SETTING THE CONTEXT

Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet during a very painful time in Israel’s history. The nation had turned away from God. They were under attack from Babylon. Jerusalem would be destroyed and large groups of people would be carried off to Babylon to live in captivity and exile. It was a time of fear, despair, and tragedy. It was a time when the relationship between God and the people of God has been shattered by the people’s unfaithfulness and unrighteousness. In the midst of this Jeremiah shares God message of hope, the promise of restoration.

READ Jeremiah 33:14-16

Almost 600 years later another prophet speaks the word of God. John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, prepares the way for Jesus to begin his public ministry. Remember that the word repentance means to have a change of heart or a change of direction.

THE SERMON

“A King is coming, but he is not the kind of king that people thought was coming. This King had no army, no great house, and no riches. This King was a baby who was born in a barn. The King who was coming is still coming. This is full of mystery. You know, a mystery is hard to enter sometimes. That is why this time of Advent is so important. Sometimes people can walk right through a mystery and not even know it is there. This time of year you will see people hurrying in the malls buying things and doing this and that, but they may miss the Mystery. Maybe they don’t know how to get ready or maybe they just forgot. The Church learned a long time ago that people need a way to get ready to enter or even come close to a mystery like Christmas.”^[i] This is part of the story the children are hearing in Godly Play this morning. Advent, which begins today, is the four week time of preparation to get ready for Christmas. When I talk about getting ready, I’m not talking about getting decorations out or making cookies or madly buying gifts, even though those are important. Advent involves other kinds of preparation. Every year the children in Godly Play journey to Bethlehem during Advent and this year we are going to join them on that journey. Each week a different group of characters lead the way. This week the Prophets lead the way, next week it will be the Holy Family. On the third week the Shepherds will lead the way and on the fourth week the Wisemen will lead the way until we reach the foot of the manger on Christmas Eve night.

This week the prophets point the way. A prophet is a person called by God to summon the people back into right relationship with God. They are rarely popular; in fact many are dismissed as overly negative at best or killed at worst. Sometimes they do very strange things like naming their children “God sows”, “Not pitied” and “Not my people.”^[ii] Some of them see visions, but they are not fortunetellers. They don’t predict the future unless it is just seeing where the nation is headed because of the people’s current behavior. There are true and false prophets so one has to be careful. True prophets have a preoccupation with justice and righteousness because they have a powerful awareness of the impact of injustice. The prophet Ezekiel railed against those in power using the image of sheep in one of my favorite chapters of Scripture. The powerful sheep tread down the grass after eating their fill so the weaker sheep are left hungry and they foul the water after they drink so the weaker sheep are left with unhealthy water to drink.^[iii] He poetically described the impact of the insensitive elite. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel says, most of us agree “that justice is a good thing, a fine goal, even a supreme ideal. What is lacking is a sense of the monstrosity of injustice.”^[iv] The prophets are attuned to that monstrosity and seek to bring it to our attention. The wages of sin are indeed death to both the individual and to the community. God calls the prophets to share God’s word of condemnation and of hope all in an effort to get the people to turn away from their sin back to God. Both Jeremiah and John the Baptizer did this centuries apart. Both prophets are calling the people to change.

It continues to puzzle me that the church has such a reputation of resistance to change. Resistance sometimes comes to even the smallest changes like where certain items are placed or even who sits in what pew. As pastors the common advice is “try not to change anything during your first year so you don’t make too many people mad.” I know that we as humans are resistant to change by nature but folks John the Baptist tells us the beginning of the gospel is change. We ought to be talking about change, practicing change, encouraging change. I’m not talking about making changes just for the sake of being different. I’m talking about repentance, changes of heart and direction to realign ourselves with God’s will for us and our world.

People came out to John to be baptized, but I can’t imagine they expected the reception they got. The Message Bible puts is this way, “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snake skins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin.” ^[v] Faking repentance won’t cut it. Going through the motions won’t cut it. It has to be real change reflected in our character, in how we behave, in who we are and what we do. The examples John gave were very concrete. In each case, the person was told to act with social responsibility in their own setting whether it was through generosity and the sharing of resources, through honesty or the right use of power.

How do the prophets point us to Bethlehem? They tell us that the coming King will demand change from us. He will demand social responsibility, justice and righteousness. This king who was born in a barn, this king who became a refugee is going to turn things upside down. He is going to turn us upside down, if we let him. If we cooperate with him and allow him to use us, he will turn the world upside down or maybe we should say he’ll turn the world right side up! And I think all of us can agree that each of us needs some turning and our world certainly needs some turning aright. This week I invite you to let the prophets lead you as you look inward and as you look outward, where do you and we need to repent? “Change our hearts, O God; make them ever true. Change our hearts O God may we be like you.” ^[vi]
Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on December 3, 2006.