St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Third Sunday in Advent - Dec. 13, ’09
“Question! Question! Great Response!”
Text: Luke 3:10-14
What’s written in the Bible for our learning, for our encouragement & hope, and for our salvation is that life is not a test we take, but life is a response we make to God & His steadfast love & tender mercy
That life sometimes look & feels like a test; that life is full of questions, uncertainties, not knowing, is due to the fact that in a broken and imperfect world life is life.
Every Christmas its not uncommon to hear people ask: “What are we getting for whom this Christmas? Are we going anywhere for Christmas? What’s the real meaning of Christmas?”
When someone is hospitalized it’s not uncommon for them to be asked a list of questions about symptoms, allergies, family history, medications, special needs, insurance. Do they have a living will or an end of life directive or someone designated as their personal agent?
People who own a business or run a business face questions about financial resources, profits, losses, current performance, future trends! Given a shaky economy, what’s a salesman, what’s a store-owner, what’s a farmer, what’s a businessman, what’s an employer to do? Questions! Life is full of them!
Then there’s church.
What if at the end of a sermon, instead of saying Amen, the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts & minds in Christ Jesus, the preacher said, All right! Any question? Do you have any questions?
Sermons aren’t supposed to explain things are they? Aren’t good sermons the ones that proclaim things; proclaim the Law of God that exposes our sins; proclaim our need for forgiveness; proclaim the Gospel of salvation that sets us free from our sins; proclaim the good news of God that helps you go back into a broken & imperfect world assured of God’s presence, God’s blessing, God’s amazing grace?
When John the Baptist showed up in the region around the Jordan River proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins to common, ordinary, tax-paying citizens, those citizens had heart-felt questions in response to what John the Baptist was preaching. John didn’t preach against any one specific social issue like health care or abortion or war or taxes. Forerunner of Jesus that John the Baptist was called to be, John made it clear he had not come to lay the ground-work for a new more conservative party in power in Jerusalem. Nor did John advocate a return to the glorious & prosperous days of King David.
Instead, John the Baptist showed up in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins that called for people to have new hearts; called for a just & honest & compassionate response to God’s justice & mercy. John’s preaching called for living & caring for others, living one’s whole life, day in, day out in keep-ing with the Kingdom of God that was coming in Jesus the Christ.
It was the power of God’s Spirit at work in John’s preaching; it was the truth that God’s Son, the long-waited Messiah & Savior was coming with “His winnowing fork in his hand to clear his threshing floor” & to gather the wheat into his barn THAT led those baptized by John to ask: “What then shall we do?”
John responded, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” If you have a closet full of coats, give some to those who have none. If you have food, share it with others.
There was a recent story in the Kearney Hub, dateline Albany, N.Y. titled, “Recession pushing more seniors to food pantries, soup kitchens.”
“Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired life-long habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first time after seeing retirement funds, second jobs and nest eggs wiped out by recession.”
Even here in Minden, our local food pantry is seeing a need for basic groceries & necessities greater than ever before.
In preparation for Christ’s coming now & in the future, repentance & confession are still the order of the day for us as Christians.
What then shall we do? If our hearts are set on Christ’s coming and we trust in His coming, should not that grocery cart in the narthex be overflowing, and our fish tank filling up with loose change?
Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to John, “Teacher, what shall we do?”
And John said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” In other words, don’t use your job to take advantage of people. Don’t pad your own pockets. Don’t think of yourself first. In the Kingdom of God the first will be last, and the last first. Collect only what is required by law. Be honest! Be fair!
Soldiers also asked John the Baptist, “And we, what shall we do?”
And John’s response to them was, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
We know some politicians give politics a bad name. We read in the news where some public servants are in it for personal gain. But in the Kingdom of God things are different says John the Baptist. Child-ren of God, children of the Light, servants of God, soldiers of the cross do not use their power & authority to get their own way. No taking bribes, no blackmail, no grabbing for all you can get & more. Be content with your rations, your wages. Live within your means!
When the people asked, “What then shall we do,” each time, John had a God-pleasing, God-given, Kingdom-defining response.
For every sin confessed, John pointed to the forgiveness of all sins in the coming Savior, in the coming of the One who would be born a baby and who would grow to be a holy, perfect, just & righteous, caring & compassionate human being. God’s plan was to make His per-fect, sinless Son to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him, in the coming of a long-awaited, suffering, life-sacrificing Savior - all might become the righteousness of God.
Where there is true repentance & forgiveness of all sins in Jesus the Christ, what is the right response? What is a great response?
In the book of the prophet Micah, when the question is raised: “What does the Lord require, the prophet Micah’s response is, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)
In the region of the Jordan, out in the wilderness, away from the temple in Jerusalem, away from the government buildings of Pontius Pilate, away from banks & market places & shopping malls & padded pews & membership lists of congregations, John the Baptist responded to those who came to him to be baptized spelling it out for them in terms they could understand:
“Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, we’re good religious folks, we come from good religious stock, we are life-time members as were are parents and grandparents.”
“Repentance” it has been said, “must be something more than mere remorse for sins; repentance also calls for a great response befit-ting the Kingdom of God.” (NBCQ, p. 205, Lew Wallace)
What then shall we do? What is God longing for, waiting for, needing for us to do as His redeemed, forgiven people?
Sometime ago, I went surfing on the Internet for Mealtime Invocations and it was quite a list I turned up. One invocation that struck me as being very close, almost exactly the same as John the Baptist’s response to the crowds, to the tax-collectors, to the soldiers of was an invocation, offered, would you believe, at a noon-time Rotary meeting in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Dear Lord, we do not love You until we love our neighbors as ourselves.
Help us to bring the blessing of Your love & fellowship to others.
Let us not be content, O Lord, when others go hungry.
Let us not be serene while some lack their daily bread.
Help us to be among those who are willing to sacrifice that others may not be hungry.
Let us not shut our hands against the poor.
Let our hearts be moved by the misery of others, and let us dare what must be dared.
We are all responsible. Amen
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not ‘What a lovely sermon!’ but ‘I will do something!’ That was true of the preaching of John the Baptist. Citizens, tax collectors, soldiers did not say, “What a lovely sermon!” but they said, “We will do something!”
What then shall we do? The right response, a great & grace-based response says John is Live generously, not selfishly. Live honestly; don’t cheat, don’t cut corners; don’t pad your hours. Whether you work for city, the county, the state, the federal government; or you own you own business, or you’re retired & living on SS. Follow in the foot steps of Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!
Although life is always going to be full of questions we ask or questions we get asked, life is not a test we take, but a response we make to the grace & mercy of God revealed in Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord.
What then shall we do? Amen
