Rom.15:7-13
Matthew 3:1-12
What was the point
of today’s passage from Romans? Paul is
making a point of God’s grace, God’s love, God’s presence being for the
Gentiles as well as for the Jews.
How about the
passage from Matthew? What happens
there? In the passage from the gospel of
Matthew John is criticizing the Pharisees and Sadducees. As Jesus does later, here John is calling
them hypocrites. Again, the Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious leaders
of the day. And John is telling them
that their religiosity, their stance of faith means nothing because it is not
backed up by acts of justice. It is not
supported by their behavior. The root of
their faith is about loving God, loving others, loving. But they are not acting loving, not
behaving with justice in any way. And he
is confronting that hypocrisy. He then
goes on to humble himself saying he is not worthy. In some ways this is a showing to the
Pharisees and Sadducees how they should be behaving themselves. Because we all have some kind of hypocrisy,
none of us get it all right all the time.
The willingness to self-reflect, to look at yourself and see your own
hypocrisies, to name and own your own flaws: this is a huge part of being
people on the way, people who are loving and caring, people who are growing.
So, the real
question here is: What do these passages have in common with one another and
more, what does any of it have to do with Advent?
As we look at
every Advent, the Advent call, the Advent promise, is that everything will be
thrown on its head. That those we
exclude will be included, and that those who think they have it all together
will have to face some very hard truths about who they really are and what God
is really asking for them to be. Paul is making the point that the Gentiles as
well as the Jews are acceptable to God.
It does not matter to God that they had a different religion, different
belief system, and at that time, a different heritage, ethnic background and
race. This would have been shocking at the time, it WAS shocking at the
time. But that is what Paul is saying.
God has accepted, once again, those deemed unacceptable by the people. John in today’s gospel reading is confronting
the Pharisees and Sadducees’ hypocrisy and saying that their repentance is not genuine,
their actions are not supporting their proclamation of being people on the way,
people willing to change, people willing to do what God is asking them to do; their
behavior is not “bearing the fruit” of love and compassion and grace.
What this has to
do with Advent is that Advent, like lent, is a time when we are called to
self-reflection, to repentance as a major part in our preparation for Christ’s
coming. We prepare the way for Christ’s
coming into our hearts, into our lives, by looking closely at the places that
are dark, hypocritical, hidden, “in error” and which need tuning, and
sometimes, radical change. We do this
from a place of knowing that we are loved, “accepted” by God regardless of our
past, present or anything else. We are
loved, but God is not satisfied to just love us - God calls us to respond to
that love, from a place of gratitude, and to be willing to risk changing, and
growing and becoming whole. Because
while God accepts us as we are, it is almost impossible for us to accept God
into our hearts or really experience God at the deepest level from a place that
is unloving, that lacks compassion or grace.
Therefore we must, not because God asks us to, but because there isn’t
another way - we MUST repent - change, look at our lives, in order to accept
God in in this new way in which God is coming this Christmas. This isn’t easy. I understand that. Yet we are called to do this on a regular
basis. Especially during critical times
in the church year. Advent and lent, in
particular, call us to this hard work of repentance.
I’ve talked a
little about twelve step programs with you in the past but today I want to talk
about them again for a few moments. As
most of you know, the twelve steps provide a way for people with addictions of
any kind and even for those who are simply connected or related to those with
addictions, to deal with those addictions.
How do they do this? By asking
people to follow the twelve steps as a way to healing. And these are:
Twelve Steps
1. We admitted we were powerless
over (alcohol, or whatever addiction you are dealing with)—that our lives had
become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power
greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will
and our lives over to the care of God as we understood (God).
Admitting we
have a problem God can fix.
4. Made a searching and fearless
moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves,
and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God
remove all these defects of character.
Confession
7. Humbly asked (God) to remove our
shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we
had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such
people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Repentance
10. Continued to take personal
inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Continued,
regularly scheduled confession and repentance.
11. Sought through prayer and
meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood (God),
praying only for knowledge of (God’s) will for us and the power to carry that
out.
As a result
becoming closer with God.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening
as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to
practice these principles in all our affairs.
Hoping to share
with others the joy of that increased closeness - evangelism!
Do you notice how
much of this is focused again on “repentance?”
I know that’s a Christian word for a non-Christian program, but that’s
basically what it is. This is about
repentance - admitting your wrongs to God, admitting your wrongs to another,
being willing to change those wrong behaviors and to fix the mistakes that you
have made. Looking again and again at
your behaviors and “when you are wrong, promptly admitting it.” People in twelve step programs do this to become
whole - they do it to free themselves from their addictions. And they find that as a result, they are
closer to God, closer to experiencing the Divine. They have “spiritual awakenings” that bring
them such joy, such wonder, such change that they cannot help but share it with
others - which is what real evangelism is about. It’s not about “converting” others, it is
about sharing your joy and your blessings in a way that is contagious and
miraculous and beyond words.
Well, God calls us
to do the same things and for the same reasons.
This hard work of self-reflection and correction which we do weekly in
our prayers of confession, which we do seasonally during advent and lent, that
is part of the very foundation of our faith.
God calls us to this action not because God wants us to suffer, or feel
inferior or feel less whole. Instead it
is because God wants wholeness for us and wants health for us. We cannot be the
best we can be without that self-reflection and without being willing to change
some things. God also wants this for us because, as I said before, with every
step towards wholeness we find new ways to invite God in to our lives, we meet
God in new and deeper ways, we experience God in new and fuller ways. This is the work of a Christian. It is the work of growing. It is the work of LIFE because without it we
cannot be whole people. As Richard Rohr
says, “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven
later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven
now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love
you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the
true story line of the Gospel.”
Again, this is not
to say that this is easy. And sometimes
it is hard to know where even to start.
So I want to give you a place to start this Advent season. There are many ways to do this, and this
suggestion is just one. But if you are
stuck with how to do this kind of self-reflection, how to do this kind of
“repentance”, I suggest one place to start is by looking at your regrets.
Just after college
I went as a Volunteer in Mission to a community in North Carolina. Among other things this community was
beginning the process of building a retreat center up in the mountains. A couple weeks into my stay one of the
pastors leading this community, Mike, took me to the site where they hoped to
build. There wasn’t yet a real road up
to this site. So in order to get there,
we began the slow, windy trip driving up a very steep logging road that was
bordered on one side by the rising wall of the mountain and on the other by a
sheer drop off into a valley below. Mike
and I rode in a very old, beat up pick-up truck which was so fragile that the
roof of it wasn’t really attached anymore, just kind of hung on by a little
metal here and there. Mostly it just sat
with rusting, jagged edges, bobbling and squeaking on the top of the
truck. There were no seat-belts in this
truck and the shock absorbers were shot.
It also had no emergency brakes, or at least no way to access them
within the body of the truck. As we
bounced and jolted uncomfortably up this steep, cliff-edged trail, I clung to
the handle on the door, just praying we would make it safely up to the top so I
could announce my decision to never ride up or down this mountain again in this
particular vehicle. I would walk, if I
had to, no matter how long it took. As
my head hit the roof and these grumpy unhappy thoughts raced through my head,
suddenly the engine on the truck died.
“Stupid truck!” I thought. But quickly my annoyance turned into
terror. For along with the engine dying,
the breaks went out. Completely. The truck paused for a half second and then
began to roll back down this windy, steep, cliff-edged hill with amazingly fast
acceleration. As Mike frantically pumped
the breaks and reached for the non-existent emergency brake, all the while
turning the key and trying desperately to re-start the engine, I knew it was
over. That was it. This was where my short life would end.
After what seemed
like eternity, but was only a few seconds, Mike, rather calmly, I thought,
announced that he would be turning the truck into the side of the mountain to
try to slow it down. He did so with
incredible skill, and as the truck backed into the side of the mountain, the
truck perched for a minute in space, on the brink of rolling. If it had tipped over, I would not be with
you today, but at the bottom of that cliff.
Instead, after an unsure minute, the truck stopped.
That experience
was profound for me. During those
moments when I thought my life was over, much of it did, as the proverbial
stories say, flash before my eyes. Much
of what was included in that flash was a plethora of regret. What things, you might ask, would a 22 year young woman have to regret? Well, not too much of my regret was for
actions in my past. Most of it instead
was about the future. I regretted not
knowing what it was to be married, I regretted that I would never have
children. I regretted that I hadn’t yet
gone to seminary. I regretted that I had
turned down another mission opportunity in favor of this one, I regretted that
I was not spending my time in real service to other people, especially those
people in the world whom I believe God aches for, hurts for, calls us to
empower: the poor, the displaced, the underprivileged.
Those regrets,
while at first painful, became gifts to me in that they allowed me to get a
real glimpse into what was really, ultimately important to me: having a family,
living a life of service, loving God. As
I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to keep hold of that self-reflective
ability. Many more of my regrets as a
seasoned adult have to do with the past, with choices I’ve made or people I’ve
hurt. But they are still gifts to me:
they still tell me about problems I need to address, dreams I need to pursue,
behaviors that I need to change.
Regrets, though
painful, are a gift from God. They show
us what is really important to us, pointing out things we need to change,
giving us opportunities to make amends, do some healing, and to work through
mistakes. There are things that we
regret that we are unable to fix: opportunities that we didn’t take that we may
never have again, or people we have hurt who are no longer living or whom it
would be impossible or hurtful to find.
There are things we cannot change about the past. But I deeply believe that God would not give
us, or call our attention to, or even allow us to live with these regrets if
there was not something to be done with or about them. I think about how in the Harry Potter series,
at the very end, the villain is told that the one way he can save himself is by
being willing to look at what he has done and to feel remorse. The wise characters in the book point out
that this remorse is the most painful thing a person can feel. And yet, that remorse, that willingness to
face ourselves and to make changes, this is what brings us ultimate healing,
growth and wisdom. There are lessons to
be learned from those regrets that will encourage us to make a different choice
in the future: I will not fail in this way again, or I will not choose in this
way again. If amends can be made, they
need to be. If they can’t, maybe other
ways can be found to offer good in the name of the thing we regret that we did
before. Regrets can be deep pullings in
our lives, calling us to look at something.
We need to not push those uncomfortable feelings away, but stay with
them, figure out what God is calling us to do with them, and “repent” in the
sense of turning around, choosing a different path.
Advent, the time
when we prepare our hearts for God to come to us in a new way, this time is an
invitation to do this work. This is the
time to face our regrets. This is the
time to ponder how we are called, in what ways, and in what ways we are not
living up to that call or following that call and how we need to do it
differently. This is the time to go
deeper so that God may come to us anew, more deeply, more fully, more wholly.
Today’s passages
tell the story: we are acceptable, because God loves us no matter what: Jew,
Gentile, black, brown, red, yellow, green, purple, short, tall, squatty,
whatever. God loves you. But because God loves you, God wants to be in
real and full relationship with you. God
calls you, therefore, to prepare your hearts in a new way for God’s coming and
God’s presence in your hearts, in your lives.
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