the poor. Jesus in Luke's Gospel will speak clearly about stewardship of possessions and so central was this to Jesus' teachings that we see it mirrored throughout the Acts, see Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-35.

We get a sense of the rich and the poor being unified in this proclamation of change and baptism, and in their ministry one to another. We cannot read verse 12ff without remembering here we are to hear of the story in Luke's Gospel of Zacchaeus the tax collector who gives half of his possessions to the poor.

So powerful was John's message and such a figure of hope and transformation was he that others believed he was the messiah. So it is the last verses of this passage that we see him continue to refocus our attention, beginning in verse 15, on the coming of Christ who ultimately will provide the Holy Spirit to the baptism of water. How often do we move into positions of power or authority or ministry and the glory which rightly belongs to Christ comes to us? In this advent season we are challenged to remember the humility of the Christ family as described in the Gospels and be challenged to do as John the baptizer does and point forward to the Christ who is truly working in us and our life together greater things than we can ask for or imagine.

As I think about these verses and the opportunity to preach this weekend, I am wondering how the season of Advent can serve to reorient our lives to our baptismal promises? How can our time, in the midst of preparations for Christmas celebrations, help us to see that we are to change, take a step back into the life of Christ? That we are called and challenged to live a particular life of continuous returning to the desert and waters of baptism for refreshment in a life's long journey. When we come to this place of Advent, we are to realize our place within the faith family of Abraham and seek not only to be reconciled with our Jesus but also to be reconciled with the right living which is to give to the poor, and to aid those who go without.

I recently read this Christmas rant: http://expatminister.org/2009/12/04/something-i-have-to-get-off-my-chest/. What was particularly stunning were these figures. Americans will spend some $450 billion to celebrate Christmas. In comparison, it would only take $10 billion to ensure clean water for every human being in the world, and $13 billion to keep folks from going hungry. Certainly these are numbers to make one pause in the face of Zaccheaus who gives away half of what he possesses to the poor. What if we lived out the change and right living John the Baptist offers us not only at Christmas but throughout the year?

My Statement on Recent Election in Los Angeles

The recent election in the Diocese of Los Angeles of a partnered lesbian as bishop suffragan raises the questions of covenant and communion within The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Communion once again. Leadership in the Diocese of Texas has consistently adhered to the request for gracious restraint and a moratorium put forth in the Windsor Report and supports the ongoing process of a Covenant within the global Communion and will continue to do so.

The Diocese of Los Angeles and the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool, elected on December 5, must now follow a consent process. The implications of this vote are far reaching and it remains to be seen if more than half of TEC’s 109 diocesan standing committees and more than half of the diocesan bishops will approve her election. It may take up to four months for the consent process to unfold.

The Windsor Report, written following the election and consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, NH in 2003, requested a moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops and in 2006, The Episcopal Church agreed to refrain from electing additional actively gay bishops. This summer, the Church’s General Convention acknowledged there is great diversity of opinion within the Church on the issue of sexuality, marriage and ordination.

The Diocese of Texas is a diverse diocese and opinions among our clergy and our laity vary on the issue of sexuality. We have many gay and lesbian members across the diocese and week after week they join with the rest of our Church as faithful communicants to worship and work on behalf of Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the blessing of diverse opinions on scripture and sexuality, while as a whole the Diocese of Texas has continued and continues to offer a clear response to the wider Communion through a traditional teaching on marriage and ordination.

Even so, the Diocese of Texas has always supported both the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process which seeks to realize a Communion where everyone across the globe has a voice in the common life of the Church. We cannot isolate ourselves by listening only to the voices of any one province, or even the voices of any one diocese within our province. In the Diocese of Texas we are interested in our relationships locally and abroad, believing we are stronger when we listen to and partner with diverse cultures around the world.

As bishop of the Diocese of Texas I will continue to honor the request of my brother and sister bishops across our province and the Communion, and the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and will not consent to the Rev. Glasspool’s election.

While I will not vote to consent to this election, I am unified with others throughout the Anglican Communion around the issues of safeguarding human rights everywhere. We reject the pending Ugandan legislation that would introduce the death penalty for people who violate portions of that country's anti-homosexuality laws. I believe that “efforts to criminalize homosexual behavior are incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (General Convention 2006, Resolution D005). This has been the position of Anglican bodies, including several Lambeth Conferences. The Primates’ Meeting noted that, as Anglicans, “we assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship” (Primates’ Communiqué, Dromantine, 2005). Recently, our Presiding Bishop has spoken out and our Archbishop has been meeting intensively with the leaders of Uganda to ensure the dignity of every human being is honored as a creature of God.

