Soft robes and patient faith

Text:  James 5.7-10 and Matthew 11.2-11

In the name of the God who is patient with prophets and doubters alike.  Amen.

In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist is in prison.  That matters.  We tend to picture him as permanently wild and indestructible — hair uncut, voice booming, locusts crunching obligingly between his teeth.  But here he is, locked away and silenced, hemmed in by bars and chains.  And from that place comes a question that feels almost shocking in its honesty:  “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

This is not the question of a cynic.  It is the question of a faithful person whose expectations have collided with reality.  John had proclaimed judgement.  He had spoken of axes at roots and fire in hands.  And now the one he pointed to is healing the sick, eating with sinners, and leaving Herod and the Romans very much alive and very much in charge.  The kingdom does not look how John expected.

Jesus’ reply is not a lecture.  It is a list.  The blind see.  The lame walk.  The lepers are cleansed.  The poor hear good news.  In other words:  look carefully.  The kingdom is not arriving with the drama you imagined, but it is arriving all the same.  And then Jesus turns to the crowd and offers that curious reflection about John himself.  First, he says, ‘John is not a reed shaken by the wind’ — he’s someone who sticks solidly to his beliefs.  And John is not someone dressed in soft robes.

Soft robes.  It’s an arresting phrase.  John, after all, is raw.  Uncomfortable.  Scruffy.  He lives on the margins, speaks inconvenient truths, and pays for it with his freedom, first, and then ultimately his life.  Soft robes belong elsewhere — in royal palaces, among those insulated from consequence, buffered from hunger, fear, and uncertainty.  In Jesus’ world, they belong to those who benefit from the system as it is.

It is not hard to draw a line from there to here.  We live in a world where a very small number of people wear metaphorical soft robes indeed — hoovering up wealth, land, influence, and resources, while others are told to tighten their belts, be patient, and wait their turn.  Did you hear President Trump, last week, advising people feeling the pinch of his tariffs to stop buying boxes of pencils, and more than a couple of dolls for their children? 

The gospel has never been particularly impressed by soft robes, or by those who wear them.  Not because comfort is evil in itself, but because insulation from reality so easily dulls compassion.  When you are wrapped in enough layers… of wealth… of security guards… of bullet‑proof windscreens… you can so easily forget how sharp the wind is for everyone else.

There’s something else we should not miss — something that I spoke about in more detail on Thursday, should you want to go deeper.  It’s this:  John is great, Jesus says — the greatest, even — and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.  That is not a dismissal of John, but a redefinition of greatness.  John stands on the threshold, pointing forward.  Those who step into the kingdom — however haltingly, however imperfectly — participate in something John could only glimpse.

Which brings us to James.  “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.”  James is writing to people who genuinely believed that Christ’s return was imminent.  Soon.  Any moment now.  History, as we know, had other ideas.  And that raises an awkward question we are sometimes tempted to dodge:  what do we do with the fact that Jesus did not return on the timetable the early Christians expected?

One option is embarrassment — quietly downplaying the urgency of those early hopes.  (“Let’s not draw too much attention to the naiveté of those early Christians… isn’t it sweet that they thought Jesus was coming back imminently!”).  Another reaction is denial — constantly resetting the clock and insisting the end is just around the corner.  How many times in the last 200 years have prophets claimed to know when Jesus will return?

James offers neither option.  Instead, he offers patience — not passive waiting, but active endurance.  James offers the patience of farmers:  farmers are those who know that growth cannot be forced, only tended.  James offers the patience of people who refuse to grumble against one another while the world remains unresolved.

So, the early Christians were wrong about the timing, but not about the posture.  They were wrong to think the story would be wrapped up quickly.  They were right to live as though it mattered now.  Faithful living was never meant to be a temporary holding pattern until escape.  Rather, it was always meant to be the shape of life itself.

John’s question from prison and James’ call to patience meet us exactly where we are.  We know more than they did — we know that history has continued, that injustice persists, that the kingdom has not arrived in fullness.  And yet we are asked the same question in reverse:  will we live as though God is still at work, even when outcomes disappoint us?

