John cries, Pay Attention! – 4 December 2016 – Second Sunday of Advent

The core of John's message is the same as that announced by Jesus, the nearness of God's reign (cf. Matthew 4:17). Matthew also identifies John as the one described by Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 40:3), reshaping the exilic oracle to point to the wilderness as the location of John's activity. These features of the text are typical of the manner in which Matthew weaves together a thick web of images and key words that resonate with important Old Testament themes and stories. – Aaron J. Couch

Matthew 3:1-12

Into the dark, quiet, watchful season of Advent bursts John the Baptist . . . His ascetic diet of locust and honey, his rough clothing, his earnest message of “Repent!” all seize the imagination. We sit up, take notice, of this voice crying in the wilderness, sensing we must give our full attention.

John stands as a man between times, and in Matthew's account of him, he is aware of it. He is a preparer of the way, sent to make all ready the One who is to come. His baptism is a baptism for repentance, a cleansing from the accrued detritus of sin. A sorrowful, humble recognition of the need for cleansing is part and parcel of its efficacy. Therefore, when the Pharisees and Sadducees come to the Jordan to be baptized, John is outraged. He sees them as insincere. They are not coming because they see themselves as stained and dusty, weary with sin, weary of the darkness in which the world hangs waiting. They are seeing this baptism as simply another gold star on their perfect charts. . . .

John is trying to shake complacency. His is a scream for attention, a grabbing by the shirt, in-your-face confrontation. “You think you're pure? You think you're favored? You think God can't do something completely new? Something is happening, and nothing will ever be the way it was! Wake up!”

John was a man of the in-between times, standing in the darkness, but straining for the light. And this is the mood of Advent. As we stand in the darkness and strain once again for the light, may we let our complacency be shaken, may we examine ourselves with eyes wide open, may we recall that in the Nicene Creed, which we recite almost automatically, there is a reminder that there is a new thing that God is prepared at some point to do: “Christ will come again.” – Judith Buck-Glenn

Isaiah 11:1-10

Having announced the judgment of God by which the mightiest of trees will be cut down (10:33–34), the prophet turns his attention to the stump that remains. Both the tree and the stump symbolize the nation of Israel as defined by the monarchy. The stump, the end of the tree, represents an end for the dynasty of David. But it is also the beginning of a new work of God. – Aaron J. Couch

Romans 15:4-13

The challenge for our nation during Advent, and especially following a contentious election, is to consider the meaning for each of us and for our congregations that the Apostle Paul admonishes us to greater and deeper concern for our neighbors.  

Paul insisted that the weak and strong should never despise each other, but instead act with love, accommodating as best they can the needs and scruples of their neighbors. – Aaron J. Couch

Judith Buck-Glenn is associate rector at Christ Church Episcopal in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.

Aaron J. Couch is a co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon.

Homily Service 41, no. 1 (2007): 21-31.

Mercy for Exiles – 3 January 2016 – Second Sunday after Christmas

As Ephesians explains our faith: “In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of God’s grace lavished on us.” We are to know the great blessings of the incarnation.

Yet we are called to answer questions asked by this world: Who is Jesus? Really. A memory? A miracle? A metaphor? Is his role in our lives defined by history or philosophy, art or another kind of experienced feeling?

This Sunday gives us Christ in images of light. We are preparing for Epiphany. And somehow the light is described by the bringing together of exiles. Is Christ about mercy toward the stranger? Could this be a word from God specifically for our time?

John 1:1-18

Eugene Peterson in his The Message translation renders John 1:10 this way: “He was in the world, and the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice.” And yet the world didn't even notice. It's an odd note to sound in the wake of a month-long celebration of the birth of Christ, but the reality is the world has noticed Christmas, while there is serious doubt as to whether it has noticed Christ.

Of course, that's what the church's witness has been about, ever since the day John the Baptist came out of the wilderness, especially since the day he pointed to Jesus as the Christ: “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me'” (v 15). Not many people got it then, and not many people get it now.

The problem is, because it is so difficult to get people to see Jesus as the Christ of the scriptures, we in the church are tempted to make it easier for them by presenting a more visible and palatable savior. This is not a fault simply of liberals or conservatives, liturgicals or evangelicals, mainliners or megachurches; we are all guilty. We all try to present Christ in a way that is attractive to our niche of the culture. Though somewhat necessary, we must be careful not to bend Jesus out of shape, not to turn the Gospel into something it isn't. This text is a reminder to us of the unlikeliness of the story of Jesus and of our call to tell it as it is, trusting God to use our telling to open eyes and change lives.

Let us endeavor only to be faithful to the vision set before us. Nothing that outstrips Jesus of the hard edges of his witness will feed us in the end. We must listen to John who tells us that believing in the Word is life, even though the words about the Word can be misconstrued.

Jeremiah 31:7-14

How are people of faith to find our way in this world guided by the Word?

Consistent with the deepest values of the covenant, God will include those in the community who are most vulnerable (the blind, the lame, and those in labor). God guides the people through the desert by brooks of water and along straight paths on which they will not stumble. To a people in a semiarid land, the reference to brooks signifies that God provides all that they need even in the face of threat. God becomes a parent to Israel. The community is no longer orphaned (as in the exile) but is a part of God's family: they have a place and a protector.

. . . . The people will be radiant in the presence of overflowing produce, “life shall become like a watered garden” (a new Eden), young women and young men will be dancing and exchanging mourning for gladness, and “satisfied with [God's] bounty.”

Ephesians 1:3-14

Today's reading is a berakah, a traditional Jewish form of prayer that blesses God. . . . God is acting through Christ to adopt the Ephesians into God's family in the coming new world (the realm of God). Indeed, God had planned this adoption from the beginning of history and is now bringing it about. . . . God has given the Ephesians the Holy Spirit as a seal of the divine promise.

We await the redemption of this world, freedom for those who suffer under tyrants, peace for those whose villages are assaulted by the ruthless, food enough and shelter for those who wander without a home. But we know, as well, that where the Word resides, compassion has found its home for the infinitude of the Alpha and Omega has come to dwell with us in our finitude. Alleluia!

Contributing to this commentary:

Ronald J. Allen, professor of preaching and New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. Delmer L. Chilton, assistant to the bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA in Atlanta. Aaron J. Couch, co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran Church, Portland, Oregon. Virginia S. Wendel, Health Care Coodinator for the Cenacle Sisters, Chicago, Illinois.  

Homily Service 43, no. 1 (2009): 74-81.