December 16, 2012 | 4:00 p.m. | Third Sunday of Advent

Diverse in Description but Similar in Hope

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

John 1:68–79
John 3:7–18

We come into worship this day with heavy hearts, remembering that on Friday in Connecticut twenty-eight lives were lost in an act of senseless violence. As we remember the victims and their families and hold them in prayer today, let us hope together that God’s Word appointed for our hearing today will offer us a message of peace, comfort, and direction at a time when it is desperately needed. Let us pray:

God, we ask your presence this day and everyday in places where there is grief and loss and mourning, especially remembering the twenty-eight lives lost in Connecticut, their suffering loved ones, and the confused family and friends of the young man who committed this act of unspeakable tragedy. Grant comfort to those who are in need of it and, for us, your guidance. May we find in your scriptures a word of challenge as we ourselves seek to be peacemakers, and in the midst of disaster may the promise of Christ keep us living as people of hope. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, for you, O Lord, are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There’s a story that may not be true, but I like it anyway: The great preacher George Buttrick was on a Saturday evening flight back to New York, where he was pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. He was putting the finishing touches on a sermon for the next morning when the man seated next to him said, “Excuse me. I’m just curious: what it is that you’re working on?” “It’s a sermon,” replied Buttrick. “I’m a Presbyterian minister.” Looking a little disappointed, the man replied, “Religion, huh? I’ve never had much interest, honestly. I mean, I know that lots of people take it quite seriously and find all the ritual helpful; I realize there’s lots of great theology that’s been written and that there are plenty of churches that do a lot of good. But all the violence, all the controversy, all the judgment—most of the time I look at religious folks and just think: Come on, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

Buttrick considered that for a moment, paused, and then he asked the man, “What is it that you do?” “Astronomy,” answered the man. “I’m an astronomy professor.” “Astronomy, huh? I’ve never had much interest, honestly. I mean, I realize that it bears incredible importance for understanding the history of our planet and the future of the environment; that it’s essential to the human spirit that we explore the galaxy and that our ability to send up satellites impacts countless conveniences we appreciate every day. But all the posturing about different theorems, all the money that’s spent, the advanced math and physics that requires years of study and expertise—most of the time I look at astronomers and just think, Come on, guys, ‘twinkle, twinkle, little star.’”

The story warns us about oversimplifying just about anything, but truth be told, the man’s comments about religion highlight a frustration many of us feel: does religion really need to be so complicated? There is so much to know and understand. A participant in one of our recent classes in the Academy for Faith and Life told me last week how much she enjoys the classes but that she can’t help feeling like the things she learns just reveal how much there is that she doesn’t know. For so many of us, there’s a sense in which we just want to know what we are supposed to believe and what God expects of us; we want some kind of basic help or explanation as to why life is so difficult and frequently feels deeply unfair. Shouldn’t religious people have at their disposal some way of explaining tragedies like the one in Connecticut? Shouldn’t there be some simple answers from our faith to make the other complexities of life a little more bearable? What are we supposed to do?

These are not new frustrations. At a time many, many years ago, put perhaps not so different from our own, John the Baptist went into the wilderness preaching frightening and mysterious things: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. . . . . Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” And the crowds asked him, in their frustration, “What then should we do?”

What then should we do? John’s reply to them is surprisingly straightforward: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Share. Give away things you don’t need.

What then should we do? John said generous living is the thing. You may not like the answer, but you can’t accuse John the Baptist of being ambiguous; he seems relatively unconcerned about church attendance or religious formalities but deeply concerned about the poor, and he is convinced that people who have more than they need should give some of it away.

He doesn’t stop there, though, he actually gets more particular, more specific. As the story continues, “even tax collectors came,” “tax collector” being code for “disreputable, corrupt, public official.” “Even tax collectors came to be baptized [by John], and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’” Don’t take advantage of people; be honest; don’t take more than your share. Not only should people be aware of what they are giving away, but they should get serious about putting some limits on how much they take.

And soldiers came, asking, “And we, what should we do?” And he said, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages,” for Roman soldiers who occupied Israel in those days were known for abusing the position of power they held.

Live generously. Don’t take more than your share. Don’t abuse your power. As one scholar has stated it, the repentance John the Baptist spoke of “had less to do with how fervently one prays or how faithfully one attends the worship service; instead, it had everything to do with how one handled riches, executed public service, and exercised [generosity]” (Karkkainen, Feasting on the Word, C, 1, p. 72). This is what God demands.

So, now that I have completely alienated and shamed anyone in the room who finds themselves in a position of power or wealth, anyone who has ever abused their fortuitous position in life, or, for that matter, anyone who wore a coat to church this morning and has at least one extra coat back at home, I hope you will give me just a few more minutes of your time as we take note of something that is going on here.

John the Baptist knows these people. He gives them different kinds of instructions, because he knows the temptations each one of them faces; he has taken the time to put on that extra coat and walk around in it for a while. John the Baptist would have been the kind of person who asked these people what their lives were like. He has a sense of the challenges and social pressures that were part and parcel of having money or power or influence, and he speaks to these people out of his experience of who they are and how they need to grow. He says what he says not because they are horrible individuals who need to be shamed, but because they are flawed people who are aware of their weaknesses, they are aware that the world is not what it should be, and they came to John asking, What should we do?

