Luke 3.1-6 & Malachi 3.1-4
“In the 32nd year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, when Robert Runcie was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and when Torvill & Dean won gold at the Olympics by dancing to Bolero, the word of God came to Billy Graham at Wembley Stadium.” That’s something like how Luke’s readers would have heard his opening words of chapter 3.
The problem for Luke was that no-one had come up with the idea of dating years by numbers. In Luke’s day, events were tied to the reigns or activities of significant people. Which is why he situates John the Baptiser’s ministry in time with the long list of posh people that I had to read out just now!
Luke wants his readers to know that the events he is reporting can be traced to a particular time and place. He is saying: “Pay attention! Listen up! I’m telling you about something that happened in living memory! A herald came with an urgent message from God”. And what was that message? John the Baptiser quotes Isaiah’s vision of the massive earth-works needed to build a road across a wilderness – reconfiguring the landscape shovelful by shovelful. Because that ultimately is how you build a kingdom…brick by brick, shovel by shovel, or…if it’s a spiritual Kingdom, person by person, or soul by soul.
The prophet Malachi – who wrote our first reading for today – had similarly dramatic ideas of what God’s coming means: God is in the precious-metals business, refining, purifying gold and silver by putting it through the fire to reveal its pure state; God is a consuming fire.
In another stunning image, God is a washerwoman armed with fuller’s soap – not soft, perfumed lavender-scented handwash, but abrasive laundry soap that scrubs and scours. Fulling is the art of cleansing wool – to strip out all the oils, dirt, manure and other impurities. Pure white wool has been “fulled” – with some pretty abrasive chemicals!
You see, the transition of society away from his current state to one that looks like the Kingdom of God will not be a gentle affair. It will require the heat of smelting gold, the acid of Fuller’s soap. Modern society is not going to give up its languid comfort, easily. It’s not going willingly reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. Western society in particular is not going to transfer its wealth to the poorer nations of the world – even though much of Western society was built on the backs of such nations. We only have to consider the recent failures of climate and plastics conferences to see how unwilling the West is to shoulder its fair share of worldwide burdens.
In Jesus, Luke sees a vision of the sheer purity that is the goal for all humans. That holiness is what God made us to share when we were made in God’s image. The very idea of God challenges us to be what we were created to be. And in Advent, these flamboyant images of fire, scrubbing and highway-engineering describe what it is like to prepare to experience the salvation of God.
Malachi’s name means “my messenger” – and he was part of God’s plan to clean things up. He roundly condemned the laxity and corruption of the leaders of his day. John the Baptiser, in the verses that follow today’s reading, goes on to call the people who heard him a ‘brood of vipers’. If either Malachi or John were around today, they would have many people to hurl such insults at, wouldn’t they? Corrupt politicians, tyrannical dictators, greedy bankers, ultra-capitalists and extremist preachers.
But John and Malachi would not have confined themselves to the mighty people of society – even if the calendar depended on them! They would ask not just about bankers, but about how you and I use our wealth and power too.
It is sobering to consider just how sharply our society is divided between the rich and the poor. The people who queue in Waitrose and those who queue in food banks are not actually from different species. They are brothers and sisters. One of the core messages of the Gospel is that the rich need to beware of constantly pressing down on the poor – and that’s not just for the sake of the poor.
The rich will suffer too, in their own way: forced by their own greed to retreat behind their gated community fences, with bars at the window, and paid security guards. Constantly fearful of being robbed. Fearfully protecting their land and wealth. Encumbered by endless bills for staff, maintenance and upkeep of their gilded cages and manicured gardens, barely experiencing their neighbourhood, or their neighbours at all. How many wealthy people in gated mansions end up dying friendless, or dependent on drugs and alcohol to dim the pain of their separation from others? If there is one lesson to take from Wolf Hall, which we’ve all been enjoying I guess, is that even being King is not a place of happy contentment!
Christmas is a time for giving. It is good to give gifts to our families and friends, of course. – because friendship is a wonderful gift to celebrate and strengthen. But we who are among the wealthiest people in the world can choose to level the playing field, to fill up the valleys of poverty, and lower the mountains of greed. Shovelful by shovelful. Pound by pound. Penny by penny.
Perhaps we might add up what we will spend this year on Christmas celebrations, and make a similar donation to charities on top – like the Beacon Food Bank? Then, people who have no one to give them a gift can receive a gift from us. Or how about a Christmas donation to the church – so we can continue the task of building the Kingdom here in Havant?
And what does it mean to prepare ourselves spiritually for the coming of the King? How can the crooked parts of our lives be made straight? One shovelful at a time – beginning with ourselves. Perhaps now is a good time to take up reading the bible daily, starting with the Gospels. Maybe daily bible reading notes would help…there are some examples on the community table in the north aisle. Perhaps now is the time to say yes to volunteering in the church, the charity shop or the Pallant Centre, in service of our community?
Both John the Baptiser and Jesus himself learned to say ‘Yes’ to the call of God on their lives. Are we also learning what it means to say ‘Yes’ – Yes to the chance to go deeper, to live more fully, to expand our spiritual horizons – engaging with all the opportunities that there are in this parish for worship of God, and service to our community?
Advent is a call to wake up and respond to God’s initiative. “In the 3rd year of the reign of Charles the 3rd, when Keir Starmer is the Prime Minister and Justin Welby is still the Archbishop of Canterbury (just) the word of God comes to us: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”