December 8 Sermon

Matthew 3:1-12; Isaiah 11:1-10                                                

You may find this hard to believe, but as a young child I was talkative, in fact, sometimes too much. In elementary school—in order to get attention—I would horse around, dominating time in the classroom. Once came the kind of attention I didn’t expect or want. It was during the fall term of fourth grade, and Mrs. Selvey was our homeroom teacher. After a time of cutting up in class, I was chastised with words something like this: “Alan,” she said, pointing a finger directly at me. “The third-grade teachers told me you acted this way, but at first I didn’t believe them. Well, now I do!” I felt so embarrassed, so ashamed, suddenly—in my chair—wanting to become smaller and smaller until no one could see me at all. Well, after that, I still did my fair share of talking in class—but mainly the “right” kind. Her rebuke had been successful; it was effective.

 Decades later, in fact, just this past September, came another public rebuke—but this time from a young person to a large group of adults. And not for a little thing, but for a matter having to do with the very future of life in our world. I’m speaking of the sixteen-year old girl from Sweden, the environmental activist who addressed the ambassadors at the United Nations. Exactly what they were expecting I don’t know. Maybe they were looking for an inspirational speech. But certainly that wasn’t what they got. Here are just a few excerpts:

I shouldn’t be…here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and childhood with your empty words….We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money, and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you….?

How dare you pretend that this [emergency] can be solved with just “business as usual” and some [technological] solutions?….You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future gen’s are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.[i]

Now, that’s a rebuke—about something that’s a matter of life or death for all people and all other living things.

Another rebuke having to do with life or death was, in another age, by someone wearing a coat of camel’s hair and calling out in the wilderness near the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.[ii] We might think his physical appearance and the place of his prophesying would have made it unlikely that people would come out to hear him. But come they did. The simplicity of his dress and that of that environment had a way of stripping away other things that would have competed for the people’s attention. That simplicity allowed them to hear a message that itself was simple, that was undeniably clear and direct:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near….I baptize you with water for repentance, but one [is coming who]…will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire….His winnowing fork is in his, and he will…gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn w/unquenchable fire.

John is blunt. He doesn’t mince words. Yet, though he sounds scary, even condemning, his message is a message of hope—or perhaps tough love. He calls people to stop, look at the direction they’ve been going in, and then make a 180-degree turn and get going again.

Although repentance includes contrition, maybe even remorse, that’s not the main point of this passage. The main point is changing what one does. The main point is one’s relationship to God being transformed. And that transformation is possible not only for people at the bottom of society, but also for those at the top—that is, those who so easily can be distracted by other things, like the Pharisees and Sadducees—as long as they really mean it and haven’t shown up merely to see what’s going on.

So again, John’s message is not one of condemnation, but of hope. It just happens to be spelled out in the form of tough love.

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In contrast to today’s gospel, the message in the first lesson is one of gentle love, gracious love. Just listen to these words about the one who is to come out of and grow up from the branch of Jesse.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord….Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, 

the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together…The cow and the bear shall graze, and their young shall down together…The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp…

In this passage, everything is reversed: We hear nothing of axes cutting down trees failing to produce good fruit, but instead the exact opposite—a new shoot growing from what has looked like a dead stump. We don’t hear about a group of people described as a brood of dangerous vipers, but again the exact opposite—animals that live in complete harmony.

While we often think of the New Testament as being full of a message of gentle love—which much of it is—and while we often think of the Old Testament as being full of a message of tough love and maybe even destruction—which a good part of it is—today we see those messages reversed. That’s how it is sometimes—and not only in eyes of those witnesses in the Bible, but also today in our own lives.

Think back to the address that that young person, Greta Thunberg, gave at the United Nations. So blunt. So harsh. But also so true—perhaps, perhaps a form of tough love. Here now is an example of gentle, even gracious love that also has to do with our responsibility not only to respect the earth, but also do we what can to help reverse the damage we’ve done to it. 

That example is a person at the other end of life—a person who has spent decades advocating for the care of the environment, a person who just last month was honored as the Distinguished Conservationist of the year for an organization of which he was one of the founders back in the 1960s. That organization is the Georgia Conservancy, and that individual served as our 39^th president—Jimmy Carter.[iii] Unfortunately, due to his health, he was unable to accept the award in person.

The credit for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency—back in 1969, fifty years ago—and the first set of legislative acts goes to President Nixon, the reforms of which Carter enthusiastically supported and advanced.[iv] Those of you old enough to remember might recall that during his time in the Oval Office, he had 32 solar panels installed on the roof of the White House—which provided “hot water for the cafeteria, the laundry, and the family quarters.”[v]

During his presidency, he was a strong advocate for preserving the environment, sometimes calling for drastic measures. In one speech, he said the following: 

I’m asking you, for your good and for your nation’s security,…take no unnecessary trips,…use carpools or public transportation whenever you can…and…set your thermostats to save fuel. 

Every act of energy conservation is more than just common sense, I tell you it is an act of patriotism.[vi]

Remember how that went over?

In private life, he hasn’t been as blunt or extreme as back then. Still, at the age of 95, care of the environment remains close to his heart. In one of his many books, he testifies to the difference that his faith makes in how he regards God’s creation:

I was born into a Christian family…and have been in weekly Bible lessons all my life. At least one Sunday each year was devoted to protection of the environment, or stewardship of the earth. 

My father and the other farmers in the congregation would pay [especially] close attention to the [message for that week, which was] based on texts such as “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.”[vii]

As a quiet example of his respect and love for the environment, his family farm has recently been installed “more than 3,800 solar panels, which produce enough electricity to [provide] power [for] half [of] the town [of Plains, Georgia].”[viii]

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During this season of Advent, we are reminded that we continue to wait for the return of our Lord and Savior, which we pray will be a time of both deliverance and fulfillment. We also remember Advent as a time not only of tough love—as, for example, in the words of John that slice like a knife—but also gentle love as in the message of the Prophet Isaiah, that one day all of creation shall live in peace, and the root, the shoot of Jesse shall stand as a sign before all peoples.