Presence

Wait, wait, wait! Isn’t this Gaudete Sunday? Isn’t this the joy celebration, the pink or rose-colored candle, the bit of brightness in the dark of the blue or the purple? Why are we still hearing John the Baptist? Why does our Gospel reading for this week start with “You brood of vipers”?! Something is seriously out of sync here. To which the only appropriate response is yes. Something is seriously out of sync. Something has gone awry. Something is gone askew on the treadle (and only serious Monty Python fans will recognize that declaration and then be poised to not expect —because nobody expects—the Spanish Inquisition!) … Forgive me.

Where was I? Yes, something has gone wrong, that is the message of Advent. Well, ok, it is the prelude to Advent. Something has gone wrong, but there is hope. Something has gone wrong, but a remedy exists. Something has gone wrong, but you are not far from the kingdom, or the kin-dom, or both! Here is where the joy resides, not in the denial of the brokenness, but that brokenness is not the last word. It is not the defining word. Joy resides in the promise of redemption.

After John excoriates his listeners (perhaps not the best technique for preachers to emulate), the response is surprising. Instead of pushing back or pouting or writing him off as out of touch with reality, they ask an important question – “What then should we do?” The word sun (pronounced soon) in Greek here is important. Greek scholars tell us that this word is a conjunction and is inferential – which means that it is a word that indicates a logical transition. It’s like therefore (though it doesn’t appear at the beginning of the sentence), in that sense. The point here is that his listeners agreed with John, at least to a degree. All that stuff about axes and ancestors, all that about wrath and fruits, they bought into that. They saw, or perhaps felt the truth of that. So now what, John? That’s what they were asking. When then should we do? Given all of that, all that fearsome truth, what should we do.

How do we make sure we get on the right side of history? Is that too big a question? Well, it is, and it isn’t. John’s answer to their plea seems to be somewhat mundane; maybe too simple. Maybe we’d take it more seriously if he had said, “Make the world a better place.” Or “share the gospel.” Or “work for justice.” Or … Maybe the problem is we have made things too difficult, or at least too vague. We want to give space for people to respond in their own creative and dynamic ways, which is great. But sometimes people need something they can start with; some small first step; something doable yet challenging at the same time. “Give away a cloak,” says John,” treat your clients fairly; don’t use your power to your own advantage; don’t lie; don’t grumble.” Simple and yet world-changing things.

Really? World-changing? Yeah. Because there is something underneath all these simple instructions about how we prepare for the coming Messiah. There is an invitation at the root of the call to beware. And that invitation is to be present. John is telling his hearers, shaken by the rhetoric of the wild man from the desert, to be fully present. He is telling those who are doing ok to pay attention to those who aren’t. He’s telling those who are collecting taxes to see those from whom they collect as people with stories and lives and relationships and not simply sheep to be fleeced. He is telling the soldiers, the wielders of physical power, to acknowledge that those weaker and more vulnerable have a place in their world too. He is asking those with power to see others as people and not as victims. That is a radical reorienting of the world, to be honest. But it had a small start, an individual start that leads to a corporate or a relational start.

That’s what Isaiah’s song is all about in our text for this week. There is this designed move from the individual to the corporate; from the one who with joy draws water from the wells of salvation to telling the whole world, inviting the whole world to join in praise for the one who comes. Joy is contagious. Joy is meant to be shared. To fully experience joy, there needs to be a relationship, a community, a world that can be called to share in the glory of joy. It is a call to be present.

Advent is not a secret that we can keep to ourselves. It is an announcement that we – together – live in a way that issues an invitation, a call a new way of living in the world, a new way of being. And it begins with being present to and with one another.

Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, served churches in Indiana and Arkansas and the British Methodist Church. His PhD is from University of Edinburgh in preaching and media. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than 20 years.