Jesus does not invite us into soft robes.  He invites us into attentiveness — to healing (wherever it happens), to good news (wherever it is spoken), to justice wherever it stirs.  He blesses those who are not scandalised by a kingdom that arrives quietly, stubbornly, and without regard for our preferred schedules.

So we wait — not with folded arms, but with open eyes.  We wait by refusing to grumble, by standing alongside the hurting and the marginal rather than retreating into comfort, by trusting that patient faithfulness is not wasted time.  John waited in prison.  Farmers wait for rain.  We wait in a world that is unfinished.  And blessed are those, says Jesus, who do not take offence at that.  Amen.

Are you greater than John the Baptist?

 

Text:  Matthew 11.11-15

It’s a scene somewhat reminiscent of President Trump being given the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize! Jesus says, “Among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist”. High praise indeed. If Jesus were handing out awards, John would get “Prophet of the Year,” if not lifetime achievement.

And yet—Jesus immediately adds— “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” And you can almost picture poor John—wild hair, camel-hair coat, organic locust in hand—turning round as someone reads that aloud and saying “Well, thanks a lot Jesus!”

John is the greatest—and simultaneously outranked by everyone. What a marvellous Advent paradox.

John is, in many ways, the official Advent mascot. Not the soft one—there are no cuddly John the Baptist toys with removable camel-hair tunics. He’s not the beautiful one—no one puts him on a Christmas card and says “Season’s Greetings from the Judean wilderness, you brood of vipers.” He’s not particularly marketable. No child has ever put “bag of locusts” on their stocking list.

Instead, John stands like the hinge of a great door. All the weight of prophecy and history leans on him; yet he swings open for someone else. That’s the essential thing about John: he isn’t the door—he’s the movement of the door. His entire identity is transition. And that’s Advent.

Advent is movement. It’s also about waiting, yes—but not the waiting of a bored traffic queue on the A27 with Radio 2 on low. Advent is waiting like the pause before the overture begins. It’s the kind of waiting that happens on a cliffhanger at the end of Eastenders.  It’s waiting like smelling the mince pies before they reach the table. It’s that kind of waiting.

But Jesus adds something today which could ruin the mince pies. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” That’s not very cosy, is it?. Not very ‘Little Donkey.’ Not mulled wine and fairy lights. Because the truth is: when light breaks into darkness, darkness does not applaud. We see it across the world. Conflict grinding on like a rusty millwheel. Truth handled like wet soap—slipping through fingers just when you think you’ve caught it. People harassed, displaced, forgotten. Violence done not just with guns, but with lies, with systems that crush the smallest shoulders.

And into that landscape comes… not a warrior. Not a conqueror. But a child. God’s strategy is so utterly absurd, so completely nuts to human systems, that it simply has to be divine. John looked like a revolutionary. Jesus looked like a baby. Yet Jesus says even the least who belong to him are part of something greater than John ever glimpsed.

But why?  Because John knew that God was coming. But Christians know that God has come.  And is coming still.  Both are true, because the kingdom is stubborn.

It keeps arriving—like a persistent delivery man who knocks again, even though you were in the shower the first time and missed him.  The kingdom never leaves a “sorry we missed you” card—it waits at the door and knocks again.  

That’s why Jesus ends today’s reading with the line: “Let anyone with ears listen.” Anyone with ears. Advent is the annual reminder to check whether our ears have batteries in.  Because we are good at listening to other things, aren’t we?

We listen to the news, loudly.

We listen to our own anxieties, loudly.

We listen to the loud, easy promises of politicians.

We listen to the rumour that Christmas must look perfect to count.

But Advent offers a different frequency.

John cries out, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Jesus whispers, “Be not afraid.”

Angels sing, “Peace on earth.”

Mary hums lullabies into straw.

