Advent II, Year A

Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What do you fear? It's a good question for each of us to pray about, an important spiritual exercise. Our answers will tell us a lot about ourselves, and most of what it says about us is not godly. When we think about the things we fear and about why we fear them, then we find out what's important to us. We might try to reassure ourselves that God would want us to fear the things we fear. But that's a lie.

God wants us to fear nothing. It is true we are all called to be God-fearers. The 'fear of God,' however, is a religious expression that does not mean we should be afraid of God in the same way we might be afraid of terrorism, or a heart-attack, or the stock market tanking, or someone not liking us. The fear of God does not cause us emotional distress about an impending disaster or misfortune. The fear of God is worshiping God with a deep reverence and devotion. The fear of God implies love and trust and obedience and respect. The fear of God is a positive, solemn emotion, not one that causes anxiety.

Studs Terkel said proudly, "I've never met a picket line or a petition drive I didn't like." Politically, I think that Terkel would probably consider himself a definite shade of pink, that is according to the political colors of a couple decades ago, when red denoted communism. During the McCarthy era, Terkel came under quite a bit of scrutiny and pressure, and not only from the FBI. Terkel recalls his producers at NBC ordering him to retreat and to rollover and to claim that he had been "duped by the communists." Terkel asked his bosses, "Suppose the communists came out against cancer. Do we have to come out for cancer?" An NBC official responded, "That is not very funny" - just like an old schoolmarm. ⁽¹⁾

Benjamin Franklin told a fable about a father and a son traveling with their donkey. ⁽²⁾ When the father rode on the donkey and the son walked, they were criticized by those they met. The father should take better care of his son. When the son rode on the donkey, they were criticized. The son should honor his father, and let his father ride the donkey. So they both rode the donkey, and they were criticized for treating the animal poorly. They decided to walk alongside the donkey, and then were mocked for not using their animal. Finally, they decided to push their donkey off a bridge.

Fear allows others to define us and to control our behavior. Fear motivates not only silly behavior and superstition, not only self-damaging behavior, but also cruelty and hatred. When we are fearful, life has fewer joys and pleasures. Fear should have no part of us now, and it will be no part of us when we are perfected as sons of God. For God has no fear. Jesus never acted out of fear, only love. S. John the Evangelist writes, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love." (1 John 4:18) Our lives would be better if we had no fears, if we didn't allow fear to influence our behavior and thoughts. Fear snuffs out faith, hope, and charity. Fear leads us to be motivated by small, narrow concerns, instead of by virtue.

What then do we make of John the Baptist? In many ways, he is a frightening figure. Perhaps, most superficially, his appearance would likely have scared us away. He was destitute, unwashed, living in the wilderness. I'd imagine that he'd seem to us a bit like a unsteady, semi-feral, crazed street person. If I came into a church and saw him sitting in a pew, I wouldn't join him - to my shame!

King Herod feared John the Baptist. John had criticized Herod for marrying his brother's wife, Herodias. John proclaimed that a coming Messiah, the true king of Israel, not the phony Herod, would punish the wicked and that people had to make a decision what side they were on: repent and join the righteous or face judgment and hellfire. Are you on God's side or Herod's? Herod naturally feared that John's message would strengthen his detractors and foment political upheaval. Out of fear, Herod would eventually imprison and murder John.

John's primary message must have struck fear in his listeners' hearts: God's judgment, his wrath is imminent, therefore repent. John issued his warning full of fire and brimstone. God will save the worthy and burn the unworthy with unquenchable fire. We only have to look at John and know that we are unworthy. John ascetic lifestyle contrasts with our addiction to comfort and prosperity. God's concerns are clearly John's top priority. Most of us lack John's intensity and focus in serving God. Most of us are not willing to make the sacrifices John made to serve God. John's very existence suggests our unworthiness.

According to John, the coming judgment of the Messiah will be accompanied with unquenchable fire, but it's likely that John did not fully understand the nature of Jesus' judgment. We usually think of fire as being destructive, as in God raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah, but in scripture the fire of God often has positive effects. Fire represents God's presence as well as his judgment. God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush (Ex 3); he guides Israel through the wilderness with a pillar of fire (Ex 14, Dt 4); fire comes down on Mount Sinai when Moses receives the Ten Commandments (Ex 19); Elijah is taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (2 Kgs 2). God's coming to us in fire suggests that fire does not only represent hell and destruction, but also God's presence with us, a presence that purifies and transforms us.

John the Baptist didn't seem to understand Jesus' way of judgment. The predominant character of Jesus' ministry is not condemning people, not separating the wheat from the chaff. John doesn't get it. When Herod imprisoned John, John had his disciples go and ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah or should we look for another?" Jesus responded, "The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them." (Mt 11:5) That is the ministry of the Messiah. That is Jesus' Good News.

Judgment comes not so much from Jesus as from ourselves. How we respond to the Gospel is the judgment. To a large extent, we decide whether we are the wheat or the chaff. Do we accept Jesus or do we turn away from him? Do we follow his light or cast ourselves into the outer darkness? Clearly many people reject him or ignore him. These people have judged themselves.

But John says that it's not only the irreligious, but also the religious who reject God. John attacked the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the respectable religious establishment: "You brood of vipers." Ancient people believed that vipers hatched inside their mother and ate their way out, killing their mothers - one of the most reprehensible sins. John's contempt for the conventionally religious could not have been greater.

John's anger came from the smugness of the conventionally religious, their sense of having arrived, of having achieved God's approval. They were complacent. They believed that being children of Abraham was enough. John says, "No! God can use these stones to raise up children to Abraham." The same arrogance and complacency happens to Christians. We say, "We have Christ as our Savior." But then we may not build a relationship to him; we may not do our part in nurturing that relationship; we may use our religion to feel superior to other people; we may not grow to bear the fruits of repentance.

The beginning of serious, authentic religious life is repentance. That's the way we prepare God's way into our hearts. If we're honest, most of us would recognize we fear repenting, at least to some degree, but John's call to repent is not a threat - scary as he might seem. John's call is not a threat, but an invitation. It's an invitation to escape the very things that cause us to be fearful. John attacked the Pharisees and Sadducees because they found security in their religious respectability - in other words, in the esteem of other people. That's trusting in human beings, not God. Of course the Pharisees and the Sadducees feared John. They hated him. By exposing the shallowness of their commitment, the shallowness of their faith, he threatened their security. Christians have the same fears as the Pharisees and Sadducees; the same things threaten us.

If we want a richer life, if we want courage, if we want freedom, if we want an authentic, vital trust in God, the first step is repentance. That means recognizing our own sinfulness and powerlessness and renouncing our wrongdoing, but it also means more. It means trusting in God's love and mercy. The word 'repentance' comes from the Greek word 'metanoia,' which means a complete change of heart and mind, a change of attitude, a change of orientation in life.

Jesus says that every tree is known by its own fruit. Our lives reflect whether our faith is real. We know that faith is not merely saying, "Christ is my Savior." It is not merely agreeing with a statement of doctrine. Faith is found in our attitudes and behavior. It's living without fear. It's living with love. John says, "Bear fruit worthy of repentance." Those are the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

In today's gospel, John the Baptist said, "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." The reality is that if our lives don't bear the good fruits of the Spirit, then we've already judged ourselves, and we're already living in misery and hellfire. But the Good News is that we don't have to stay there. We may repent and begin to enter the kingdom of heaven.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Margaret Atwood, 'He Springs Eternal,' The New York Review of Books, 6 November 2003, p. 78.

2. Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, Simon & Schuster (2003), pp. 67-68.