Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent III 2012

Zephaniah 3:14-18

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:10-18

This year our parish has been helping with a food bank for the first time, in addition to our long established work with the night shelter. Food banks are part of a response to a growing need seen across our country; as benefits are cut and prices and rents rise, more and more people are finding that they can’t afford to eat. An article in the Evening Standard a couple of weeks ago highlighted this, there was one person who walked 12 miles to the food bank and 12 miles back to get food for their family, because they couldn’t afford even the bus fare. 

The fact that we need things like food banks and night shelters may come as a surprise to many. I’m sure that among our congregations there is a broader understanding and a spirit of Christian solidarity, but I wonder how many in society at large will understand what it is like to lack the basic necessities of life, in London in 2012. Those who are in need of this kind of assistance are not necessarily obvious at all. They could be friends, neighbours, church members. They may very well have homes, and be well dressed, but still be in need of help. Can we see those who are in need in our midst? Can we see what to do?

Today in the gospel the people ask John the Baptist, “what then should we do?” John has just announced the coming of the Lord to redeem Israel, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. And the people realise that this means they need to do something. They need to respond to this good news. John is the last of the prophets, and like the prophets of old his message is that God is coming to his people with judgement and salvation. Judgement, to expose and bring to light what is wrong, so that the people might repent, and turn to the Lord once again, and be saved.

John the Baptist is the last of the prophets, the voice crying in the wilderness, and because he is a prophet he sees what is wrong with the society in which he lives, and proclaims a message of repentance. 

Notice who he is proclaiming the message to. People who have two coats - that is to say, people who have more than they really need. Tax collectors, who raised money for the Romans but were in the habit of charging higher than the official rates to line their own pockets. Soldiers, who clearly at this time extorted money by threats. 

John is not saying to those who are already poor, “be content with what you have”, rather, he is speaking to those who have been causing poverty by their own greed. He is calling them to renounce their greed. His call to repentance is very much about how people’s actions impact on the community. In Luke sin is never an individual private thing, it is always bound up with how we live in the world, how our choices affect and shape the society around us.

And notice, too, that the people have come to John to hear his message, even though he's all the way out in the wilderness - he hasn’t gone to them. There is something attractive about John’s message of repentance. It is indeed good news, even though it means giving up greed and excessive riches. There is something much better on offer. Forgiveness of sins, a new beginning, a fresh start. And this is to prepare the way of the Lord, to open the way for God’s kingdom to come in.

This is the whole movement of Luke’s story, as he tells it in his Gospel and in Acts. Jesus is the Lord and Messiah who has come to restore his people Israel, and through Israel to bring all people, all nations, home into God’s kingdom. And the way into God’s kingdom is repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance means turning away from everything that builds a society contrary to God’s will, oppression and alienation, robbery and extortion, injustice and exploitation. Repentance means aligning ourselves instead with God’s purposes and learning to reflect his righteousness in the world.

That call, that good news, is for us too. Luke knows how to tell a good story. At the beginning of his gospel the people ask John the Baptist, “what then must we do?” And at the beginning of Luke’s second book, the Acts of the Apostles, the same question is asked to Peter on the day of Pentecost, “what must we do?” and the answer is the same: “repent, and be baptised, every one of you”. The story of the Church, like the story of Jesus, begins with the call to repent. 

Advent, this season of self-examination and preparation, is a good time to reflect on that. In what ways do we need to repent? Are our choices, our actions, helping to build a just society in which all can take part? Or are we helping to exclude others, to keep them in poverty and deprivation? Luke tells us to look to the poor and dispossessed, those on the margins, because that is where God’s attention is, too. 

Now that call to repentance is something we need to hear for ourselves. There is a temptation to think that all the injustice and exploitation in the world is caused by other people - the bankers have been blamed for a lot in the last few years. Well, if you are a banker you do need to hear the message of repentance, but so do we. 

So do I. If I buy some coffee or a shirt which are really cheap because they have been made with exploited labour in some other part of the world, do I not need to repent? Do I not need to see what I am doing, and turn around? The sobering edge of the Advent message is that we need to hear God’s judgement in our lives if we are also to receive his salvation.

Things like food banks and winter night shelters are not just isolated charity projects, unconnected with the rest of life. Yes, part of our response to the gospel, our repentance, consists of helping those in need according to our ability. This is right and good. But we also need to see that these things are symptoms of something in the world that runs deeply contrary to God’s purposes. When some people are hugely affluent there simply shouldn’t be people who are starving. But there are. The Gospel calls us to examine the causes of injustice, as well as dealing with its consequences. 

Christ comes to us with the command to model God’s righteousness in a world which tends deeply to resist that righteousness. The Gospel calls us to conversion, to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, not only for our own sakes, but so that God’s kingdom can spread in the world. And that is the true way to prepare for the coming of Christ, and the feast of Christmas. As someone is said once to have prayed, “O Lord, convert the world - and begin with me.” That’s a good prayer for Advent. Amen.