Prepare the way

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent (December 4, 2022)

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Second Sunday of Advent, Year A

Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service is available here.

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In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’”

Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume 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. Even 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.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:1-12

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Prepare the way of the Lord: the kingdom of God is coming near to you!

You may know that the church year is broken up to into different seasons. We have Advent, we have Christmas, we have the season of ordinary fun after the Epiphany, the season of Lent and the season of Easter. So the church year is broken up into these different seasons. And one of the things that I find helpful, as a way to think about why we break the time into seasons, is that each season is an invitation to practice a different reality of what it means to follow Jesus. And so in each season, year after year after year, we have a chance to practice something about what it means to be a Christian.

Now, in the season of Advent, it happens to be a time when our days are growing shorter and shorter, right? And so this is a season where partly what we practice is being in darkness...not necessarily seeing. On the first Sunday, we light one candle, and so we practice... And now today, on the second Sunday of Advent, we light another candle. So we practice this movement: beginning in darkness, nurturing the light as it grows, and seeing how the darkness allows us to value and see the light. But knowing there are seasons of our life where we may see the reality of God, the reality of the kingdom of God coming near to us. And there are seasons where we may NOT see. But that nevertheless, always, the kingdom of God is near and always we are to prepare for the way of the Lord.

And that's another thing we do in our Advent practices. In Advent, we think about what does it mean to prepare, and that's part of what John the Baptist is talking about. Now, John the Baptist is giving us the good news that the kingdom of Gpd is coming near and that all of us are to be part of the preparation. Although because of the way he does it, which is a little more like angry preacher on the street corner in New York, or if you've ever ridden the subway and one of those people gets on, who tells you to repent... We don't necessarily receive John's good news as good news at first.

And that's particularly true with the closing of this passage where we have this imagery of wheat being separated from chaff and of the chaff being burned with unquenchable fire. If you're like me, when you read in the Bible about fire, unquenchable fire and things being separated, you might have certain images come into your head. And you might think about punishment. And so I want to offer you a what if, a curiosity. What if John, our prophet who promises us that the kingdom of God is coming here, what if he is speaking, in the season of Advent, as we prepare to welcome God... What if he is speaking not about punishment, but about discernment?

Wheat (right) and chaff (left).

Photo: Archibale Isolation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Discernment—to know one thing from the other—necessitates us to separate. We separate what is nourishing, what is necessary, which is the grain, from what is not necessary from what is indigestible. So if you think about this image of the wheat being separated from the chaff, I wonder if what we're being invited to do in this season of watching for the kingdom and in this season of preparing our hearts, our lives, our communities, for that kingdom to show up in our lives... What if we are invited to separate what is necessary and nourishing in our preparations from what is simply unnecessary?

I don't know about you, but when I think about someone who I love coming to me... if you've ever prepared your home to host a holiday party or to welcome someone who's gonna stay with you for a little while, you know, you prepare the guest bedroom, you cook and you bake. You may have your own practices, of what you do to prepare. And you may have experienced, like I have, what it's like to be so busy in preparation and trying to do all the things that you think must be done in order to prepare for your loved one, that by the time your loved one arrives, you're totally exhausted and you don't have any energy left to delight in their presence.

What if what John the Baptist is saying is: look at that list of things you think you need to do to prepare. Is it possible that some are "wheat," some are necessary, some are nourishing, but some we can set aside because they aren't necessary. And in this season where your to-do list may be getting really long what you think you need, what I think I need, in order to really be ready for Christmas, to welcome Christ, that list may be getting longer and longer.

The invitation this week is to take a time of quiet, to look at the calendar, to look at the to-do list, to look at the long list of what must be done to prepare. And to sit with God and say, show me: which of these are necessary and nourishing for me, and which of these can I set aside? So that as as the kingdom of God draws near, I am awake and truly present to receive it and to receive my beloved Jesus on Christmas Day.