Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Her husband Joseph, 

being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, 

planned to dismiss her quietly. 

We are used to the story of how Mary was told by the Archangel Gabriel that she was to conceive in her womb and bear a son.

We remember her words:
‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’

Gabriel informs her how this is to take place:
‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’

Marys consent is given:
‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord.
let it be with me according to your word.’

That Annunciation we celebrate on March 25 each year.
It is a beautiful story, it expresses great tenderness.
It has a mystical feel.
It is no wonder it has inspired artists for centuries.
There is something in that passage that speaks to us on a very deep level.

The Annunciation to Joseph on the other hand is not celebrated.
It doesn’t t attached itself to our consciousness or our spirit as does Mary’s.
It has not inspired artists.
It remains a very much a neglected passage.

But that neglect is not justified, and in many ways,
the Annunciation to Joseph reveals much about how the baby that is to be born will change the way the world understands and lives with God.

Matthew tells us that Joseph is engaged to Mary,
but before they lived together,
she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Joseph at this point does not know the child is from the Holy Spirit.
All he knows at this point is the woman he is marrying is pregnant.
He also knows he is not the father.
A rather difficult time for Joseph.

We hear that Joseph,
being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace,
planned to dismiss her quietly.

Joseph was righteous.
We are not to understand this in a contemporary way.
Righteousness in this sense means a conformity to the Law of God.
To be righteous was the supreme standard of Jewish holiness.

We need to look at the laws Joseph would be considering at this time.
Mary should have come to him at marriage a virgin.
If this is not the case, the Law had a few options.

Deuteronomy chapter 20 explains all the laws around this.

The Law says there are two ways in which a woman may become pregnant before marriage.

If the pregnancy is by adultery:

If evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found,
then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death,
because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house.
So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

If the pregnancy is the result of a rape:

if man seizes her and lies with her,
then only the man who lay with her shall die.
You shall do nothing to the young woman;
the young woman has not committed an offence punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbour. 

Now if Joseph was to go about his predicament lawfully both of these options would mean an investigation of Mary.
She would be put on trial and have to prove her case.
The trial would involve the use of her sheets to prove her virginity.
On one hand she would die, on the other she would still be shamed.

Joseph being righteous should have demanded such a trial.
If she were found guilty of either, he would be in the clear,
a divorce would be granted and he would he be able to keep the dowry.

The righteous thing for Joseph to do would be
to expose her to public disgrace.
That was what was expected. That was the law.

But something else is going on for Joseph,
even before he knows the origins of Mary’s baby.

He doesn’t want to put Mary through that.
He obviously loves her.
He is also righteous.
He has to do the right thing by the law, but then he thinks of Mary.
He thinks of the baby.

Already the new covenant with God and his people is working.

He decides he will go about this quietly.
He will divorce her, but will not expect any compensation.
He will just do it and get on with this life.
He will let Mary get on with her life.
She would probably still be in trouble,
but this would not be at Joseph’s instigation.

Fortunately for Mary,

an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
‘Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.’ 

The angel tells Joseph that he is to marry her, and more than that,
he is to be the baby’s father in a legal sense.
By naming the child, Joseph accepts the role of father.
This saves Mary, and this saves the baby.

We are to be very thankful to Joseph for following the direction of the angel of his dream.
If he were to have followed the law,
Jesus would quite likely not have been born.

Joseph is a reminder to us of being legalists.
His predicament reminds us that while we can follow the rules
and ‘be right with God’ there are times when we have to go deeper.
We have to look into our hearts and ask what is actually the right thing to do.

Is what I am doing loving my neighbour?
Is my behaviour showing God’s love?
Is my attitude toward those who live a life that I don’t like revealing my love of God or my own bigotry based on a law?

If Joseph had followed the law, we would not be here today.
That bears thinking about.

If we behave in a legalistic way, hiding behind rules and laws instead of embracing God’s love, we can very easily miss the mark. We can very easily get it wrong. We can very easily cause harm.

Joseph was truly righteous.
He went about his ordeal with grace and love,
even before he knew what was really going.

In responding to God’s call on his life,
he was revealed to be righteous in the truest sense:
his response was one of loving God and loving his neighbour.

Within Joseph’s story, the new covenant is already coming into being.

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent

St John the Baptist in the Prison
Juan Fernández de Navarrete
1570

Go and tell John what you hear and see:

Last we heard John’s message of what the coming Messiah would be like.

His winnowing-fork is in his hand,
and he will clear his threshing-floor
and will gather his wheat into the granary;
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

John understood the coming one as a great judge who was going to sort out the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff, the saved from the unsaved.
It was a stark image. He warned:

Bear fruit worthy of repentance

Later, while in prison, he begins to question whether he has gotten it right about the coming one, the one whose sandals he is unworthy to carry.

The world he thought was coming to be was not happening.
There was no winnowing fork.
Everything seemed to be the same.

