Repentance: Cleaning House, Fighting Terrorism

Brad Sullivan

2 Advent, Year C

December 6, 2015

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Baruch 5:1-9

Luke 3:1-6

Repentance:  Cleaning House, Fighting Terrorism

It’s the second Sunday of Advent, as we prepare for Christmas.  We have 19 days to go until the big event.  Are any of y’all tired yet?  Tired from all of the busyness going on in December, the shopping, the decorating, the parties, and burning the candle at both ends?  Are y’all also tired of hearing about mass shootings and tired of living in fear?  I am.  I’m tired of the violence, the heartache, and of wondering if such a shooting will happen here.

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  These words we heard from Baruch this morning are words of comfort during fearful times.  They remind me of the God we worship, that God has not abandoned us.  God is constantly calling us to take off the garment of our sorrow and affliction and to put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  The words of Baruch give us assurance that God is ultimately in control, that God will care for us forever in the beauty of his glory.  That is the God whom we worship, God who is intimately connected with our world and with our lives.  God knows the pain of those killed, because he was killed, crucified by all of humanity.  God knows the pain of those whose family members were killed, because he watched as humanity killed Jesus, even as Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them.”  Such is the God whom we worship.

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  These words remind us who God is and these words comfort us, but these words are also more than words of comfort, they are words of action.  Taking off the garment of our sorrow and affliction is not simply ignoring problems or to having a warm feeling in our hearts that all is well when all is not well.  Baruch’s words call us to action, and Baruch’s words call us up short.  They remind us of how far our lives and our society are from living the beauty of the glory of God.

This is not a time for shame or to think we’re terrible.  We’re supposed to be called up short by these words.  We’re supposed to have our hearts burn within us, to examine our lives, and to make a turn toward God.  Let’s face it, there are plenty of ways each of us live that are not of God.  During Advent, we’re reminded that we’re preparing for Jesus’ coming.

When John came to prepare the way for Jesus and to proclaim his coming, he did so with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  It’s rather like cleaning your house before guests arrive.  You make it look nicer, and you also strive to keep it that way.  It’s a new beginning. 

What do you get rid of when you’re cleaning house?  The old stuff that sits in a drawer and hasn’t really been used in years?  Things kept for sentimental reasons but which someone else could use and which may be keeping you too much in the past?  Excess and clutter?

Do you reorder where things are when you clean house, making things flow better and allowing an easier time and way of living?  Do you get rid of bad habits when you clean house, choosing to keep things better so life is less hectic, more calm and serene?

That’s what we’re called to do in our lives during the season of Advent:  de-clutter, let go, end bad habits, live more simply, follow after God and God’s ways.  For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him. (Baruch 5:9)  Such are God’s ways.

We’re not supposed to live in fear.  Such is not the way of God.  We’re not supposed to be exhausted all the time.  Such is not the way of God.  In Isaiah 55:2, God asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”  We spend so much time and money on frivolous things we don’t need, and then we end up having to de-clutter our homes to get rid of all of our excess stuff.  If ever we’ve had to de-clutter, then we officially have more than we need, and we have officially been spending our money for that which is not bread and laboring for that which does not satisfy.

As we learn in Genesis 1 and 2, people are our true delight, and companionship is what we truly need.  Spending time with people costs surprisingly little money.  Fewer things.  More time with people.  Less time working so we can have more things.  More time spent enjoying what we have and the people in our lives.  That is what Advent is calling us to.  Such a way could certainly help us to be less exhausted.

I don’t know if living more simply with less time striving for things and more time spent with people can make a difference in the violence of our world and the mass shootings we keep suffering, but I believe it can.  I know that the more discontent there is in a society, the more violence there is in that society as well.  The more exhaustion we feel and the greater focus we have on things rather than people, the more lost we are, the more disconnected we are from one another, and the easier it is to hurt one another. 

This applies even to terrorism, because ideologies are also things.  Radical Islamists have forgotten Genesis 1 and 2, have forgotten that people were made to be each others’ companions, that we were made to find our true humanity in each other.  Radical Islamists have forgotten love of people and exchanged that for love of ideology.  They’ve traded the glory of God for an idol, a thing made in the image of God, an ideology held so strongly that they destroy God’s beloved children. 

I realize it is a bit lofty to think that our Advent repentances are going to change radical Islamists.  Then again, it would have been a bit lofty to think that one man’s life, a man who was crucified by Rome as a rogue and an Israeli heretic, would change the world, but Jesus certainly did change the world.  We may be small in number, but Jesus dwells within us.  Believing in Jesus and following in his ways, like ripples in a pond, our lives can change the world. 

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  In Advent, we are called to repent of the ways that we strive for ever more money and things, and to strive instead for love of people.  We’re called to de-clutter our lives so we are not so exhausted, and to spend instead time uniting to God and to people.  Such a repentance can change the world.  Such light will shine and spread, turning people’s hearts away from things and ideologies, and toward love of God and people.  Such is the God that we follow, whose kingdom is like a mustard seed.  It starts as a small seed, but it grows into a large tree.  Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.  Amen.