Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent 2 2025

Isaiah 11:1-10

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12 

“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea… [and] the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him.”

Nothing like this had been seen for centuries. The story of the prophets runs through the Hebrew scriptures, but ends with the Prophet Malachi, who signs off thus: “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” 

And then – nothing. The authorized version of the Bible, the King James version, even puts at the bottom of that page, “The End of the Prophets”. For century after century, there were no more prophets, no words or visions from on high. The prophetic witness seemed to be complete.

And then John the Baptist came. Suddenly, after centuries of silence from heaven, here is John, looking like a prophet, acting like a prophet, speaking like a prophet. No wonder everyone is going out to see him.

So, how do you respond to a prophet? That depends, perhaps, on what you think prophets are for. And John has some rather harsh words for the Pharisees and Sadducees who have come out to see him. These were religious leaders, respected people, with position and influence in society. And yet they are greeted with, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”.’

Do not presume to rely on your heritage, your traditions, or your membership of any particular privileged group. Prophets are there, throughout the Bible, to call people to repentance. That is, to turn back to God. And the message of the prophets is often particularly addressed to those who have power and privilege, to the leaders of the people. 

But instead of responding with personal repentance, the Pharisees and Sadducees in this scene seem to have quite a different attitude. They know that they are Jewish people, descendants of Abraham. And the Jewish people have prophets. It’s part of their heritage and identity that people like this will turn up. So they had better go out and see what is going on. 

But in their position of privilege and entitlement they go to see John in much the same way as they have gone to the zoo to see an exotic new animal. Something of interest. A diversion. Possibly something they might need to approve or disapprove of, in their official capacity as leaders of the people. But not something that is going to change them. 

And John says they have got it all wrong. Their heritage and traditions, their position of privilege, their identity with a certain group, “descendants of Abraham”, all that counts for nothing before God. What God seeks is genuine conversion of the heart, true repentance, turning back towards God. And it’s the same for everyone. Whether you are a respectable religious leader, or a notorious sinner (or indeed both, because that’s possible). You are all in the same boat, and the same response is needed: a radical change of heart. 

What brings this message of repentance into focus is John’s warning about feeling from wrath. The word translated “wrath” in our English Bibles is a closely related to desire. Wrath is craving that can never be satisfied, insatiable desire that eats us up and torments us. It is desire for what can never satisfy, for what is not God. It is desire rooted in rivalry, wanting what others have, trying to grab and hold on to what we feel we lack, leading to envy, violence, hatred and division. 

Repentance is the conversion of our desire. From wrath, the death-bound desire that closes us in on ourselves, we are called to turn around so we can imitate the desire of God which is open and generous, loving and life-giving. 

The Kingdom is at hand, and therefore we must repent. The Kingdom changes our priorities, the way we live in the world and with one another, the way we live towards God. We cannot rely on having Abraham as an ancestor, or on any other kind of heritage or group or cultural identity. In fact, the desire of God draws us beyond all those distinctions, gathering into one new humanity both Jew and Gentile, all races, cultures and nations, as Saint Paul insists, repeatedly, in the passage from Romans today. 

This message of God’s radical inclusion has always faced opposition, which can be subtle and insidious. This week a rally organized by far-right activists is planned in London, ostensibly to assert the Christian character of this country, but what they stand for is very far from the teaching of Christ, really about promoting fear of the other and a false religion of hatred and division. This is the desire that can never be satisfied, that the Bible calls wrath, because it turns us in on our own identities and rivalries and not outwards towards God. 

Christians should not be surprised that things like this happen, nor should we be taken in by them. Saint Paul, in 2 Corinthians, warns of false apostles and deceitful preachers sowing conflict, and says that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

Do not presume to say, “we have Abraham for an ancestor”, for God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones. Do not presume to say, “this is a Christian nation”, for God can, and does, raise up Christians from the stony ground of every nation. Heritage, culture and group identity count for nothing without true repentance from the heart. It is our repentance, the conversion of our desire, that draws us into God’s desire. God’s desire that leads us away from rivalry and conflict, and into God’s movement, the movement to gather all people together in one new reality in Christ.

John bears a message for God’s people. He proclaims the coming Messiah, although he does not yet see the mysterious and contradictory way the Messiah will live his vocation, taking him to the cross. John is the forerunner, but of something he cannot yet imagine, as we shall see in next week’s Gospel reading.

But his message remains, and it remains valid for all God’s people. The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent! Our death-bound desires, turned in our themselves, need to be converted to God’s desire, God’s overflowing, generous and self-giving love. And this is how we, like John, prepare the way for the Lord, and for his Kingdom, in our lives, in our society, and in our world.

