Preparing the Way for Joy

Advent Wreath with Candles, FPCE

Third Sunday in Advent, Luke 3:7-18

“Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  –Luke 3:9

In today’s gospel text, Luke summarizes the message preached by John the Baptizer.  According to Luke, John uses the metaphors of trees and fire to talk about the need for spiritual cleansing and renewal. John says, “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

John already has rejected most of what he has seen in the current religious landscape, and withdrawn from society to live in the wilderness. It is as if he’s saying, “There’s a lot to be cleaned up in this world if it’s really going to God’s kingdom.  There’s non-fruit-bearing trees in these woods that need to be trimmed away or chopped down to make way for trees that bear the fruit of righteousness. 

In my family, you can’t think about trees very long without also thinking of my father-in-law Burton Barnes, a University of Michigan professor who was an expert in forest ecosystems. If you watched news footage of devasting forest fires alongside Burt, then you learned that often part of the problem was human interference in the natural elimination of forest waste.  You learned that a certain amount of fire is necessary for the health of the forest. Fire brings about cleansing and renewal. Fire affects the physical and chemical properties of soil, influences plant diversity and regeneration, and creates habitat for wildlife and insects. Several species of pine depend upon fire to melt the resin of their cones, and release millions of seeds.  Wood warblers are dependent upon wildfire to create new young stands of trees that function as habitat.[1] Sometimes, for meadows of flowers to bloom and birds to chirp, what is needed is a cleansing fire to burn all the stuff that has grown around and choked out the potential for renewal.

If you know some things about the historical context into which John the Baptizer was born, then it’s easier to appreciate his message about chopping and burning. It had been centuries since the Jewish people had been leaders in a truly independent nation. For a long time, they had been a vassal state under the control of a foreign empire. The Romans had imposed laws and taxes that ranged from uncomfortable to oppressive, and enforced them with ruthless determination. The basic structures of the Jewish religion were tolerated. But for Jewish leaders to retain any influence, it was expected that their religious affections never come into conflict with their loyalty to Caesar.

Then, as now, people who felt they were under the squashing thumb of an unfriendly government longed for change. In John’s preaching, they found a convincing announcement of a Messiah-king who would replace the empire’s oppression and violence with a new kingdom of justice and peace.  In that context, a prophet announcing God will chop and burn the old order sounded like good news.  

Today, being the third Sunday in Advent, I’m naturally interested in making connections between the text and this day’s theme of joy.  You may be sitting in the congregation, with thoughts similar to mine, as I wrote this sermon. “I see how fire could bring some renewal in nature. I see why fire could be a good symbol for describing the punishment inflicted upon God’s enemies. I can understand why ancient oppressed people would feel good, even joyful, to know that a Messiah was coming to reverse the situation, to put down the mighty and proud, and lift up the helpless and humble. But, preacher, there seems to be a lot of trouble and cause for heartache today. What does fire have to do with my experience of joy?

As a starting point to answer that question, I highlight something pointed out by Bible scholar Robert Tannehill in his commentary on Luke. Tannehill reminds his readers that in Matthew’s account of John’s preaching, those who hear about God’s fiery cleansing are the Pharisees and Sadducees. Here in Luke, John’s preaching is addressed more broadly to everyone in the crowds.[2] Some in the crowds may have thought John’s preaching was aimed only at the powerful and well connected, and no personal change was required. By showing that John’s message was addressed to everyone in the crowd, Luke reminds us that the need for spiritual fire is not reserved only for our enemies. Each person who wants to be part of God’s kingdom must be willing to submit to the fire of God’s judgment in order to burn away impurities, and be left with tested character, and a more refined faith.

The way that Luke frames John’s message reminds me of a common phenomenon. Most often, people tend to locate the source of a relationship problem in another person. Occasionally, we see the source of the problem is more complicated, more broadly located in many people in a relational group. Least often, we recognize the source of the problem is located in us. John the Baptizer is saying, at least in part, “The problem in this situation is not them, it’s you.”

Sometimes, the solution to relational health is not changing someone else, but changing what is happening in our minds and in our hearts.  Sometimes, what we need is a spiritual fire in our souls to burn away all impure motives, improper understandings, unrealistic aspirations, and misplaced priorities so that we can see things as they really are.  For meadows of flowers to bloom in your brain and birds to chirp in your heart, sometimes what is needed is a cleansing fire to burn all the stuff that has grown around and choked out the potential for renewal.

Earlier this year, Ray Weber passed along a book for me to read, entitled “Margin” (like the space that surrounds text on a page).  The book’s author is Richard Swenson, a medical doctor who says that many problems faced by his patients are rooted in living life too close to the margin. Here is a vivid description that helps explain what he means: “Marginless is being thirty minutes late to the doctor’s office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the bank because you were ten minutes late dropping the kids off at school because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station – and you forgot your wallet.”[3] Much of the book is an exercise in self-examination that encourages the reader to develop self-awareness about the causes of stress, and overload, and move toward better margins of reserve in emotional and physical energy, time, and finances.

The season of Advent, as originally conceived, is a time for just such a self-examination. Sometimes, for meadows of flowers to bloom in our minds and birds to chirp in our hearts, what we need is a prophet to remind us to look within for the source of our problems, then chop and burn all the stuff that has wrapped itself around our motives, aspirations, and priorities, and choked off our joy. 

Richard Swenson, to describe the difference that such self-examination can make, offers some crisp contrasts.  I’ve worked those contrasts into a Prayer for Advent. I close the sermon by offering this unison prayer for all of us. Please join me as together we pray:

*PRAYER FOR ADVENT      after Richard Swenson, by jch

Gracious God, this Advent,

  help me to pause long enough and look deep enough

  to see that sometimes the problem is not them, it’s me.

Give me physical margin to move from fatigue to energy;

  give me financial margin to move from red ink to black ink;

  give me emotional margin to move from anxiety to security.

O God, source of all strength,

  help me to resist the forces of culture

  that tempt me to lose my margin in order that they gain more power.

Help me to remember

  that a margin at the edge of the pages of my life

  is countercultural in a healthy way, a cure for many ills.

By the power of your Holy Spirit,

  chop away and burn all the stuff in my life

  that chokes off what is good, beautiful, and true,

  and prepare my heart for the advent of joy. AMEN.

NOTES

[1] Burton V. Barnes, et al., “Forest Ecology: Fourth Edition,” New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998, pp. 279-297, 630-636.

[2] Robert C. Tannehill, Luke, a volume in Abingdon New Testament Commentaries, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996, p. 80.

[3] Richard Swenson, “Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives,” Colorado Springs, Navpress, 2004