And if you listen closely—in the hush before a service starts, in the quiet when the kettle finishes boiling, in the gentle sigh of someone lighting advent candles—you can hear the sound of something Divine arriving. Something greater than John. Something greater than fear. Something greater than the violent forces that claw at the edges of the world.

Now, I confess: most of us don’t feel like we are “greater” than John the Baptist. We feel more like the understudies who were called up because the star of the show had flu. We look at our worn out faces in the mirror and think… really? This? Me? 

But greatness in the kingdom is not measured like greatness in the wilderness. Out there, greatness was camel hair and wild proclamations of mountains being laid low.  In here, greatness is small things: generosity without applause, forgiveness without conditions, courage in fragile places.

The least in the kingdom is greater than John because the least belong not just to the promise, but to the fulfilment. John prepared the way. We walk in it. And we walk through car parks full of Christmas shoppers. Through hospitals with quiet wards and uncertain futures. Through homes where people long for someone no longer here. Through the noise and glitter and worry and excitement.  And still, the door is swinging open. Still, the kingdom insists on arriving. Still the child waits to be received. Let anyone with ears listen.

And may we, this Advent, learn not merely to wait— but to welcome.

Not merely to wonder— but to receive.

Not merely to admire John— but to walk past him, through the doorway that he opened. And find Christ, waiting on the other side. Amen.

We live among blossoms. (Advent 2)

Readings:  Isaiah 11.1-10, Romans 15.4-13 and Matthew 3.1-12

In the name of the God who coaxes green shoots out of stumps, and makes prophets shout in the wilderness. Amen.

A few years ago, I met a man who was restoring an old orchard.  His walled garden was really just a rectangle of mossy brick—and, to be honest, it looked a bit forlorn. Huge, old apple trees, twisted by time; stumps where others had once stood; patches of earth that seemed exhausted. But the man had vision. He could see what would grow.

He showed me one of the stumps—one so dead that it really needed digging out. “Look at this,” he said. And there, right on the tip of the stump, was a single green shoot—absurdly fragile, but alive. “Give that a season,” he said, “and we’ll have apples again.”

I thought of him this week as Isaiah spoke:  “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”.  That stump is human history. And that stump is our habits, our stuck thinking. That stump is the part of us we’ve long since written off—“nothing good will grow here.” And Isaiah says, “Watch.”

Now, picture a wilderness—hot, dry, unpromising. People trudging down to the river, not for a picnic, not for sightseeing, but because someone is shouting a message that will not let them stay asleep.  John the Baptiser.  John—the spiritual equivalent of a cold shower.  John, who appears without backstory, without pleasantries, wearing camel hair and smelling faintly of barbecued locusts.  “Repent!” he cries.

But he doesn’t mean “feel guilty.”  He uses a specific Greek word - ‘metanoia’; change direction; adjust the compass; turn around.  Adjust your thinking away from ego, away from prejudice, away from self-service, and turn your thinking towards the mind and the heart of God.  It’s the moment in the orchard when you stop assuming nothing will grow and you start tending the tiny shoot.  Repentance is when the gardener decides:  “I’ll water this patch again. I’ll prune. I’ll try.”   That’s metanoia.  

People mistakenly assume that repentance is the dramatic moment, the lightning bolt, the conviction of sin.  You walk down to the Jordan, get dipped, shake off the water – and the sin - like a confused Labrador, and go back home...job done.  But John says no. He says, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance; worthy of metanoia.”  Fruit takes time.  Fruit takes tending.  Fruit is patience in edible form.  Nobody eats fruit from a stump. Fruit comes only when the shoot grows.

And now Paul enters the discussion, writing to the Romans; city-dwelling Christians who probably didn’t have an orchard between them. They understood concrete better than compost. And to them, Paul says, “Everything written in Scripture was given for hope.” 

Hope is not optimism.  Hope is not “things might be better by Friday.”  Hope is the refusal to believe that the stump is the final word.  Perhaps Paul would have planted that tiny shoot from Isaiah right in the middle of the Roman Forum—between the Senate and the sausage stall. And watched it confound everyone.

