Sermon for December 12, 2021 - The Sixth Sunday of Advent - Year C - The Rev. Isaac P. Martinez

To view a video of the Rev. Isaac Martinez’s sermon, click HERE.

In the name of One, Holy, and Living God.

It is so good to break open the Word with you again, St. Paul’s. In the Pentecostal tradition of my childhood, the preacher would always have a catchy title for his sermon. Being free to preach without a lectionary, he, and it was always a he, would try to help the congregation connect the main idea of his sermon with the verses of Scripture he chose that day. A memorable sermon title was a handy tool for that.

In the nearly 10 years I have been an Episcopalian, however, I have found that we liturgical preachers rely on other mnemonic devices, the most important being the season of the church year, the particular Sunday we are celebrating, and the readings assigned for that day. So here we are on the penultimate Sunday of Advent, awaiting Christmas, and hearing the drumbeat of the Incarnation getting louder and faster. But it is our readings today, and specifically, the stark contrast we see in them, that makes me want to title this sermon.

On the one hand, there is the unabashed and resonant joy that weaves through our first three readings. The prophet Zephaniah starts us off:

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!

Rejoice and exult with all your heart.

Isaiah responds:

Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, *
for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel.

And finally, Paul joins the chorus: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice.

But then—record scratch—freeze frame—in comes that most unliturgical of preachers, John the Baptist, with an entirely different theme in our Gospel passage. You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; and God will cut down every tree that does not bear good fruit and throw it into the fire. Not very joyful, John, not very joyful.

So here are two completely opposite themes and instructions from our Scriptures. Do we listen to the prophets and Paul and focus on joy? Or do we listen to John the Baptist and focus on judgment? And thus follows my title for this morning: God’s judgment is the necessary journey to true joy. God’s judgment is the necessary journey to true joy.

Let us start with God’s judgment. As Elise taught us last week, Luke intentionally sets the context of rulers and dynasties of 1st century Palestine for his gospel. He issued a warning to those rulers that God’s reign of justice requires a wild reversal where their obscene wealth and power will be levelled to raise up the lowly and oppressed. 

But this morning, John the Baptist is not preaching to the rich and mighty. Instead, he is preaching to “the crowds,” groups of people who have most likely come down to the Jordan River from cities like Jerusalem and Jericho. And unlike the masses of poor people who will later follow Jesus, these people make up what the ancient world would have considered the “middle class.”

These are people who have enough financial resources to have their choice of coats and who aren’t scrambling for food, not always a given 2000 years ago. But the point really comes home in the two groups Luke identifies by their profession. The people John calls to repentance believe they have “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” or have only “gone along to get along.” 

First are the tax collectors. John tells them to “collect no more than the wages prescribed” for them. In those days, tax collectors were middlemen and collaborators with the Roman imperial system. Like the disciple Matthew, they were often recruited from the conquered nation because they spoke the local language and knew the customs. They were also allowed, with the backing of Rome’s military might, to cheat people, to say that a person or family owed more taxes to Rome than they actually did and got to pocket the difference. This allowed them to move up the economic ladder.

Then there are soldiers who come to John for baptism. Now these are likely not Roman soldiers, but fellow Jews who guard the Temple, the priests, and the elders. Again, with the blessing of a militaristic imperial government, the local muscle often used the threat of physical violence to shake down their compatriots, and John bluntly tells them to stop their extortion. 

Yes, these crowds who come to John want to be faithful to the God of their ancestors and His call for justice and equity. But standing squarely in the tradition of Old Testament prophets, John doesn’t mince words: they are in fact complicit in a system of economic injustice and exploitation. They have not earned their wealth fairly and the result is to have more than what they need while others go without enough. Not metaphorically—but materially, concretely, financially. And that complicity and its consequences are barriers to their relationship with God, and God judges them and calls them to repentance.

And as it was for the crowd, so it is for us, here, today, in this room and watching on your screen. “Now wait a minute, Isaac,” you might be thinking, “are you saying I have unearned wealth? That I am complicit in economic injustice?” And the answer, my beloved, is yes, you are, I am, we all are. 

I hope that after nearly 2 and a half years with you all, you trust me enough to join me in a little exercise. So, first, I want you to close your eyes. And Peter, if you could really zoom in on me so those watching the livestream can see just my face. Now, with the veil of anonymity, I’m going to read through a list of statements and if it’s true for you personally, please raise your hand. 

• I own my own business.

• I go to or went to a private school.

• I received an inheritance from a family member.

• I go to or went to graduate school.

• I own my house or condo.

• I have a retirement account.

• I travel for vacation regularly.

• I go to or graduated from college.

• I own a car.

• I am an American citizen.

• I have a predictable income.

• I have a smartphone with a touchscreen. 

• I graduated high school.

• I speak English fluently.

• I have more than one coat to wear.

• I have enough food at home to last me through the day.

You can lower your hands and open your eyes.

We are a wealthy people, my friends. And it’s easy to point to the even wealthier and say, “But I’m not a billionaire trying to fly into space on my own rocket, or I don’t own multiple houses or a private jet, or I’m only a kid and don’t make any money.” And that all might be true. 

But each of those statements I listed is the result of an economic system that we can’t opt out of, that we are all complicit in, and that everyone who raised their hand benefits from. In this country, we have an economic system that is organized to maximize the amount of money great holders of wealth can make. That maximization comes at the expense and exploitation of people who have only their labor to survive, like some of us perhaps, or at the expense of people who cannot “productively” contribute, and at the expense of this planet and her resources.

And in return for going with the flow, for going along to get along, for just doing what’s expected, we give moral cover to the unjust consequences of that system that result in one of the most unequal economies in the world. Yes, we are complicit, just like John tells the tax collectors and soldiers. And we face God’s judgment for that.

So the same question that the crowds put to John should be the question on our lips: what then should we do?

Repent. Repentance, turning away from sin towards God’s love, is the necessary journey we take from God’s judgment to true joy. When we repent, we confess not just individual mistakes, but the evil done on our behalf—the systemic wrongs we are complicit in because we benefit from them. After confession, we make restitution where possible, and we resolve to amend our lives.

This is why John tells us to bear fruits worthy of repentance, that is, to share what we have earned unjustly and to stop participating in exploitation. We share and give not to earn our salvation or to bribe God out of judging us, but as a sign that we recognize we have gone astray. When we, who have more than we need, give—materially, concretely, financially—to people who don’t have enough, we in fact stop repeating the self-justifications our culture so easily makes for us in the middle class: I deserve this; I worked hard for this; and besides, this is just what you have to do to survive.

Now, repentance may be the necessary journey, but it is not the destination. Because when we turn away from sin, whether personal or systemic, and turn back to God, we find that She is not a harsh, impartial judge after all. Instead She is the One who made us out of love, who redeems us because of love, and who sustains us to love. And She is always ready to forgive us with boundless mercy and unending grace. 

And this is why we can rejoice, St. Paul’s, because God has taken away the judgments against us. Surely, it is God who has saved us and who will always save us. True joy comes from accepting God’s unconditional love and grace. True joy comes from living out that love and grace in a world sorely in need of it. True joy comes from no longer being complicit in injustice of any kind and becoming agents of God’s liberation. Yes, God’s judgment is the necessary journey to true joy. So rejoice, church. The Lord Jesus is very near. He comes to free us, to save us, and to love us. Rejoice! Alleluia! Amen.

To view a video of the Rev. Isaac Martinez’s sermon, click HERE.