Sermon at Parish Mass, Advent 1 2025

 

Isaiah 2:1-5

Romans 13:1-end

Matthew 24:36-44

 

You may experience a sense of deja vu on hearing that Gospel reading. Didn’t Luke say something similar two weeks ago? Well, yes, he did. But now we are in a new church year, in which we will read through Matthew’s Gospel on most Sundays. Nevertheless, we start near the end of Matthew, in the equivalent place where we left off Luke.

As with Luke, this section of the gospel is called “apocalypse”, which means “unveiling”, seeing what is going on behind the scenes of the world. We are told to be watchful for something unknown and unexpected. What we are going to see is not what we expect. That something is the “coming of the Son of Man”, which brings both judgement and salvation. 

Judgement that will bring to light things hidden in darkness. John’s Gospel says that the light has come into the world, but people preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. If you’re not expecting the light, if you are not watching for it, you will act as though you can keep on hiding and covering things up. But the light will come, and the truth will be exposed.

And the coming of the Son of Man will bring salvation because everything will be brought into the light. Reward, therefore, for those who have been faithful and watchful. Redemption for those who have been the victims of the deeds of darkness.

This season is Advent, which means “the coming”. The keynote of this time is one of penitence, sobriety, and prayer. This is counter-cultural in a world busy with office parties and shops decked with fairy lights, but it is a fitting preparation for the feast of Christmas. There is a character in Advent, in the chill nights when you look up at the glittering stars, that makes you catch your breath. A stillness and a waiting. Something new is coming.

The coming of the Son of Man is something that appears in various ways throughout the ministry of Jesus. His birth in Bethlehem, his baptism in the Jordan, his arrival in Jerusalem in triumph, his lifting up from the earth on the cross. In unknown and unexpected ways, Jesus enters the scene for judgement and salvation. 

Salvation for the outcasts, the sinners, the excluded and unclean. Judgement for the powerful, the content, those who were sure of themselves.

But all that is the prelude for the most unexpected coming of the Son of Man. When all was over, finally and definitively, when the victim was dead and buried and tidied away. What could be more unknown than that the victim should rise from the dead? And what could be more unexpected than that the victim should return, not to seek revenge on those who had betrayed and killed him, but to forgive them? Indeed, to empower them to go and spread his forgiveness throughout the world.

And all of this is bundled together in an image that Jesus also used, and which we repeat in the Creed, that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. 

This looks forward to a final fulfilment. At the end of the Gospel, after the resurrection, Jesus ascends into heaven in the cloud of God’s glory, and the disciples are told that they will see him come again in the same way. Which is to say, that Jesus, the risen victim, is the supreme power that rules creation, and there is a day when he will be revealed as the origin and end of all things. 

The world can be re-imagined in hope, because the way that things always were turns out not to be the final truth. Condemnation, violence and casting out are not the principles behind the universe, although the human race has been living up to now as though they were.

The final coming of Jesus in glory to judge the living and the dead is apocalypse, that is, unveiling. It will be the moment of universal seeing, when the truth that Jesus is Lord will be known and realised in all things. But this truth is already established in heaven and is breaking in to the here and now. 

This therefore means that hope is not displaced to some remote end point that we aren’t at yet - whether that be millions of years from now or the day after tomorrow. For the coming of the Son of Man is the way in which God is redeeming the world, here and now. And, as in the lifetime of Jesus, it is experienced by many people in many ways. 

For us, as for those in the time of Jesus, hope is the rupture in the system. Hope is what happens when things don’t carry on as they always have, the new and unexpected thing breaking in where human life seemed hopelessly death-bound and lost. We cannot save ourselves, for salvation is God’s initiative, God’s interruption and disruption of how life has been up to now. 

So we are called to be watchful for the coming of the Son of Man. The unknown and unexpected breaking in to our lives. The sudden fissure in our hearts, letting in the light from which we might shrink, for it brings judgement, but which also brings healing and forgiveness. Brought into God’s light the truth about ourselves is no longer told as judgement and condemnation but as part of God’s bigger story of mercy and love. So too are the ruptures in the world where forgiveness, reconciliation and peace suddenly break out where before there seemed no hope. 

Watch, therefore, for the signs of the Kingdom. Signs that Jesus the risen victim is the Lord. Signs that the one who was cast out and killed is on the throne of the universe, to judge and to save, to forgive and to heal. Watch and stake awake, because if we think that everything is always going to be the same we will not see the unexpected place where the Lord breaks in, the unknown way in which he is making known his Kingdom. 

“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.”