2nd Sunday in Advent, Wilderness Wonderings

A Thought or Two For the Second Sunday in Advent (Luke 3:1-6)


The opening words of our Gospel for Sunday give us on the one hand the authority of this world (vs 1: "Fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius") and on the other hand a new authority (vs 2: "the word of God came"). This new authority is one inaugurated in very real time and is measured by grace and not power. It is a time of renewed salvation history deeply linked to the past and intimately connected with readers, and our own, present.

Who cannot relate to the feeling of "wilderness." While we might know of John's possible connection to Qumran and other wilderness communities it is not this that connects us but rather the feeling of being followers of Jesus in a strange land with competing stories about the nature and values of culture. We relate to the ancient Hebrews in Israel, we relate to the occupied Israelites of Jesus' own time. We relate because we too struggle with a captivity which is hallmarked by consumerism and debt and recession; not to mention the stress and strains of family and relationships. The world is a wild place and we find our home in it as foreigners in a strange land, longing for the Kingdom of God present, and not yet fully realized. We long in that wilderness to hear the voice crying out.

We as Christians understand John the Baptist as the agent to fulfill the ancient prophesies: Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1; 4:5 (“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes”).

Baptism we are shown in Luke's Gospel is at once seen as the ancient and present way of deliverance and entrance into the kingdom of grace with a prophet king named Jesus. To the Jews of the time and to Luke's reader John is proclaiming and acting out a preparation for the coming of Jesus. It s a proclamation being made to the whole world a proclamation we know as the Gospel.

I will be thinking this week of how the time and the season of Advent offer us a time to connect with the real world wilderness of the people in and outside of our congregations. How do we as people already baptized, already living within a kingdom without walls, take a Gospel of grace into the world around us, proclaiming Jesus and proclaiming the opportunity of hope and joy and transformation that awaits those who choose to follow him and work under his Lordship? What are the real world differences we as Christians can make?

Last night a friend reminded me of Jackson Browne's song Rebel Jesus. Find it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxDwy8JkFFI&feature=fvw That has me thinking of the challenge we face. It has me thinking of how the mission field can really challenge us to be better at our work as a church.

As Mary pondered these things, the season of Advent is a season of pondering. So, I am pondering and hope you will join me in that corporate work of prayer, discernment, preparation, and pondering.

The Deep Waiting of Advent

"By celebrating through the structure of the Church we actually are given the forms we need to become whole and we are given the formulas to make whole every human experience…Advent begins the Church year. And the first mystery we are asked to engage in is waiting. The Church cycle flows into the natural rhythm of the season and we enter the dormant, waiting time of winter. Nature seems asleep. The season is dark, and all that is becoming is hidden from our sight. The ancient combination of natural phenomenon with religious symbolism is still operational in our feast of Christmas. Nature and mystery join and invite us to recognize our hopeful longing for the return of the sun and the birth of the word made flesh."

Gerturd Mueller Nelson from To Dance With God

Advent is about a deep waiting on the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

When I was little my grandmother, "Honey," told me stories about growing up. Today I tell those stories to my children. One of the stories she told me was about how her parents made her wait for Christmas. Her family's tradition was to go to services on Christmas eve, then get her to sleep, decorate, so that she awoke on Christmas day to a transformed home. As a little boy I could not imagine the excruciating pain of waiting for Christmas. My parents did not put up the tree until after the last Sunday in Advent. And I remember the long wait to see the greening of the church. We lit Advent candles in my home and we said special advent prayers together at dinner.



There are many pressures on us that cause us to secularize our lives. Empty nesters no longer have children of fight over blowing out the candles and soon the advent season is missed all together. Widows and widowers in patterns of regularity feel awkward about saying prayers or lighting an advent wreath alone. Schedules for families with children in sports and activities, complicated by homework, and subtly worn away by the fact that Christmas decorations were up before Halloween mix together to create a sense that we must hurry to Christmas, no stopping or waiting allowed. To be sure the world naturally pulls at us, and pulls us away from traditions.



