15th December 2024 10.30am – 3rd Sunday of Advent – Eucharist

The Readings

Philippians 4.4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Luke 3.7-18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin 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 axe 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.’

And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Scripture Quotations are from: New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Sermon
Prepared by Kath, Reader at St Mary's.

The central character of our reading from Luke’s Gospel this morning is John the Baptist, a man of no frills whatsoever and also, as many will know from his story, not one for mincing his words. But even for him, this speech in our passage is very direct and uncompromising. Presumably it came as something of a shock to some of those who had come to him for baptism. He has seen right through to their motives for coming, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And when he says to them “Do not begin to say to yourselves, “we have Abraham as our ancestor”, he doesn’t just puncture any notion of entitlement they may have had to be baptised, because of their ancestral connections, he blasts it away completely. This is pretty strong stuff and no doubt some of them would have been affronted, maybe humiliated to have been spoken to in this way, especially in front of others.

The passage makes it clear that people from all walks of life had come to John. I wonder, what were they expecting? Why had they come? Was it because so many others were coming; a sort of fear of missing out? Or was it a desire to be seen as part of this new wave of religious expression? Was it even a sort of divine insurance policy, just in case there was anything to it? People may have had all sorts of motivations, as they do nowadays. However, I’m sure at least some of them were actually taking to heart what John was saying and doing. Maybe this was the first time some of them, like tax collectors and soldiers; who tended to be looked down on, saw that they too could be included in this opportunity for salvation and that there could indeed be a way for them to redeem themselves in the eyes of God and society. They were recognising that the ways they had been behaving were wrong and asking “what then should we do?” Again John is very direct in his answers, share what you have, don’t take more than what is due to you because you can get away with it, don’t abuse your power over others.

I’m sure at that time, many people felt powerless to change the status quo in a very unequal, frightening and violent society. Probably many of them behaved selfishly or unethically in order to look after their own interests or just to survive, even if it meant treading on others in the same or worse circumstances. An “every man for himself “ type of attitude and in some ways this is understandable. Roman dominated society was not exactly famous for fairness, benevolence or compassion. Hopefully, in our own times and for most people, things are not nearly as bad but there are parts of the world where they are. The liberation of Syria from the Asaad regime has brought to light some truly horrific treatment of people, including children, who had fallen foul of those in power. We have seen such horror before in the not too distant past and we know it is still going on, usually out of sight which sadly means it is too often out of mind.

Certainly in the prayers I have written for our services here in church over the last few months, if not longer, I have made reference to our world being increasingly troubled. We see things going badly wrong, to put it mildly, in many places. I don’t want to go into a long, depressing list of these situations because we’re probably all too well aware of them. They dominate the news every day. Although it’s probably “good “, for want of a better word, to be aware of what is going on, the problem with this onslaught of global dysfunction and the resulting pain and misery is that it can leave us feeling helpless. What can little old I do when people who are far more powerful and influential than I am, can’t or don’t do anything to change things, or worse still, some of them actively promote or engineer bad situations because it suits their purposes to do so. We can end up feeling just like the people of John’s time and sadly some of us will behave as some of them did by looking after our own interests at the expense of others. But it wasn’t right then and it isn’t right now!

So how do we change things? In John’s time maybe things were simpler in many ways although not necessarily easier but the principles he propounded still stand. As individuals and societies we need to be more willing to share, even if it means we have less. We shouldn’t extort or take more than our share just because we can. We shouldn’t cheat others out of what is rightfully theirs by abusing our power and advantage. Behaving badly and selfishly really does range from individuals to big corporations and even to nations. Trying to live by good principles and encouraging others to do so can be hard when all too often this bad behaviour is applauded and rewarded. But this is undermining and destroying so much on every level of life.

I go back to my question, “ how do WE change things?” Do my little efforts make a difference? The answer is, yes they do! It might not seem like much at the time but in the long run and collectively we can and do make a difference and in seemingly impossible situations. From time to time we do see major steps forward. Dictators and tyrants do sometimes get overthrown and people are liberated, corporate greed and malpractice does sometimes get brought to light and stopped, individuals and organisations who abuse their power to hurt and exploit others in all sorts of ways do sometimes get found out and sometimes they are even punished. These changes usually start when someone says “this is wrong and I’m going to do whatever I can about it “. If we stop to think about it we have countless examples of courageous people who have shown us the way: Florence Nightingale made a difference, Nelson Mandela made a difference, Gretta Thunberg is making a difference, Alan Bates is making a difference. How we live our lives, at home, at work, in our society, and how we bring up our young people makes a difference, for good or ill. Which of these paths we choose is up to us.

Advent is a time to make space for reflection on life and faith and it’s a time for daring to hope that the world can be a better place for all if we follow the teachings and values Jesus came among us to share.
Lord please give us the insight and wisdom to take those teachings and values to heart and to do our very best to live by them.
Amen.

St Marys Walkley

The Church on the Road: inclusive, eucharistic, a safe place to be with God

15th December 2024 10.30am – 3rd Sunday of Advent – Eucharist