16th December
2012 : Advent 3 : Year C
8:00am and 9:30am Kalamunda
Zephaniah 3:14-20 : Song of
Isaiah : Philippians 4:4-7 : Luke 3:7-18
The third Sunday of Advent. It’s often seen as a bit
of a “resting place” after the first couple of soul-searching Sundays, and in
some parts of the tradition a rose (read “pink”) candle is lit as part of the
Advent wreath liturgy. Some communities of faith even sport rose vestments.
The readings reflect this change of pace. Suddenly
we’re all joy and celebration – and that’s not a problem, except for the desire
to turn Advent into what some liturgists call a “mini Lent”. This Sunday, in
that way of thinking, is the vague equivalent of Lent’s Laudate Sunday, when
the faithful have a break from the spiritual self-flagellation of the previous
weeks.
But Advent is not a mini Lent; and what we engage
today is not so much a “breather” from the demands of the previous Sundays but
a recognition that the Awaited and Anticipated are approaching quickly now.
It’s a kind of rehearsal for the letting-go of Christmass, the wholehearted
celebration of Jesus’ birth.
Even so, it’s wise to ask what we are celebrating here
on this third Sunday because the cause of the joy is by no means as clear as a
rather shallow and cursory glance might indicate.
For instance, to say that we’re getting on the joy
because we have a whiff of the so-called “reason for the season” is somewhat
facile, though perhaps not entirely so. Such a view buys a controlling interest
in the hoary conceit of cause-and-affect: celebrate Jesus’ birth, sing upbeat
carols and hymns, exchange gifts and greetings.
Surely – and we should add if only because the Living God is involved in this – the presence
of prophets is alone enough to indicate that we are living through something
far more profound that cause-and-effect – something that actually involves transformation and not just the
puppet-on-a-string mentality that cause-and-effect thinking implies.
In other words, what is happening is change. The cause-and-effect mindset
requires nothing more than blind, mute subservience to whatever wind of
doctrine, as it were, happens to blow us along said doctrine’s predefined
pathway.
Transformation, on the other hand, demands the change
implicit in turning back to the Living God. That’s what God, through the
prophets and through Jesus, calls us to do. Transformation is what God does in
loving, gracious response to our return.
The joy that our readings speak of, therefore, is the
recognition of God’s “breaking in” to our damaged and damaging human world and
making inroads into the terrorising perversion of power that humankind
practises. It’s the joy born of knowing that our world of horror and injustice,
oppression and marginalisation is being shown not simply a better way but the
only good way of being.
Therefore the prophet Zephaniah records God’s
forthright promises:
I will deal with
all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the
outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.
This is where and how God acts: in presence with and
concern for the weakest and most impoverished among us.
And make no mistake – this is not some namby-pamby, sentimentalist, socialist/communist/do-gooder
rubbish. This is the Living God’s
concern, articulated again and again in the Hebrew scriptures, and put
poignantly and uncompromisingly into practice in the person and work of Jesus
of Nazareth.
We ignore this at our peril.
When John the baptiser jeers at the mob on Jordon’s
banks coming for baptism thinking, perhaps, that they will just be going
through the motions, participating bodily in another ritual, but one that will
formalise whatever their conception of salvation might be, he’s ironically
describing the world situation that misuses and perverts power. “You brood of
vipers!” says he. Such an evocative phrase! And so accurate an image of the
repulsive lust for power that finds greater traction in game-playing, and
prodding and poking the rival than in using the same energy to do God’s will.
How great would the Church or any parish or
worshipping community be if its energies came to bear, in concert, on God’s
will, on seeking the oppressed, and being kind, loving, compassionate and
forgiving towards the people on the edge!
But the image at the conclusion of the passage is also
worth exploring. I’ll reproduce my research at this point because it’s clear
and to-the-point, and any paraphrase is likely to do the insight damage and
disservice. It comes from Sarah Dylan Bauer’s blog, Sarah Laughed. She is referring to the passage that reads: his winnowing fork is in his hand…
A winnowing fork is used to separate the wheat from
the chaff. A winnowing shovel is what you use after someone else has done their
work with the fork and the wheat and chaff are already separated to do what
John says the coming one will do: "gather the wheat into his
granary," while "the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Jesus is only fulfilling half of what John says the mighty one coming would do:
he's baptising with the Holy Spirit and gathering people for healing, good
news, and blessing, but the fire to destroy the wicked is nowhere to be seen.[1]
She goes on to say that later, when John is in prison
and questioning whether Jesus is “the one who is to come”,
John is invited to rejoice at what God is doing in
the world, and to let go of what God is not doing, to release his
preconceptions and take in the reality of God's presence and work.[2]
We are in exactly the same place. We, like John, need
to let go of preconceived notions and open our eyes and ears to the reality of
what God IS ACTUALLY DOING in our community.
As to the fire that will destroy the wicked, which is
“nowhere to be seen” – it is not Jesus who will wield this fire. That’s why the
fire is never apparent. The shocking reality is that it is the twisters and
perverters of power who use the fire to destroy one another. They practise destruction
upon themselves by preferring their power games and needling and jockeying for
position, often over trivial and petty issues, investing them with the kind of
importance one might accord to worshipping the Living God or sitting down next
to a homeless youth and finding out who they are and what they need.
This kind of behaviour fools very few people. It’s
naked, secular power strutting and parading under the huffing and puffing guise
of self-importance. It’s fire burning up chaff. But it does NOT come from God.
God’s will is for transformation in its broadest
sense. It’s where our search for revelation intersects with God’s yearning for
connection. Is that smoke I can smell? Or is it a barbecue for the hungry and
homeless…?