Now let’s bring this closer to home.  Years ago—before anyone referred to St Francis as the Cathedral of Leigh Park—this was a field of possibility. A congregation gathered together, reached out, and planted something. Perhaps some of you were part of that first congregation. And it grew—not perfectly, not always vigorously, but unmistakably alive.  And yes, over time, some branches have been pruned. Some ideas have dried. Some initiatives have produced bruised fruit. But when I walk into this place, I do not see the stump. I see shoots.  A community that still gathers, even when the heating is broken;  Lives touched by pastoral care and school ministry;  community bursting into life at pantomime time; The kindness exchanged in quiet, ordinary ways; prayers unceasing, Christmas joy.  All of that is hope – the green shoots.

And repentance today might look like deciding: “This corner of the orchard still deserves tending.  That neighbour deserves a fresh conversation.  That ministry deserves pruning instead of abandonment.”

Let me tell you another orchard moment.  A year after seeing that abandoned stump, I went back—and the gardener had staked it upright. He had shielded it from wind and frost. And now it had leaves—small, waxy, defiant leaves. I asked him why he bothered.  He answered with something Isaiah would have loved: “Because someone before me planted this. And someone after me will taste the fruit.”  That is metanoia.  A change of direction not just for ourselves, but for the next generation.

Ultimately, that’s Advent thinking.  And now, John’s preaching suddenly sounds less harsh, less condemning, doesn’t it?  “Repent, because someone after you will taste the fruit.  Prepare the way, because someone after you needs that road.  Make straight paths, because the Messiah walks behind you as well as toward you.”

Then Matthew offers the final contrast:  John baptises with water for cleansing—symbolic, temporary, refreshing.  But Jesus baptises with Spirit and fire—not destructive fire, but refining fire, orchard fire: the fire that clears brush, stimulates seeds, prepares soil. 

John clears the weeds; Jesus plants the Kingdom. John wakes us up; Jesus carries hope into the bloodstream of the world. John points; Jesus arrives.

So what do we do with this?  We look for stumps.  Inside ourselves. Inside our community.

Inside our church.  And we listen for Isaiah saying: “Watch.” We turn—metanoia—and tend what grows. We water with kindness.  We stake with prayer.  We protect with courage.  And we wait—not passively, but actively.  Because someone after us will taste the fruit.

Let me tell you what I saw the third year. Blossom.  Ridiculously pink, all fluff and fragrance. And that’s when orchard keepers know the future. Blossom is fruit foretold.  No apples yet—but absolutely inevitable.  Isaiah saw a shoot.  John cleared space.  Jesus planted the orchard.   Welcome to Advent:  we live among blossoms.  Amen.

Looking for Jesus in All the Wrong Places (Advent 1)

A sermon for the first Sunday of Advent.

Readings:  Isaiah 2.1-5 and Matthew 24.36-44

It’s Advent again.  The first day of the new liturgical year, and yet, unlike conventional new years, it’s the season of waiting.  The season of expectation.  The season in which clergy across the land dust off their annual sermon about being “awake and alert,” while secretly praying the congregation won’t notice they preached exactly the same thing last year.  

But Advent does matter.  Today Isaiah lifts our eyes to the mountain of the Lord, where all nations stream together in peace, hammering swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.  A beautiful picture — perhaps modern nations might hammer their nuclear submarines into garden sheds and their attack drones into slightly disappointing air-fryers.  The point is the same: God imagines a world in which humanity finally grows up.  A world beyond fear and competition.  

And then, on to Matthew’s Gospel, in which Jesus gives us a thunderous reminder that no one knows the hour or the day — not the angels, not even the Son.  Only the Father knows when the great unveiling of God’s purposes will take place.  Which of course is rather at odds with those people on the internet who think they’ve cracked the Bible’s numerological codes about the second coming.  Sitting there with a biro, a calculator and a YouTube prophecy channel — they are, let’s put it kindly… enthusiastic, but incorrect.  

