Divine Judgement – Sermon Jan 10,2010
January 10, 2010
Scripture: Luke 3:15-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Sermon: Divine Judgment
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Will you be with me in a spirit of prayer? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God who is the ground of my being.
In the liturgical calendar, today is the first Sunday after Epiphany. When was Epiphany? (Jan 6, just after the 12 days of Christmas, which began 12/25). Does any one know what Epiphany celebrates? (magi visit, J’s baptism) Does anyone know what the word “epiphany” means (sudden revelation) and how the meaning connects with the Feast day? (Jesus revealed as Messiah, first as babe to magi – non-Jews, then as adult at his baptism.). But I’m not going to talk to you about any of that today. Back in the fall, at one of the baptisms, I talked about the meaning of baptism, and the different accounts of Jesus’ baptism in the gospels.
What called to me in today’s gospel reading were the words of John the Baptist. Now we before we get into what he says in this reading, let’s talk a bit about John. He’s about the same age as Jesus, 30ish at the time of this story, related to Jesus, and even before his conception was identified by an angel of God as the one who would prepare people for the coming of the Lord. The angel instructed John’s father that John must never drink wine or strong drink, and said that even before his birth he would be filled with the holy spirit. John leapt in his mother’s womb when Mary, having conceived by the Holy Spirit, visited Elizabeth. After John’s birth, scripture tells us, he grew and became strong in spirit and was in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.
We don’t know how long he had been in the wilderness when he receives the word from God, and starts his mission, embarks on his life’s purpose. Now gospel writer Luke leaves out this detail, but Matthew and Mark tell us that John wears camel hair with a leather belt, and his food is locusts – which are bugs – and honey. Sounds like a scary looking guy, out of touch with social niceties. He starts out quoting scripture, words from the prophet Isaiah about preparing the way of the Lord, how all flesh shall see the salvation of God. He calls for repentance, proclaiming the good news that heaven has come near. But then! Then he calls the crowd “a brood of vipers,” warns them of wrath to come, shouting what sounds to me like fire and brimstone. He uses the metaphor of trees that don’t bear good fruit that will be chopped down and burned in the fire, and the metaphor from today’s reading, about the chaff being separated from the wheat grain, with the chaff burned in the “unquenchable” fire. And this is his opening?! I must admit that it would be hard for me to stand in a crowd for long and listen to his message. It is passionate, yes, but also wrathful and threatening. It calls to mind my agnostic sister’s critique that religions just try to scare people into belief by threatening hell and damnation.
I wonder how people in the crowd reacted to his message. Scripture tells us that many came to be baptized by John. Matthew’s gospel explains that John doesn’t start calling them a brood of vipers until the Pharisees and Sadducees come from Jerusalem to be baptized. He doesn’t say this to the people of the Judean countryside, to those who came confessing their sins. He says it to the religious leaders, to the people in power. So maybe if we imagine the people in a run-down housing complex, gathering around someone who promises that change and redemption are so close they can almost touch it. Into the area come the bigwigs, the owners, or executives of the corporate owners of the complex, coming to see what they might be able to take advantage of with this new guy. And the guy calls them out – leeches, bloodsuckers, vipers. He tells them they will get theirs alright, but it won’t be what they think. So maybe the regular folk seeking out John are excited. They finally have someone who stands up for them, who is willing to take on the powers that be, that promises a new kind of power.
And I wonder how the Pharisees and Sadducees felt. Were they shamed into seeing their wrongdoing? Frightened about what the crowd might do to them? Angry that someone would dare challenge them and their authority? Did they repent as John urged them? Did John really want them to, or were they just a tool for him to win over the other folk? Were his threats of axes and fire to the leaders another way of assuring the people who had been burdened and oppressed that a change really was coming? Though he didn’t just call for repentance from the leaders, he baptized everyone with a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins. Luke’s passage even has people asking how to repent, what should they do. “Share what you have,” he tells them, “be fair, don’t extort or falsely accuse.”
Maybe in those days it was more clear who John meant when he referred to chaff and wheat. The regular folk were wheat grains, being prepared for gathering into the granary, and those so-called leaders, those who had been in charge, were chaff, irrelevant, meant for nothing but fire. And here I stand before you, a religious leader. Luke’s passage says, “the people were questioning in their hearts,” and when I read these types of passages you can be sure there is questioning in my heart. Am I wheat or chaff? What about my wealthier friends and relatives? Are they giving enough to the poor? Wheat or chaff? What about someone like Ted Kennedy, who was wealthy and powerful and a caught-red-handed sinner? Wheat or chaff? Is he burning in the unquenchable fire? What about my former client who is a terrible sinner, lives his whole life outside the law, but is the one his friends turn to when they need to be bailed out of jail, when they need a place to stay, and who has been so abused, so oppressed, so harmed himself? Wheat or chaff? How about you, or you, or you? Wheat or chaff?
John tells us that Jesus is coming with his winnowing fork to sort out just who is what, and yet that is not what I think of when I read the gospel stories of Jesus’ ministry. Yes, he challenged those in power, but he also dined with them, debated them, healed them, extended friendship. Jesus allied himself with outcasts and sinners, but also called them to repent, told them to go and sin no more. He offered mercy and grace, but not soothing enabling, not assurance that whatever they do is just fine, just fine with God.
