Advent 3

Sermon preached by the Revd Sophie Young

John the Baptist was proclaiming the good news to the people. At times, as we listened to the challenge of the gospel reading a few minutes ago, I think we could have been forgiven for temporarily questioning that as we heard about winnowing forks and axes at the root of trees, but any doubt is cast aside by the final verse which states: he proclaimed the good news to the people.

John came to pave the way for the Lord, to preach the good news and he preached the same message that Jesus would go on to preach: that a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is available to all who want it. That there is a new covenant, a new baptism, a chance to be a new creation….and that means forgiveness, grace and unconditional love for all who follow the one who is coming.

But that was not all that John had to say. John’s message is a call to action. Having received this forgiveness, grace and love we are called to share it, not sit on it. To bear good fruit. Once we have chosen to follow this messiah, we are called to live a life that reflects that choice into the world. And John didn’t mince his words in getting that message across. Addressing those gathered as a ‘brood of vipers’, he reminded his listeners that the Lord comes as judge, as well as saviour.

John is clear with those gathered around him that they need to live out their faith. That they are not defined by their biological descent as Abraham’s children any longer, but by God’s spirit and by their own, personal faith. The fact they have Abraham as their father was not a valid excuse for a life of words but no action. This was new. It’s tempting to skip over this, but let’s be clear…. this was a huge change. One of the central elements of the Old Testament covenant – the religion these people were used to – was the generational promise. But John is saying that the promise of that is now meaningless. That claiming the promise of Abraham, without the faith of Abraham simply no longer works.  This is a game-changer: this new faith could not be inherited but depended instead on a personal decision to follow Christ and to live out that faith in the world. John’s message was clear: turning from sin, also meant turning to action.

And so, three groups present themselves to John and ask, what then shall we do? I wonder: does that sound familiar? What should we do? How do we live a life that reflects the love and forgiveness we have received and points people towards the source of that Love and forgiveness: Christ?

One Wednesday morning when I was heavily pregnant with Maddie, our middle child, I went to a toddler group in a church hall in Croydon. We’d recently moved there and knew no-one, and I certainly didn’t realise this was a churchy type group I was going to. One of the women who ran the group approached me and said they would like to make meals for us when our new baby was born. I went home that night and told Jon I’d met some crazy Christians who wanted to cook meals for us, and in the ten days that followed Maddie’s birth each day someone brought food to our house: only one of them had ever met me before. Whatever it was these people had, I wanted it. Why would they give us free food? Why would they cook for us? Why were they sharing what they had with us? Why were they being so…. Nice…. to us?

They were being nice to us, because someone had been nice to them. They were loving us, because someone had loved them first. And that person was Christ, and it is to him that they pointed. Not by ramming the bible down our throats, or preaching to us, but by cooking for us, offering to babysit for us, inviting us to be part of their community. Inviting us to belong.

I did not read the bible much, but I saw their lives. And it is there, in the way they lived their lives, the way they were living their faith out that I encountered Christ. They paved the way, through living out their faith and pointing beyond themselves to something, and someone greater.

Sometimes our lives are the only bible that people will read, so the challenge to each of us is this: what does our life say about our faith?

So, when we ask the same question the 3 groups did to John the Baptist ‘what shall we do’: the answer is: live it out. In whatever way God presents you the opportunity to do so. And that will be different for each of us. For the tax collectors he said do not take more than the amount prescribed for you, basically whatever your job is do it well and fairly. To the soldiers he said don’t extort money, so basically be content with your earnings and earn honestly, to others he said share what you have! John had not been sent to bring comforting messages: he was calling people to right living as he prepared the way for the messiah. And it was his job to prepare the way, not get in the way.

In the latter part of the gospel reading, we heard the crowds ask the question perhaps on many people’s lips who were gathered there: is John the messiah? When he’d burst onto the scene, people must have been excited. He was clearly a great prophet, and they were imminently awaiting their messiah. Could this be him?

I imagine the temptation for John to believe in his own centrality to God’s work must have been enormous, as it can be for the rest of us, but he is clear that he is no more than a voice crying out in the wilderness, and that he must move off centre stage to make way for Jesus. His role was to point to the messiah, not to kid himself, or anyone else, that he was the messiah himself.

Before moving to Croydon I’d flirted with faith, and had decided dead against it. So, when we moved there with the past behind us, I was certain church was one place I would definitely not be going, and I can honestly say that Jesus was the last person I expected to meet there. But, in fact he was one of the first people I met, through a group of women living out their faith. Witnessing to a faith of grace and pointing to someone beyond themselves. We started to go back to church, and each week sat at the back. No-one ever pressured us or prodded us or rammed the bible down our throats. They were gentle. As it says in the Philippians text this morning: let gentleness be evident. And it was. They simply lived out their faith, and we watched on getting to know the bible, and Christ, through their lives.

We, like they, and like the crowds being addressed by John the Baptist are called to a life living out the faith we have received, and in doing so lead others to the one who is the source of all its goodness: Christ.

Amen.