13 Dec 2009
Advent 3 2009Zephaniah 3:14-20; [Isaiah 12:2-6]; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18.Good News?
The gospel is about Good News. But where is the good news in the Baptist's opening cry to the crowds: "You brood of vipers. Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come!" If I were part of this crowd I'd be out of there quick smart! I don't need to have judgement heeped on my little faith. I want to be encouraged, to be told I am doing ok, but then...
Like the church down through the ages, and as we ourselves know about our own faith perhaps, there are oftentimes when the church and our faith needs to be challenged, to be invited into bigger vistas, into broader and more risky responses, into more transformative and creative ways of living in order to truly reflect the gospel life.
Our readings today ask us, first of all, to consider how we as people of faith as a church are responding to Christ. John the Baptist challenges the religion of his day to take a fresh look at their faith tradition and to move out of a respectability, out of accepting the social mores of the time and to stop hankering after the glory days of the past. To claim, as they did that "We have Abraham as our father/ancestor!" will simply carry no weight. For as he says, "God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham." Something more is needed and God will bring the pruning axe to cut out this dead wood of religious practice.
The prophetic challenge has often come to the church through various individuals and groups down through our history. The Reformation of the 16th and 17th Centuries has many parallels with the demands of John the Baptist. The Reformers wanted to shake the church from its complacency, its social acquiescence and respectability, the tendency to sell its soul to the mores of the time and to water down or ignore the radical demands of the love of God. The nineteenth century Catholic revival (the Oxford movement) similarly arose out of a desire to renew a Church of England that, as people like John Keble and the younger Henry Newman argued, had become accommodated to the values of society and the state.
In more recent times, the Charismatic Renewal, the Cursillo Movement might be similar examples whereby Christians have sought to transform the church.
John the Baptist challenges those who simply wanted to "keep the show on the road" as it were. But this is always why we also need to hear prophetic voices like that of the Baptist. We clergy do not need to simply be social functionaries, living as if we were still part of an established church, a church that lived as though it was a chaplain to the powers that be, or people who stroke people in their comforts.
The Danish theologians and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, like the Baptist, challenged the church of the nineteenth century and its role as a guardian of high morals and respectability. The church had, Kierkegaard claimed in his writing, diluted the Christian faith and fundamentally distorted the understanding of God's radical grace and love through the softening of its practice of ministry, turning its clergy into "a highly respectable class" rather than martyrs, disturbing prophets and ministers who make a costly witness to the truth of God in the world.
The modern clergyman of his day, wrote Kiekegaard, was
...a nimble, adroit, lively man, who in pretty language, with the utmost ease, with graceful manners, etc., knows how to introduce a little Christianity, but as easily, as easily as possible. [However,] In the New Testament, Christianity is the profoundest wound that can be inflicted on a man, calculated on a most dreadful scale to collide with everything... (Attack upon Christendom, p.258)
Well the times of the Baptist, the Oxford Movement, or of Kierkegaard are not ours. Nevertheless, the gospel remains a challenge to the way we live out Christian faith. The Baptist's in addressing "the brood of snakes" may be addressing us! Are we hearing God? Are we as church too comfortable? Do we sell out to the more comfortable mores of our own social networks?
Well I suspect we are not perfect. I also think that our response, most likely in these confusing times, will probably be like those who heard John: "What then should we do?"
"What then should we do?"
Having spoken so emphatically to all of us as a "brood of snakes," we might think that John's response to our question, "What then should we do?" might be quite radical, after the mode of Kiekegaard's "dreadful collision" with the social and ecclesial comforts of the day!
But listen again to what John says, for it is quite interesting and I think helpful to us. It is a very practical response, something in reach of us all: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors when they asked him the same question were told: "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." And soldiers were told: "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."
Share what we have. (Don't forget the parish pantry!) Don't use any more than you need to. (Live sustainably!) And be satisfied with your wages. (Be grateful!)
It is this third comment that I want to focus on this morning. Now I believe in enterprise bargaining and our hard won working conditions. So we should not make John's or Jesus' words into binding legalisms or absolutes for all times. They are not meant to be read that way.
But I do want to respond to our question: "What then should we do?"
On Learning to be grateful
This is the other side of the message of today's readings. The good news actually permeates our readings today. From Zephania the message is overwhelmingly: "The Lord is in your midst to save!" And we hear from St Paul, writing from prison no less, encouraging the Church at Philippi with the words: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say Rejoice...The Lord in near!"
How can this be possible? As someone once said, the Christian life is not a 'Hoop' to jump through but a 'Hope' to live in! As Zephaniah makes clear, the promise is that the Lord has not abandoned the people, and is in their very presence.
I have to admit that I do not find "rejoicing always" an attitude I naturally incline toward. It does not mean we should be always joyful, certainly not falsely so.
But developing our faith and ourselves as persons of faith does require an intentional self discipline in order to be, as John tells the soldiers "satisfied." So it is appropriate, within this vision that we are loved by God, to set about putting together what has been called "a rule of life," by shaping our life around small but positive spiritual and personal Christian practices.
I spoke about one last week, if you remember or if you were here. It was a word from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: to give thanks for the ordinary small (and yet really not small) gifts as they come into our lives each week. Did you practice doing this over the past week? Well I am making this kind of Christian practice "a rule of life" for myself. So what might we do with St Paul's invitation to "Rejoice always?"
On being Grateful
Here's another little exercise that I will leave you with for this week. I read about this during the week and it relates to our satisfaction or level of contentment in life.* Contentment and satisfaction in our life is mainly gained by learning to be grateful, by savouring and appreciating the events of our lives and, second, by acts of forgiveness.
This then, is my invitation to you today to journey with me in this "rule of life" that entails a discipline of being grateful. This, I believe will also connect us to the God of grace, and is a good way of responding to the message of John the Baptist and of St Paul today.
Our exercise or "rule of life" is as follows: Each evening or morning, "think back over the previous twenty-four hours and write down, on separate lines, up to five things in your life you are grateful or thankful for. Common examples include "waking up this morning," "wonderful parents," "robust good health," and "the Rolling Stones" (or whatever other artistic inspiration)."
Try it; I think you will see yourself move some way toward "Rejoice always" as St Paul invites us to do. It is common for people who practice gratitude to feel better about life and about themselves after a couple of weeks of doing this kind of exercise each day. Why not make being grateful a part of your daily time of prayer?
Don Saines
13 December 2009
(*Dr Martin Seligman, who works in the area called "Positive Psychology." Check out some of Seligman's books: Learned Optimism, What You Can Change and What you Can't, The Optimistic Child, Authentic Happiness. You can also visit the following web site to read more and undertake some of the tests at www.authentichappiness.org
You can also see an interview with Dr Seligman in the ABC website at: www.abc.net.au/7:30/ and follow prompts that lead to the interview with Martin Seligman)