And then there’s the elephant in the room: the Rapture.  Those passages about “one taken, one left”.  Entire theologies have been constructed from these few verses, usually involving helicopters, flaming swords, and unfortunate sinners left behind to work in what remains of the civil service.  I’m afraid it’s nonsense.  Jesus is using a classic prophetic image: suddenness.  Unpredictability.  He’s not suggesting that God is planning some kind of cosmic vacuum-cleaner to hoover up the good and leave the rest on the factory floor.  If anything gets raptured, let it be our bad theologies.  

Let’s put it simply: Jesus is not trying to frighten us.  He is trying to wake us.  “Keep awake,” he says.  Not “keep terrified.”  Not “keep speculating.”  Not “keep checking the Book of Revelation against the Daily Mail” (or the ‘Daily Fail’ as we call it in my house).  Keep awake.  Because God’s future isn’t something that crashes through the clouds like a divine meteor.  God’s future is something that breaks in, again and again, every time something true and beautiful and just is done.  

That is Isaiah’s vision.  Not a heavenly evacuation plan, but a future so compelling that all peoples will actually want to walk in its light.  And here’s the outrageous claim of Advent: that future has already started.  The light has already dawned.  The mountain of the Lord is already visible to us – even if still through a veil, darkly.  Which means the “coming of the Son of Man” is not restricted to some far-off cosmic firework display — it is something that happens whenever God’s way becomes real in the world.  

You want to know when Jesus returns?  I’ll tell you exactly when.  

He returns every time a homeless person gets housed, because that is where Jesus said he would be found.  He returns every time a wrong is righted, because Jesus is the one who binds up the broken and sets prisoners free.  He returns every time someone gives their life — their time, their money, their energy — for the sake of another.  You can’t miss him.  He keeps turning up.  He’s practically under our noses.  

So here are three Advent take-aways — three little spiritual sandwiches to put in your pocket for the week ahead.  

First, don’t look up — look around.  Searching the skies for signs of Jesus is like scanning the horizon for the Isle of Wight when you’re already standing in Ryde.  Jesus is not hiding in the atmosphere, sitting on a cloud.  He is hiding in your neighbour.  

Second, don’t wait — participate.  Isaiah’s great vision of peace is not a screensaver.  It requires hammering and welding and building.  It requires showing up for the kingdom, peering through the veil, not day-dreaming about it.  Advent is not an intermission.  It’s a call-up.  The Kingdom is a ‘not yet’ idea – it hasn’t arrived in all its fullness.  But it is also a ‘now’ idea.  It’s already here.  Fragile, under constant threat from the World, from apathy, from faithlessness.  It is a ‘now and not yet’ phenomenon.  

And third, don’t fear the future — create it.  Jesus warns us that the future comes suddenly, yes — but he also shows us that the future can be shaped.  The Kingdom is not a spectator sport – in which we sit back and clap while God does all the work.  Oh, it’s so easy to think ‘everything will be sorted out when Jesus comes to reign’.  But actually, every act of mercy and charity – by you and by me - is a brick in the new Jerusalem.  

So on this first Sunday of Advent, keep awake — not anxiously, but expectantly.  Wake up to the fact that Christ comes to us every day – quite often disguised as the people who need us.  Wake up to the fact that the world God dreams of is not far away but already breaking through the mist around the mountain.  And wake up to the glorious truth that the return of Jesus is not an event we wait for, but a reality we can join in with — here, now, this very day.  

And if by some chance Jesus does decide to return in the clouds this afternoon, then at least we’ll be busy doing something useful when he arrives.  Not staring at the sky with a calculator and a biro.  But hammering swords into ploughshares.  Hammering our fears into compassion.  Hammering our lives into something resembling the love of God — until even we, too, learn war no more.  

So — keep awake.  And keep building.  For the Lord is already on the way.

Advent 2: Making the crooked paths straight

 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.”