Yet how much comfort might a quiet house discover in the warmth of candles lit between two people? What light and joy can be brought to prayers offered before a meal alone, with the opportunity to discover in the quiet waiting that God is present? If after school busy-ness gave way to a meal with children taking turn reading and praying and lighting candles, what better way to center a family who is seeking centering in God?



I encourage you to join me and my family this Advent in a holy and deep waiting. Let us each night do what Episcopalians and Anglicans all over the world are doing, waiting, pondering, wondering. Gather with family, with friends, alone, or with strangers in ways that offer the discovery and embrace of our Lord's mysterious birth.



For it is in our waiting, together, that we discover that Jesus is born for us. It is also in the waiting that we discover we are born for one another and as a gift for one another.



Some resources:



Read Advent Story: Laura Jean Hopes For Christmas here:

http://www.theadventuresoflaurajean.blogspot.com/



Lists of everything Advent:

http://anglicansonline.org/special/advent.html



Advent wreath making

http://thehomespunheart.blogspot.com/2009/11/handcrafted-christmas-homespun-advent.html

http://www.craftideas.info/html/advent.html



Advent Calendar making

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/baby-sock-advent-calendarAdvent

http://www.marthastewart.com/good-thing/greeting-card-advent-calendar

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/m-is-for-matchbox-advent-calendar





Online Advent Blogs - Promising

http://theadventdoor.com/

http://www.marshill.org/adventblog/

http://advent.wordpress.com/

http://www.cartoonchurch.com/advent/

Advent Books

Advent And Christmas Wisdom From Henri J.m. Nouwen: Daily Scripture And Prayers Together With Nouwen's Own Words (Paperback)

Watch For The Light: Readings For Advent And Christmas (Paperback)



Advent Podcasts

http://www.episcopalcampusministry.org/podcast.htm

Prayers for Neighbors in Killeen and at Fort Hood

Prayers from around the Diocese for our friends and loved ones in Killeen.




Janet Gilmore commented on your status: "my prayers are with the survivors, those that will pray with them, and those who have lost men and women who have served in the military and how this will resurrect old grief. may God's healing and abundant presence give moments of peace to bodies, minds and spirits."



Kendall Wallin commented on your status: "Prayers for all victims, family, friends, and surrounding communities. Was hoping to see any expression of compassion from official Episcopal Church FB page by now, though. Maybe, Bishop Andy, you could pass that on."



James Tengatenga commented on your status:



"Amen and amen to all the prayers and support for all at Ft Hood. I add my prayers to all of you who have to minister to them."



Martha Frances commented on your status:



"Been praying for them ever since I heard the first news report."



Ann Marie Holliday commented on your status:



"I am a former member of St. Christopher's and send my prayers to Father Paul and his congregation as well as the many friends I have in Killeen and at Ft. Hood. Please let them know we love them!"



Jerry Lyle commented on your status:



"With Veteran's Day coming shortly, this tragedy will have a new meaning."



Jane posted something on your Wall and wrote:



"To our friends at St. Christopher's - you can not imagine how many people are sending love and prayers your way. May you feel the spirit as you minister to those in need and work through this horrific experience. Jane Mumey (St. Francis, Houston)"



Nancy Denmark commented on your status:



"loving and praying them through it"



Good Shepherd commented on your status:



"We're sending our prayers and love from Good Shepherd, Friendswood."



Jeff posted something on your Wall and wrote:



"Rich & Paul - amazing that we were together at Clericus in Cop Cove, just a few miles away from Ft. Hood, while the tragedy was unfolding. Peace & prayers. Jeff"





Fr. Reid: Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints,

where sorrow and pain are no more,

neither sighing, but life everlasting.



Tamara Clothier commented on your status:

"Gracious Father, be with all those suffering. Give them solace as well as strength today and the days to come. Keep refreshed those who are giving of themselves to those who are hurting and let them not be overwhelmed. In your name I humbly ask. Amen. "

Jason Haddox commented on your status:

"Prayers from New Jersey as well."

Roberta Vallantyne commented on your status:

"Oh Lord, help us be strong. Give us the words to say. Remind us be to like Jesus in all that we do when helping others. Comfort those who are serving the people in this time and surround all the families and friends with your arms."

Lynda Nelson commented on your status:

"Praying for all of those families and friends who are affected by this meaningless tragedy. Our hearts go out to them. May God bless all those who are dedicated to helping them in every way. Let us find it in our hearts to forgive, also."

Add to the prayers by adding a comment: