What Should We Do?

When I was preparing this morning, an old church camp song came to mind. Raise your hands if you’ve heard it before:

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands
If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.

And there are lots of other verses – stomp your feet, shout out loud, say amen! No end of things to do if you’re happy.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent, that season of anticipation for the coming of the Christ child. Once again, while our neighbors are at the mall, our Gospel reading (Luke 3:7-18) has us out in the desert with John the Baptist. And yet, today we also lit, along with the candles of hope and peace, the candle of joy. This year, our reading come from the Gospel of Luke, and, indeed, in Luke’s Gospel, joy is a recurring theme – joy that can last despite our circumstances.

Luke’s account of John the Baptist has much in common with Matthew and Mark – same guy dressed in camel skin, eating locusts and wild honey, same challenging words for those coming to him – “you brood of vipers” – you know, John’s not going to win many popularity points calling people snakes – same demand for repentance, same warning that their status as descendents of Abraham would not save them, as God could create descendents for Abraham from the stones on the ground. And, indeed, as God did create spiritual descendents for Abraham from the Gentile nations that accepted the good news gladly – and we here at Emanuel count among those spiritual descendents of Abraham that God has created.

But in Luke, the crowd pushes back at John a bit. “What should we do?” What do you want from us, John? As strident as John’s message has been so far, you might expect John to tell everyone to sell their homes and give away all their possessions and leave their families and flee the world and wear a hair shirt and come live with John in the desert – something really extreme – but John’s demands are – not that unreasonable. “Whoever has two coats must share with those who have none; those who have food must do likewise. Tax collectors, don’t collect more than is due. Soldiers, don’t blackmail or strong-arm or shake down the populace for money – be satisfied with your wages.” It may sound at first hearing like no more than “playing nice in the sandbox”, so to speak – don’t cheat, don’t extort – but more fundamentally John is asking his listeners not to abuse their authority, but to exercise it fairly. And there’s also a demand to share with those less fortunate. I would note that John’s demand to share a coat, if you have two, may be more demanding than it sounds. He didn’t say, if you have 22 coats, give away the one that’s the most worn out and threadbare…John’s demand is more like sharing half your possessions than just giving away one extra coat out of our surplus. So this would be costly - but this is all doable stuff – challenging, but doable. We can do this. And for a population that was used to being cheated and shaken down and watching others prosper while they starved, all of this would have been good news – cause for joy.

One wonders what John might say today if we were to go out into the desert to listen to him. Maybe something like: hey, investment bankers, don’t grab every last dollar in the economy for yourself – share some with the rest of us. Health insurance executives, don’t cut off peoples’ benefits the second they get sick. CEO’s, don’t pad your own pay by firing every last worker you can spare and shipping your jobs overseas. You can probably fill in a few suggestions on your own.

Luke tells us that with many other exhortations, John preached the good news to the people. Luke saw John’s words about repentance and turning around our lives as good news. But good news for who? And the answer is, ultimately us, our neighbor, and everyone. It’s all steps on the way toward that day of joy envisioned in Zephaniah, steps toward that day of the coming of the Kingdom when God will deal with the oppressors – those of Zephaniah’s time, those of John the Baptists’ and Jesus’ time, those of our own time - will gather the lame and the outcast, and turn shame into praise and renown.

Let me be clear: This isn’t about trying to work our way into the Kingdom of God. None of us can do any of this perfectly, and we will always need to ask forgiveness from Jesus, the coming one who is greater than John, for those places in our lives that are broken and those times when we sin against God and neighbor. It is only by God’s working in us that we can do any of this at all. But John’s message is about clearing the path, smoothing the way for the coming of Jesus and kingdom of God. John is a transitional figure, a bridge from Judaism’s “law and prophets” to Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom. He’s preparing the way for the greater one who is to come, and preaches repentance. Now when we think of repentance, we usually think of confession and being sorry for the sins of the past week – and that’s a part of it. But for John, repentance is not just about changing one’s mind, but about changing one’s behavior, ultimately about changing one’s life. Perhaps John is challenging his listeners to begin to live into the kind of behavior that expected in the kingdom of God. If you’re happy and you know it, then your life will surely show it. If you’ve got the joy of Jesus in your heart, you won’t be able to keep it to yourself.

John envisions Jesus, the coming one who is greater than he, as coming with a winnowing fork, to separate the wheat from the chaff. In that time, the winnowing fork would have been used to throw the wheat up in the air, so that the wind would catch and carry away the lighter chaff, or waste, leaving the wheat on the floor. When we hear about the wheat being separated by the chaff, we may think of Jesus separating the good people from the bad people, the sheep from the goats – and that may be part of it – but it’s also separating the good from the bad in each of us. And so it is with us; as we turn our lives over to Christ and live into being a disciple of Christ, as we go through the trials and storms of our lives and we feel like our lives are being tossed around and turned upside down, over the years Christ works to remove those things in our lives that keep us in bondage. And as we are more in harmony with God and neighbor, our lives will reflect the joy that comes with discipleship. If we’re happy and we know it, then our lives will surely show it. Then our lives will reflect Paul’s words from his letter to the Philippians, which he wrote from prison:

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.

For worry is at the heart of so much that is wrong with the world. As a society, fear of scarcity, fear that we won’t have enough, drives us to take more than our share. And that’s as true for the investment banker who insists he really needs a $3 million bonus and can’t possibly scrape by on $2 million, as it is for someone at the food bank who may try to take an extra can of vegetables. Fear and worry for our own safety drives us to turn our backs on our neighbors. If you’re worried and you know it, clench your fists…if you’re worried and you know it, grind your teeth….if you’re worried and you know it then your life will surely show it….But we don’t have to live in worry. Rather rejoice – even in unsettling times like our own. Let your gentleness be known. Don’t worry, but rather take your concerns in prayer to God, with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God – not a peace that’s enforced at gunpoint, not a peace that’s just a break between conflicts, but God’s peace that passes all human understanding, that will guard our hearts and minds so that, even though all around us is in an uproar, our hearts and minds will be focused on Christ Jesus. I began with a camp song, and I’m closing with a gospel song that you may not have heard, but maybe it’s one you can take home with you:

I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus
Allelu Allelu Alleluia

So no matter what this hectic Advent season brings, may we keep our hearts and minds stayed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.