A Meditation on Matthew 3 (Advent 1)
Sunday, November 27, 2022
1.
He’s that crazy cousin you invite for Thanksgiving every year. If you’re lucky he wears that wacky red and green Christmas sweater he likes; but it’s a better bet he shows up with that camel’s hair wrap-around and a wide leather belt around his waist. John the Baptist doesn’t disappoint. And every year you know he’s the one who’ll bring the wildest, weirdest side dish. No sweet potato casseroles for John the Baptist. No pumpkin pies. O no. Just a side of fried up locusts and wild honey for dipping.
And you can be sure, when it comes time to give thanks, when it comes time to go round the table and everybody’s got something kind and sweet and (well) thankful to say—you can be sure John the Baptist will use his airtime to break all the rules. “PRE-PARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD! PRE-PARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD!”
2.
“Repent!” There’s the word you wanted to hear this morning. “Repent!” But you know, it doesn’t have to be a nasty, sneering, pompous preacher word. “Repent!” John’s saying if the Kin-dom of Heaven is already here, if the Kin-dom of Heaven is among us right now, if the Kin-dom of Heaven is in our midst, in our neighborhoods, homes and churches, well, then it might to timely for us to turn toward it. To watch for it. To tune our hearts to its music and possibility and promise. And that, my friends, is what Advent’s all about: tuning our hearts to God’s love song, turning our lives to God’s promise in our midst.
The Hebrew word for repentance is a lovely word in fact: “TESHUVAH.” You might say that with me: “TESHUVAH.” It’s not a threat, not at all. In fact, “TESHUVAH” conveys something of an intention to return, an intention to return home. Think: the Prodigal Son (for example) who’s lost, lost, lost; lost in a thousand ways. And he’s without a sense of direction, without hope in a world that seems mean and lonely. And he’s made some bad decisions. But the Prodigal Son finds a prayer—even in his weary, weary heart; he finds deep within this intention to return home, this sense that someone’s waiting for him there. At home. And that’s “TESHUVAH.” That turning, turning toward home. That’s the moment John’s singing into existence for all of us, on his riverbank, in that wilderness. “PRE-PARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD! PRE-PARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD!”
The radical affirmation here—tucked away in John’s wild manner and unrelenting spirit—is that the Kin-dom of Heaven is already here, the Kin-dom of Heaven is among us right now. And somehow, somehow—that’s our calling, our vocation, your mission and mine. To live in that Kin-dom here and now. To welcome that Kin-dom into the world here and now. To embrace it in our relationships, in our choices, in our music, in our mission. The Kin-dom of Heaven is already here. The Kin-dom of Heaven is among us right now.
But how are we to believe that? And how are we to receive it? In a world where hate moves young men to shoot up nightclubs? In a world where violence stokes alienation and distrust and drives us from any possibility of union and unity? What does it mean to affirm, to celebrate, to lean into the belief that the Kin-dom of Heaven is among us even now?
Friends, that’s the Advent Question.
Let me offer just a possibility. Just one suggestion from my own experience among you this month. You might remember that, a couple weeks back, I prepared a sermon on communion that I was unable to offer here. There was just so much going on that morning, so much wonderful music and energy and activity, that our hour together ran full. If you were here that Sunday, you remember. There’s was drumming and dancing, and a community in motion and all kinds of prayer. So I pocketed my sermon, left it unsaid, and filed it away for later.
Well, I decided to pull it off the pile, though, and use it with a couple of our Koinonia groups later in the week. We’ve been exploring the practice of communion, what it means to belong to one another, and how we become—in community—a living sacrament of God’s presence in the world. So I ran off a bunch of copies and passed it around to a Thursday morning group. And we read three paragraphs, three of my own, out loud.
The three readers that morning—the three who jumped at the opportunity to read my sermon on communion aloud—were Ernie (my dear friend from Cameroon), and Eunice and Liang (my new friends from China). The three of them, who’ve come all this way, through so many trials and tests, to worship with you and me in Durham. I won’t speak for them, of course, but what they brought to that conversation about community that Thursday was a profound sense of commitment. And an even more moving spirit of gratitude.
