'Prepare the Way of the Lord' A Homily for Advent

 A sermon preached at Croydon Minster at the Service of Words and Music for Advent on the Second Sunday of Advent. Gospel Luke 1.5-25

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‘Prepare the way of the Lord. ‘

 

That is the title of this service of words and music for this great season of Advent.

 

It is also the opening message of St Mark’s gospel when the evangelist has announced ‘The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ (Mark 1.1).

 

Having made that wonderful statement, Mark goes on to quote Isaiah to say that a messenger is being sent ‘who will prepare your way’ (1.2) and that a voice will cry out in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ (1.3).

 

Advent is a time of preparation, of clearing out distractions, being ready, alert so that the Lord’s way may be prepared.

 

It calls for you and me to have a posture of preparation. So what’s your Advent posture of preparation?

 

Is it the preparation of the athlete: on your marks, get set…?

 

Is it the preparation of the artist: with the canvas tight, with paint on the brush ready to make the first strokes?

 

Is it the posture of the musician, the violinist with bow poised above the strings, or singer having taken a breath, ready for the conductor’s hands to summons the music from you?

 

That moment before the starting gun, before the paint is smeared on the canvas, before the conductor’s baton moves – that is Advent, a moment held over these four weeks, and it’s a moment of expectation of what is to come, or rather Who is to come.

 

We stand, as the poet Malcolm Guite reminds us, between two comings: the coming of Christ as incarnate, Word made flesh, born in Bethlehem and the coming of Christ in glory at the consummation of all things.

 

Preparation, expectation, attention, waiting, yearning is our response to God’s initiative to come amongst us.

 

This church of all churches, dedicated as we are to St John the Baptist, should be imbued with Advent character: expectant, attentive, prepared and proclaiming.

 

John is an intricate and complex character, born of the priestly line, and therefore by heredity a priest, and yet also standing clearly in the tradition of the prophets.

 

The priest offers sacrifice to God for the people; the prophet represents the voice and vision of God back to the people.

 

Priesthood and prophecy are not at odds: Isaiah’s own call came in the Temple as the presence of God, in incense, filled the house. Likewise, Jeremiah was a prophet born from a priestly line and yet called to be a prophet too.

 

‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ is a prophet’s cry; receiving and making present the Lord is the priestly task.

 

It’s in the Temple that Zechariah encounters Gabriel, the archangel, like the prophets before him, telling him of the birth of the one who will prepare the way of the Lord out in the wilderness. Zechariah, husband of Elizabeth, is John the Baptist’s father. This news struck Zechariah dumb!

 

After John’s birth Zechariah rejoiced and burst into song.

 

Usually in the evening at Evensong we hear the Song of Mary and of Simeon, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. Tonight, this service will close with a canticle usually associated with the morning, the Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah, which speaks of preparation and what is to come:

 

And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High,

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

To give his people knowledge of salvation

by the forgiveness of all their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 2.7-10)

 

May we be prepared to meet the one who comes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Move on from the weather: worship; pray; love.

A sermon preached at Croydon Minster on the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (18 August 2019). Reading: Jeremiah 23.23-29; Luke 12.49-56.

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I don’t know about you, but just about every conversation I have had recently has begun with the major topic of the day – not Brexit, not Trump, not even England’s performance in the cricket or the return of the Premier League  – but, yes, the weather!

And haven’t we had a great deal to talk about: unseasonal deluges and, only a few weeks ago, a heat wave and record temperatures.

Of course, the weather has become a rather more serious business than it used to be because of the related climate issues that it highlights.

That said conversation about the weather is often a distraction. An item on BBC Radio 5 last week explored how when we talk about the weather it is often a social nicety before a proper conversation; but it can also be a way of avoiding a deeper conversation altogether. Certainly inhabitants of the British Isles have plenty of weather related topics of conversation.

In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus rails against superficial conversations about the weather and dodging the questions that go deeper.

⁵⁴ Jesus also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. ⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

We read some signs, usually meteorological ones, and ignore the ones that point to the heart of things.

There are huge questions here: how do we interpret the ‘present time’? What are the signs of the present time that we should be noticing?

Let’s just remind ourselves that the gospel passage began with stark words that still have the capacity to shock: Jesus speaks of fire coming to earth; of stress; of division; of setting people against one another.

We can set this alongside words of John the Baptist, our patron saint, (who denies being the Messiah) and says: ‘one who is more powerful than I is coming…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire’. (Luke 3.16b) Or in Jeremiah: ‘Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’ (Jeremiah 23.29)

But what of this division that Jesus says he has come to bring?

There is a great shaking up going on: disruption and turmoil. This is not ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’.

Jesus, like the prophets before him, is presenting a direct question in dramatic terms. The question is ‘what are the relationships that are most precious to you, and what do they look like?’

Is it your biological relationships? Is it the people you identify with because of race, class, political outlook, religious belief? Or is it the person who is different, disturbing or disfigured?

Taking discipleship seriously, being a follower of Jesus Christ, means we have to face those questions if we are to play a part in heralding the coming Kingdom of God.

This present time sees divisions based on suspicion, oppression, rampant nationalism, supremacism, casual racism, greed. Our time sees people left behind because of an inability to find a home in ‘mainstream’ society, unable to live life to the full because of anxiety about debt, housing or having a meaningful job. That’s true globally, nationally and locally.

How do we interpret all that?

Allegiance first to Jesus Christ means we see all our relationships in a different way. Jesus is clearly not about smashing up our precious relationships with those whom we love, but he is saying that the love we share for our family should spill out beyond and not be restricted just to them. As he says in regard to his own nearest and dearest, ‘My mother and my brother [and my sister] are those who hear the word of God and do it.’ (Luke 8.21)

Doesn’t all that move us away from talking about the weather?

Jesus, like the prophets, disrupts and shakes us up. That is deeply uncomfortable, but it is the beginning of turning our hearts back to the LORD and his Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God and the renewed creation is a Kingdom ‘of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit' (Romans 14.17) says St Paul.

And we know that the Holy Spirit is not the spirit of division and enmity, but rather of binding men, women and children of all 'tribes and peoples and languages' around the throne of God (Revelation 7.9).

From the disruption and division of which Jesus speaks emerges - like gold from a crucible - the precious, foundational essentials of life in the Spirit.

So how do we respond?

We worship. We pray. We love

We worship. As followers of Jesus Christ we patiently gather in worship at the altar of God where we find that we are brothers and sisters of one another, and of the saints who have gone before us, especially when we are of different tribes, peoples and languages. Our worship, echoing the worship of heaven, models the relationships where love spills out to all around us and a symphony of praise swirls to the throne of grace.

We pray. Not to avoid the realities of the world but to be instruments of transformation, being open in prayer to be transformed by Christ, so that we can live as those who read and interpret our present time and act in Christ’s healing and reconciling name.

We love. We love when we are loved. Love is always transformative; transforming relationships, situations and ourselves. And, as St Paul reminds us, when all is shaken up, divided and stripped away, God’s love never ends (1 Corinthians 13.8a).

The message today: move on from the weather: worship; pray; love.