What was this Messiah actually up to?
Was he going to do the things John said he was going to?
It didn’t look like it, and now John was in prison because he preparing everyone for him.

He sends messengers to ask Jesus

‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ 

Jesus doesn’t say yes.
He doesn’t say, Yes, don’t worry about it John, you were right.

Instead he says:

‘Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 

Not you were right John, but rather
“Look and listen. Look at what is happening. Hear what is going on.”

Jesus is pointing John to other things.

What John proclaimed and what happened were different.
For John, Jesus was to be judge and sort the whole lot out.

Jesus did sort the whole lot out, but he went about it in a different way.

Jesus showed everyone how God really was.

God was different than they thought, or what they had been led to understand.

Jesus lists all he has been doing.

the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have good news brought to them.


All these doings were spoken by the prophet Isaiah about what the messianic age would look like.

Jesus is using one of the prophets to say
“look John, I may not be going about it as you thought or would like,
but if you think about, I am doing what prophets said would happen.

Jesus revealed the true nature of God that had become hidden.

Jesus, the Son of God,
became human to show us and be with us,
so we could know God, so we could be with God.

the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.


Jesus did these things to show how God longs for all people to be made whole.

A group of people who had been excluded from God were now included.
A group of people who were thought of as nothing were revealed to be as important as anyone else.

But there is more.
While these things did happen,
and I have no reason to doubt they did,
they also speak of what we are to do and how we are to be.

The blind are those who do not see God working in their lives.
They are surrounded by a darkness that does not allow them to see God.
That darkness can be many things, depression, addiction, violence.
It is often in such darkness that God becomes visible,
but it often takes a caring heart to be there through the hard times.

The lame are those who are stuck, who are trapped by their lives,
who can’t walk away from constant hard times.
They are those whom society entraps in a cycle of debt,
those who do not have the freedom to make any choices,
but only stay still and put up with whatever happens.
To be able to move into a new life can be scary.
It can feel like learning to walk again.
Having someone to hold onto for those new steps can show the love of God.

The lepers are those who no one wants to be with.
Those whose lifestyle, habits, class, or race people find difficult to reconcile with their own way of being.
Jesus included all people to be within God’s love.
Those who no one wanted to be near.
For someone who feels that excluded by everyone and everything,
a kind word or a smile can show them they are not alone at all.

The deaf are those who cannot hear the gospel.
They may have heard it many times,
but they can no longer hear the radical invitation that Jesus is offering.
All they hear is judgement and boredom.
The Gospel can be spoken in many different ways so it can be heard by all.

The poor have good news brought to them.
This is straightforward.
But the significant part for us is “brought to them.”
The good news is taken to the poor, not the poor coming to the good news.
The poor are searched out and helped.
Jesus is speaking in an active sense.

All of these things speak of those who have been excluded now being included.
Jesus is saying to John that God’s plan is bigger than anyone thought it would be.
Jesus is saying to John that God’s love is so big that it includes everyone.
Jesus is saying to John that God desires and will  make everyone whole, not those who believed they were chosen, but those who thought they were rejected.

To live this way, to carry on this work is to bear fruit worthy of repentence.

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 

Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; 

for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

What are we to make of John the Baptist?
He is a formidable character.
He is challenging and harsh.
He doesn’t mess about, he hits us with how it is, how it will be,
and most worryingly, how it will be if we don’t get it right.

He tells us what the coming messiah, Jesus, is going to be like.

His winnowing-fork is in his hand,
and he will clear his threshing-floor
and will gather his wheat into the granary;
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

In John’s mind, Jesus will see the world as a threshing floor.
He will keep those who get it right with God,
and will lose those who don’t.

It is a stark image.

Even now the axe 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.

John must have been confused when Jesus started speaking of God’s forgiveness,
of God’s love for all people.
We know, because later, while he is imprisoned,
he will send messengers to Jesus asking him if indeed he is the one.

What John thought was going to be and what was where somewhat different.

They were different, but not as entirely as we maybe would like.

It is easier for us to think about forgiveness and love than it is about bearing good fruit,
and the ultimate result if we don’t.

As we heard last week, Jesus also speaks of a final judgement,
where some will be left and some taken.

We can’t ignore this, even it makes us uncomfortable.

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves,
“We have Abraham as our ancestor”;
for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

To repent,
of how we are,
to say sorry,
to turn away from the way we have been is not really enough.

Repentance is vital in our lives, I believe in everyone’s lives,
but if it is hollow, if it is only words that we say, it is nothing.

True repentance will consist of a true change of heart,
it will bear good fruit.
It will not be a simple rote phrase that is spoken and then forgotten.
Repentance is an internal change that makes the past impossible to go back to.
The fruit of repentance is forgiveness itself, loving all, caring for the sick, the poor, the imprisoned.

Martin Luther spoke about this:
 “Good works do not make a person good, but a good person does good works.”
Being a good person comes first,
the fruits are what grows from that goodness.
From repentance comes the good works.
Good works without repentance are not enough in this case.