These three friends feel how important church is—they feel it in their bones, in their souls, in the deepest desires of their hearts. You know what I mean? I want the rest of us to feel it with them. Church isn’t a nice fit on a Sunday—not for Ernie, not for Eunice, and not for Liang either. Church is the Body of Christ, you are the Body of Christ, and the Kin-dom of Heaven on earth. The Kin-dom of Heaven on earth. This is the circle where these three friends can imagine being home again. This is the circle where they can anticipate being safe and whole again. With all of you. With their brothers, sisters, siblings in Christ.
And as they read my modest words on communion, Ernie and then Eunice and then Liang reminded me what I’d meant to say. What I’d been trying (so imperfectly) to say. That the Kin-dom of Heaven is indeed among us. That the Kin-dom of Heaven is in our hands, and in our hearts, and in our neighbor’s eyes and dreams. I have to tell you that in those few minutes, listening to my friends reading my once unspoken words, I was struck by the power of Love and the full meaning of the Gospel. For just a moment. In their presence, in their voices. Ernie and Eunice and Liang. You see, they’re not worshipping with us and leaning on us because they sense that God might come through, or that God might be Loving and Kind, or that God’s Kin-dom might prevail. They’re among us because they believe, they trust, they know that the Kin-dom of Heaven is among us right now. In our hands and hearts. In our friendship and strength. In our devotion and prayer.
Look in Ernie’s eyes this morning, or Eunice’s or Liang’s. And tell me you don’t see it. Tell me you don’t see the Kin-dom of Heaven. It’s clear as day to me.
So I’ve got to confess that there are days when I have my doubts. There are days when the brokenness around me is heartbreaking, and there are days when the violence among us is almost impossible to bear. This week, to be honest, was like that for me. But just the same, I will return to that Thursday Koinonia conversation, and I will return to it often in the coming days and years. Ernie reading my sermon, Eunice and Liang too. And I will remember that there is a Kin-dom of Heaven that comes close, there is a communion of spirits that gathers me in, there is this Body of Christ that rises even through the pain to offer friendship and hope. To all of us. I think John the Baptist is right. “The Kin-dom of Heaven has come near.” If we have eyes to see. If we lean in close.
4.
So—all of this brings us back to this business of locusts and wild honey. You knew that it would. Locusts and wild honey. John invites us out into his wilderness this First Sunday in Advent—where he bathes in the river and dances with foxes every morning, and sings to the stars at night. He’s a wilderness-kind-of-guy, John is. And in the Biblical tradition that means something. The wilderness is the place God’s people go for liberation and renewal. The wilderness is the place God’s people go to shed the old skins of empire and try on the new ways of grace and radical trust. That’s the great Exodus story, the story that launches the tradition of neighborliness, communion and grace. The wilderness is the place we go to turn our lives around, to face the light again, to embrace the new thing God is doing in our hearts and churches.
And in the wilderness, of course, you eat what you find, what you gather, what the wilderness offers up. Locusts and honey.
Here’s how language matters, vocabulary matters. Kingdoms (that’s “kingdom” with a ‘g’) operate out of castles; they’re administered out of fortresses; they’re well defended and protected. Kin-doms—and that’s the Gospel notion this morning: kin-doms take shape in the wilderness, in the space where grace moves, in the undefended areas where community forms between us. The Kin-dom of Heaven is the space between you and me—as we’re grieving over all this violence, all these guns, all this hatred in the world. And then it’s the space we create together for resistance, and for transformation, and for peace. The Kin-dom of Heaven is the space between you and me—as we’re dreaming up new ways to offer sanctuary to friends seeking shelter and safety. The Kin-dom is the space between us—as we’re singing songs of God’s abundance, and God’s forgiveness, and God’s grace.
And all of that—all of that kin-dom stuff happens in a wilderness of sorts, in a new world where we trust God for everything we need, for every breath, for every meal, for every turning of the heart. John the Baptist takes us way out there, into that same wilderness, to leave behind the familiar patterns, to let go of the predictable ways, to free ourselves once again of the kingdom habits that divide us and make us so fearful of one another. John takes out into that wilderness to plant seeds of faith and hope, like so many seeds in that wild and wonderful wilderness. And this is where Advent begins. Planting seeds, our dreams and intentions, in the darkness. Until the ground warms again, and the Light rises again. Until Bethlehem’s child cries out again. And we follow him home.