Advent 4 - Mary Meets an Angel

Sunday Morning - Advent 4 2019

An imaginative re-telling of the Annuciation

Mary plonked herself down onto her bed.  "Crikey, I'm tired!" she said.  It had been a long day of household chores.  But now, Mary had one more important job do.  She reached down, under her bed, and pulled out an old basket.  Inside was her nearly-finished wedding robe...the one she had been working on for the past several weeks. Mary was engaged to Joseph, the old carpenter in the village.  No-one knew why Joseph had not been married before...perhaps he had been waiting for the right girl to come along. 

At that moment, unbeknown to Mary, something began to happen in the corner of her room - just over her shoulder.  A twinkle in the air.  Now a soft glow. Then, suddenly, a tall figure with wings on his back appeared in the corner.

"Greetings!" said the figure.

Mary jumped out of her skin!  "Where did you come from?", she demanded.  "You shouldn't creep up on people like that!"

The tall figure with the wings, looked a little surprised at her reaction.  People usually quaked in fear when he appeared.  He wasn't used to being told off.  "Sorry", he mumbled.  "Didn't mean to startle you.  Can I go on now?"

"Alright"  said Mary, thinking that this tall fellow looked a little bit like one of Mrs Jacobs's sons, from down the road.  "What's this all about....and why have you got those wings clipped onto your coat?  Are you going to a fancy dress party?"

"They're not clipped onto my coat." said the tall man.  "They're sticking out of my robe...they're my wings."

"Oh," said Mary who was beginning to realise that this wasn't Mrs Jacobs's boy after all.  "Who are you?"

"I'm an Angel", said the Angel.

"Get away!" said Mary.  "You're pulling my leg.  What's this...some kind of prank?"

"No, really", said the Angel.  "I'm an actual, real, Angel.  Sent by God.  I've got a very important message for you. You are really very favoured you know.  Not everyone gets a real Angel sent with a message from God."

"Ok," said Mary, sarcastically.  "I'm all ears!"

"Mary," the Angel started again, patiently, "I've got really good news for you.  You are to be given the greatest gift that any woman has ever been given."

"Gosh!" said Mary, all agog.

"Yes," the Angel went on, "You are going to have a baby, sent from God.  You are to name him Yeshua"

"What, like Yeshua who led the People into the Promised Land?"  Mary enquired...trying to take in what the Angel was saying.

"Yes," said the Angel, "Just like that.  It means ‘God Saves’.  Although years from now people will change the way they pronounce it, and will call him Jesus."  The Angel drew himself up to his full height, and started to proclaim, slightly pompously, "He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever."  (The Angel was really working himself up to a climax now...the big finish.)  "His kingdom will never end...and..."

"Erm...", said Mary, holding up a finger.

"What now?!" said the Angel - a little bit annoyed that he had been stopped in mid-flow like that.

"Well, you see, I don't think I can have a baby.  I'm not married yet”.  The Angel took a deep breath.

A little pomposity crept into his voice again.

"Nothing is impossible for God.  The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy baby that will be born will be the Son of God."  Suddenly, he had an idea.  "Haven't you heard about Elizabeth?"

"What, my cousin Elizabeth?"  Mary said.  "What about her?"

"She's pregnant,” said the Angel. “Has been for six months"

"Never!" said Mary.  "But she's really old!"

"Nothing is impossible for God", repeated the Angel.

"Well," said Mary.  "It all sounds very unlikely, I must say.  I mean, why on earth would God choose a peasant like me to bear his son. Are you sure those wings are real?"

"I'm completely sure.  It's always been God's way.  Right back to the dawn of time. Don't you know your history?  Don't you remember how God rescued your ancestors when they were slaves?  God has always had a heart for the poor.  People whose lives are not cluttered up with stuff are so much closer to him.  You know, God said to me only the other day that Moses only become interesting when he had stopped being a prince.  God had been talking to him for years...but Moses only heard him when he had become a poor goat-herder up a mountain."