John follows up this comment with a pointed barb:

Do not presume to say to yourselves,
“We have Abraham as our ancestor”;
for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.

This was pointed for the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
It is equally as pointed for us today.

Those he rebuked believed that their ancestry was enough.
Their holiness in life was enough.
Their obedience to the Law was enough.
They were right with God because of who they were.

We can be like this.

I’m ok because I keep the church running.
I’m ok because I tithe the right amount.
I’m ok because I go to church every week.
I’m ok because I arrange the lawn being mowed.
I’m ok because I make sure the church is cleaned.
I’m ok because my family left the church some money.
I’m ok because my Dad was a warden for 20 years.
I’m ok because I’m a priest.

John the Baptist looks at us and spits.
He calls us a brood of vipers that we would dare think we have it right.

None of these things mean we have it right with God.
None of these things mean we have truly repented.

If you place where a pew is as being above forgiving someone,
it may be time to look into your heart.

If your heart is more interested in keeping things comfortable for yourself
rather than looking into the eyes of someone who you need to forgive,
it may be time to be still and listen to what God is saying to you.

If you are more interested in holding on to power
rather than walking alongside someone who is in pain,
it may be time to contemplate what all this Christianity stuff is all about.

John the Baptist reminds us that it is not about being right,
it is about being right with God.

He reminds us that sometimes we can think we have it right when we may in fact be far off.

And John the Baptist is indeed the greatest reminder of how to get it right.
His mission was to prepare the way for the coming one.
His function in God’s plan was to point all towards Christ.

In Advent, we await the Coming Christ.
Like the Baptist, we are to point all toward Jesus.

The way of pointing to Christ for us to be Christlike to those around us:
 to walk with the lonely,
feed the hungry,
care for the sick.

Those are the fruits that are worthy of repentance.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away

Preparedness and patience.

These seem to be the two key points when Jesus speaks of his return.
He tells that even he, the Son of Man does not know when he is to return:

But about that day and hour no one knows,
neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,
but only the Father.

This should be enough to stop anyone predicting the end of time,
but unfortunately some will always proclaim that they do indeed know when the end of time is about to come upon us.
The point is, we are not supposed to know.

if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

The meaning here is that if we knew, we would not worry about staying awake.
We would do what we like, carrying on in whatever way we saw fit,
and only cease at the appointed moment.
So the point is not to wait for Jesus return, but rather be prepared.

and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away

Jesus speaks of those in the time of Noah.
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day Noah entered the ark

They were carrying along as normal.
Going about their normal lives, doing normal things.

and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away

See, they are the ones swept away, taken away.

Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.

Who are taken and who are left?
Is it those who are prepared that are taken, or those who aren’t?

In the case of the flood, it is those who are unprepared that are taken.
Noah is left. Noah was prepared and was left.

Those who were unprepared were taken by the flood.
Swept away in a flood.

What is the flood that could come and take us away if we aren’t prepared for it?
What is the state we need to always be in as we await Jesus return?

I think the flood and the state of preparedness are related.

The flood is all the things that keep us from loving each other and God.
Those things are the things that will sweep us away.
Those are things that we will cling to as the waters rise,
yet they are the same things that will drown us.

Not forgiving those around us
will sweep us away in a wave of resentment and bitterness.
If we don’t love our enemies,
we will be pulled under and our lungs filled with the waters of hatred.

The flood that will come will be one of our own neglect and hard heartedness.

The key to our preparedness is contained within that flood.

To be prepared for the return of the Son of Man,
we need to forgive everyone always.
We are to love all.
To feed the hungry,
quench the thirst of those without water,
to look after the sick,
to visit those imprisoned, whether in jail or by any other thing that makes them unable to partake in society.

That is our state of preparedness.
Love all. Forgive all. Care for all.

This is about being present to each other.

The overarching way of the flood is one of not being present.
The ones I mentioned were about not being present to those around us.
But the more general way is of not being present full stop.

The flood can be the past that we drown in, or can be the worry of the future.
We drown in both if we are not able to be present.
Being present allows us to be prepared.

Jesus tells us about being present:

Keep awake therefore,
for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 

Keep awake, be present to others.
Keep awake, be present to God.

The flood is a great sleep that we fall into.
Sometimes it is not only  matter of staying awake, but rather waking up.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans:

it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.

So if we are asleep it is time to wake up.
We need to wake up to what is happening around us,
to search out the lost, the lonely, the sick.
It is time to wake up, lest we be caught sleeping.

And once we are awoken, we are to remain vigilant.
We are to be present to all and to God.

The flood that comes from indifference and distraction is one we all need to keep afloat of,
because, unlike those in Noah’s time who

knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away

we have been warned and given the a means of being left, the words, works and life of Jesus Christ that we are to imitate.

Come, Lord Jesus.