This metaphor raises some of the heaviest and most difficult theological concepts for me – sin and divine judgment. There are several scriptures in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament that promise a day of judgment, a second coming of Christ, a time when believers and non-believers, wheat and chaff, the righteous and the wicked, will be discerned, with some going on to eternal life, and some to either eternal death or eternal suffering – hell fires and weeping and gnashing of teeth. So yes, this winnowing fork imagery is scary to me. I’d much rather focus on God’s grace and mercy and avoid the issue of sin and judgment altogether. But that would be as much of a distortion of the Christian message as would focusing only on sin and judgment. Besides as part of ministerial preparation, we Christian clergy are required to wrestle with this stuff. When I wrote my ordination paper, I must confess that the section on judgment was quite weak. I talked about what I hoped it was NOT. I theorized that it is NOT rejection, and is NOT about punishment. I theorized that it IS about God’s knowledge of where, when and how we go wrong, about God’s suffering along with us when we mess up, and about accountability. I lean on my trust in God, that God wants good for all, that God’s judgment is a loving one, and is not about destruction. God is for all that sustains and enhances life, and God resists all that threatens and degrades life. One compelling description of judgment I came across equates it with God’s solidarity with suffering. When Christ stands with the oppressed and outcast, that is judgment. When we are suffering, and we feel Jesus standing beside us, we know there is judgment against that which is harming us. When we are engaging in harmful practices, we can see Jesus standing beside those exploited by our desire for cheap goods, Jesus standing beside the creatures harmed by our abuse of their habitats, Jesus standing beside the person we close the door on because of their race or religion, their gender or sexual preference.
This idea of a second coming, which in some ways seems so unreal and so harsh, makes sense in light of God’s promise of a beloved kindom, a new reign of peace and justice. Because we certainly aren’t there. As I heard someone say just the other day, if this is it, if Jesus’ birth and life 2000 years ago was the complete fulfillment of the promise, we are in trouble. Because just look at the state of the world, look at the state of our lives and our hearts and our souls. Just look at the suffering and inhumanity that exists. This CAN’T be it. The idea of a second coming, of heaven in-breaking to this world, should be a welcome one, a hopeful one. And yet I just called it harsh, betraying my fear, the “questioning in my heart.” Wheat or chaff? Not just for me, but for all those I love who are not clearly righteous and sinless, those who are at times destructive. In other words, everyone. Aren’t we all wheat AND chaff, righteous AND wicked? I can’t imagine what this day of judgment would look like. Do we somehow get separated from ourselves? I don’t think that could be it. Separation is a form of sin, estrangement from God and self and others. Perhaps it is the opposite, reconciliation, the full coming together of all the pieces of ourselves, healed and transformed. How does that come about, such integration? I can’t pretend to know the Divine ways and plans, but what I know about personal, psychological and spiritual healing involves naming the problems, owning them, and having a willingness to change.
John calls for repentance, a change of heart, a turning away from the ways we do harm. Can we repent without confession? How important is confession in acknowledging the reality of sin and harm, and turning away from it? In some churches I have visited or preached at, there is a corporate prayer of confession, and an assurance of pardon, as part of the worship service, if not weekly, at least quite regularly. Here at FCC we don’t have that. I wonder if you ever did, if it was an intentional decision NOT to have one, if it has ever been considered. At my home church in Westford, there has not been one in many years, and the pastor there was quite relieved about it when she came. She had struggled with the way this confession and assurance had been done at other churches she served, and worried that instead of renewing and freeing people, it kept them feeling guilty or ashamed. When I was in seminary, I wrote a paper for my worship class exploring the question of whether this element had an important role in worship. I believe it is an important question, something to be intentional about one way or the other as a church community, and I encourage you to consider this, talk with each other, and share your thoughts with me.
Back to judgment, the wheat and the chaff. My theology book offered some Christian basics regarding a day of judgment. The author, Daniel Migliore, agreed that of course we can’t know just what that day will look like, but said we can count on three things. One is that ALL shall be judged. Every person will stand before God / Christ and be accountable. Two – We will stand before the same Christ who came to share his message of love, who came with the sole purpose of reconciling us with God, each other, and our full humanity. And three – Migliore says that the question we will be most accountable for is how we have shown mercy to others in response to God’s abundant mercy to us. How much time have we spent trying to sort out who out there is worthy, who is righteous, who is the of the same wheat grain we are, rather than loving as God has loved us? It struck me as I read this that even if one is discerned to be wheat rather than chaff, that is not the end of the process. Wheat grain, left as grain, is not any more useful than chaff. To become usable, the grain is ground, mixed with water, maybe some yeast, kneaded, left to rise, then baked, then finally eaten. We will all go through a process of transformation. And even the chaff isn’t useless. It makes a lovely fire for breaking bread.
Exploring these words of John the Baptist brought up a lot for me, and perhaps I am not alone in that. I invite you, if you like, to gather during the fellowship and talk about it more. There are chairs set up for that purpose. What do you think about Divine Judgment? Do you think there will be a judgment day? What will happen? Do you think confession is important? How do you feel about having a prayer of confession as part of worship? Hope to see you there. Amen.