"Hmm," said Mary, still not quite convinced.  "Let me get this straight.  I'm going to have a baby, right?"

"Yep" said the Angel

"Even though I've not even kissed Joseph yet?"

"Even then"

"And my baby is going to be the Son of God...even though he will be born in this little hut?"

"Well," said the Angel cautiously, "He won't actually be born here..."

"Why not?" asked Mary, suspiciously

"It'll be a bit more rustic than this"

"A bit more rustic?  How much more rustic do you want it?" said Mary, pointing at her surroundings.

"Umm" said the Angel, with a worried look in his eye, "Think donkeys.  And cows"

"What!" exclaimed Mary.  "My baby is going to be born in a field?!"

"Oh no!", said the Angel.  "Nothing as bad as that.  More like a stable"

"A stable!" said Mary.

"Mary..." said the Angel, a little sternly.  "You've got to trust me.  You've got to trust God.  God knows what he is doing.  Yeshua has to be born somewhere that no-one would expect a king to be born.  He's got to be born in utter poverty...so that God's priority for the poor and the humble can be made clear.”

Mary slid forward off her bed, until she was kneeling on the floor in front of the Angel.

"I am the Lord's servant", she said.  "May it be to me as you have said"

The Angel smiled.  Mary had accepted what he had told her.  She had tasted something of her future, and the future that would be shaped by her Son.  Satisfied that his task was complete, the Angel slowly faded from Mary's view. 

Mary's heart was full to bursting...and she sang...

"My soul is bursting with God's news!

I'm dancing the song of my Saviour-God!

God took one look at me, and look what happened -

I am the most fortunate woman on Earth!

He bared his arm and showed his strength,

And scattered the peddlers of lies and falsehoods.

He has knocked tyrants off their high horses

and pulled their victims out of the mud.

The starving poor sat down to a banquet;

the callous rich were left out in the cold..."

In the corner of Mary's room, the smile of an Angel hung in the air for a few seconds.  And was gone.

John the Baptist or Jesus - the choice is yours

Matthew 3.1-12

John the Baptist is one of the stranger characters of the New Testament. He wore clothing of camel hair – which I imagine was rather itchy – who seems to have lived exclusively on locusts and wild honey. I imagine that getting wild honey out of a wild honey-bee hive is rather a tricky thing to do. So poor old John was probably covered in bee-stings as well.

John was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He followed the tradition of living apart from civilisation, and of calling people to repent of their evil ways. So, let’s picture the scene – picture a rather dirty fellow, who has probably never visited a barber, dressed in camel-hair, covered in bee-stings and with honey stuck to his shirt, munching on a locust...and declaring at the top of his voice “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

I wonder what our reaction would be if we met someone like that in the streets of Havant – or even here inside the church. I think we’d probably try to get him sectioned – for his own good!  There are, actually, some Vicars who have been known to dress up in ‘hobo’ clothes and sit in the porch of the church, just as worshippers are arriving…to see whether any of them would stop and ask if he needed help.  Of course, I know exactly what would happen if I did that here.  Jackie Martin would put on her Havant Homeless Trust hat and ask me ‘would you like one of the sleeping bags we’ve got in the office?’!

But, despite his strange appearance, there was something about John that attracted people to him. There was something about his message that had people coming out to him in the wilderness from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region along the River Jordan” (Mt 3:5) And let’s remember, these weren’t Sunday drivers out for a laugh at the strange fellow in the desert. These were people who would have travelled many hours, and in some cases many days – to hear for themselves the amazing – even scandalous - things that this man of the desert was saying.

John was not a man to mince his words either. He called the religious leaders of the day a “viper’s brood” (Mt 3:7) He warned them against the complacency of their religion. “Just because you are Abraham’s children,” he would say, “don’t go thinking that gives you an automatic right to heaven” (Mt 7:8 - paraphrased).  He warned them to be afraid of the Messiah who would ‘put an axe to the tree’ of their systems and laws.