What should we do? John’s message is simple. Generosity, modest living, attentiveness to the needs of others. This is what God is asking of us. And importantly, the message is delivered by a man who knows these people and cares about them. It begs the question, why, if it’s just that simple, does John lead with all the fear, the mystery, the foreboding? “You brood of vipers . . . who warned you? Even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.” Why does it have to be so frightening?

Well, speaking of frightening, I’m sure all of you were frightened, as I was frightened and in disbelief when I heard the news of the senseless, violent massacre in Connecticut on Friday morning. I can offer you no explanation. Twenty-eight lives, twenty of them young children and new and full of hope and possibility, gone. The lives of their parents are irreversibly and permanently changed; those who were not physically harmed will no doubt live in the wake of that traumatic event with fear and emotional anguish nobody should have to experience. And we, watching in horror from the relative comfort and security of our own classrooms, offices, kitchens, cannot help but ask in fear and disbelief, How did this happen? Why does it keep happening? And is there any place left on earth that is actually safe? What should we do?

I have to imagine that it was out of this same kind of fear and disbelief about the ways of the world that crowds of everyday folk, tax collectors, and soldiers, went out to see John the Baptist in the first place. They went because unconventional and mysterious and frightening as he may have been, people had been saying he was the messiah, the savior of the world, the one who was coming to take this mess of a world and set it aright. Like we do, they had a keen sense of what was wrong with their world; it takes no particular expertise in ancient history to know that, lacking most of the basic comforts and securities we all take for granted, they lived in a world that was at least as frightening and unpredictable as ours; they had their own daily experience of the risks and vulnerabilities of life in the world; like us, they knew they were a fragile people. No wonder that the people came to John, having heard he might be the messiah; they came looking at the world around them, at the desperate situations that felt so beyond their control, and, asking, “What then should we do?”

I feel helpless to explain this week’s Connecticut tragedy. John might have felt helpless too, faced with the impossible task of explaining this week’s Connecticut tragedy. But John had been given a promise that helped him along, a promise he went out to share with anyone he could find because he knew it was so very important. He knew he was not the savior that people were seeking, but he had heard a promise that the Savior was on the way. So pointing away from his own inability to fix their broken world, he shared with them the words of that promise: “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

“One who is more powerful than I is coming,” said John. He is coming to judge the world. And this is not a judgment that makes everyone feel bad, not the kind that slaps you on the wrist for the things you’ve done wrong. Christ’s judgment separates the good from the evil in this world and causes the evil to disappear forever. His winnowing fork is in his hand to gather up the good, to remind us that good still exists in this world, that there is a time to come where there will be a safe place, free from suffering, free from fear. That is the promise John knew and carried in his heart; that is why the story says “with exhortations like these, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

There is an urgency to John’s message. It is with urgency that John instructs the people, Live generously! Don’t waste time storing up your money! Stop taking advantage of one another in your quest to get ahead! He says this with urgency because ours is a fragile world; life could be taken from us at any time; “the ax is lying at the root of the tree.” So, he says, love one another. Love one another like it could all end tomorrow. Love one another because that is how to respond to God’s demand. Love one another because that’s how you never miss a day of this wild, amazing life.

Perhaps the thing I want you to know most about today’s message is that it is not spoken by Jesus Christ, but by a man who knew that Jesus was on the way, and the great news is that we can all be that guy. We can all be messengers of this promise of hopeful living. It’s vitally important for hopeful voices to be present in the world—that’s something to get excited about. The world needs people who talk about hope, who carry the promise of Christ. And that is why, when John the Baptist was born, knowing that he would be a messenger of hope, his father spoke the words of the first lesson we read today:

And you, child, he said of John the Baptist, “will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

We are called, every one of us, to be messengers of hope, each of us in our own way. Some of us may be tax collectors or soldiers, others of us teachers or lawyers or parents or volunteers, and God has a distinct challenge and a limitless message of mercy, and that challenge and mercy is there for the treasure that is stored in every human life. Let me close with a story about that.

There are a great variety of types of people who help lead this worship service. One week not too long ago, one of the volunteers wrote me an email the day after he served, and I want to read part of it to you:

I had quite the moment after services. While walking to my apartment I passed a gentleman quietly holding a sign reading ‘Please help’ seated against a storefront on Michigan Avenue. After passing him I recalled something familiar, returned, and recognized him as a man to whom we served Communion. His name is “Reggie”; we visited briefly, and I bought his dinner last night.

I marvel at the openness of Fourth Church and the need within our own constituency. I will keep Reggie in my prayers and will hope that this season of Advent brings hope to all of us—especially Reggie.

He did make me smile as he looked up and said, “Aren’t you one of the ministers?” [I’m] not ready at all to give up my day job but certainly more than happy to support Fourth Church services whenever called upon.

I wish you well. The impact of [Fourth Church’s] Michigan Avenue ministry is profound, and many lives are touched by your services; they are lives diverse in description, but similar in hope.

John went out to share a promise, a word of hope, because all the people were asking, “What then shall we do?” There is an answer for every one of us—for tax collectors and soldiers, doctors, financial advisors, government employees, businessmen and women, and for you.

What then will you do?

Amen.