There are a number of strange inconsistencies about John. First there is the fact that he didn’t join up with Jesus. Why didn’t he set aside his baptising, and become a follower of the Lord? And then there’s the fact (as we will hear in next week’s Gospel reading) that when he was in prison he sent word to Jesus - to ask him if he really was the Messiah...despite having recognised him as such by the Jordon at Jesus’ baptism.

It seems that John had a different vision in his head of what the Messiah would be like – he seemed to expect a Messiah who would be full of swift judgment against the evil people of the day. See what he says in today’s gospel, in chapter 3:

“...he [that is the Messiah] will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. (Mt 3: 12) John’s mental picture of the Messiah was based in the language and concepts of the Old Testament. He expected the ‘great and terrible Day of the Lord’. And when it didn’t happen quite as he expected, he perhaps proved more reticent to join up with Jesus. Maybe that’s why he sent word from his prison – saying to Jesus, “are you really the Messiah?”.

But Jesus has a subtly different agenda. He also speaks of the coming day of judgment, and the separation of sheep from goats – later in Matthew’s gospel in fact. But Jesus places that event at some distance in the future. First, he has work to do – to call as many people as possible to repentance, and to give the greatest possible opportunity for people to choose God’s way of living over their own. 

There’s a difference, you see, between John’s angry, passionate cry of ‘repent’, and Jesus’ loving invitation to ‘repent’.  The emphasis that we put on words really matters, doesn’t it?  John’s cry of ‘repent’ is angry, frustrated, and intolerant of the world he sees around him.  He is motivated by anger, and longs for the vipers and the chaff to be burned up in unquenchable fire!  But Jesus has God’s perspective on the world.  He looks on the mess of the world with compassion and love – like a parent looks on a wayward child.  He preaches tolerance, forgiveness and peace, and even prays for forgiveness for those who crucify him – “for they know not what they do”.  Jesus is prepared, with God’s longing patience, to give time to the establishment of his Kingdom.

He is so committed to that path – and so reluctant to embark on the eventual task of judgment - that he is prepared to give up his own life so that we might find our way back to God.

And I wonder whether we ourselves can sometimes be a bit like John. Certainly, as a human race, we have often been guilty of making God in our own image.  How many wars have been fought in the belief that God approves of them? How many acts of cruelty have been perpetrated in the belief that God is somehow being served through them? Are there ways in which we conduct our lives which are inconsistent with the reality of Jesus – and the way in which he calls us to live?

I wonder if you’ve seen that bracelet that teenagers sometimes wear.  It has the four letters “WWJD”. They stand for “what would Jesus do” – of course – and it’s a phrase from the 1970s (at least!) which has perhaps become dulled by over-familiarity. But it’s still a good question. What would Jesus do in the face of the rampant poverty of the developing world? What would Jesus do in the face of corruption among leaders of so many nations? What would Jesus do when faced with the commercial pressure to ‘spend, spend, spend’ at this time of the year? What would Jesus do in the face of globalisation and the climate emergency?  How would Jesus vote in the coming election? – assuming he doesn’t establish his Kingdom in power before next Thursday!

During this time of advent, the story of John invites us to prepare for the coming of Jesus – the true Messiah – who will probably be nothing like we expect him to be.  We are invited to prepare for the Lord who says “love one another”, and who shows us what real love is like through radical self- sacrifice.  The story of John reminds us that our understanding of who Jesus was, and is, needs to be re-interpreted.  It needs to be seen in the light of Jesus’ advent as the forgiving, accepting, non-retaliatory, suffering-servant-king – whose strength is precisely in his meekness.

May you know the peace of Christ as you prepare to celebrate his coming once again this year. May you know the reality of who Jesus really was and is.  By soaking up the stories about him in the Bible, may you deepen your understanding of who he was and what he stood for. And may that knowledge transform you. Day by day.  So that you may truly know who you are...a loved child of God, gently and loving called to repentance.  And by depending that knowledge, may you come to know what you stand for too.