Sermon Sunday December 15, 2024 – Third Sunday of Advent – Candle of Joy
Rev. Norman A. Michaud
“We Cannot Buy It”
We cannot touch it, but we can certainly feel it. We can’t buy it. We can’t see it. I speak of Joy, that feeling of contentment and happiness we chase. We know it when we feel Joy, but joy is often fleeting. I tend not to look for Joy in the future but in the past. I wax nostalgic and sentimental. I recall my childhood home. My memories turn to my Grandmother, mother, Helen, and Annie Hodgdon, my Grandmother’s best friend and my mother’s surrogate mother, who lived in an apartment on the third floor of our family home, and my sister Margaret and my father attending Candle Light services on Christmas Eve and the anticipation of fabulous gifts that filled the space beneath our Christmas Tree.
My Grandmother, Alice, knitted woolen lambs for me each Christmas until she died in 1961. Lamby, Bammy, Sammy, and more became my bedmates each year. I had these knitted lambs until I loved them into rags. As she aged and her sight declined, each lamb became more abstract. The last one she gave me looked more like a fish than a lamb, but I loved and cherished each one equally into my adulthood. They attended college with me and were with me when I married and built a house. In 1988, they adorned my infant son’s bed.
These memories would recede and as each beloved member of my idyllic childhood passed. My parents’ marriage would dissolve because he became an alcoholic. He became increasingly absent from our home and increasingly violent. My parents separated in June of 1970, divorced in 1972, and my mother passed away in 1977. Magical childhood memories soured as those memories became superseded by childhood trauma. Even my church, First Congregational Church of Portsmouth, would tear itself apart because of the Vietnam War. Those who supported that war, which included our Pastor, Rev. Dr. John Feaster, who lost his beloved son in that war, and those who opposed the war, split the congregation. My mother, the Director of Christian Education, withdrew her membership. This time in my life was when I became angry with God. I would return to God through the healing mercy of his Beloved Child. I am grateful for the peace and comfort I discover daily in my life.
But God never left me, and Christ always called me back through grace and mercy. We have all experienced our world fall apart and be restored. The Great Depression passed. The horrors of World War Two passed. In Syria, we witness throngs of Syrian citizens rejoice in the streets upon realizing their liberation. Surviving prisoners and those in exile from their country rejoice since they can now return to their families and homes.
This Sunday, we focus on John the Baptist shouting at his followers and us.
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
With John’s declarations, as Luke recalls them, it is hard to hear Joy in this passage. In 1977, after my mother died, I felt that my life as I had known it had, indeed, been “thrown into the fires of damnation” since the roots of my family appeared to be cut down.
The Prophet John the Baptist promises, on behalf of God, to answer our questions: How can all that appears to be lost, the chaos of their times and our own, be restored and regathered? John declares that everything cast down will be lifted, everything lost will be recovered, and everything forgotten will be remembered. He preaches a path of Justice and reminds us, as he did his followers, how Justice will bring about the restoration of our lives and souls.
He calls for new paths when the crowds shout questions back at him. They cry out because they fear the coming chaos, “What, then, Shall we do?” John answers them:
10 And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
John gives specific directions to specific classes of people, asking them to change their behaviors.
John the Baptist doesn’t want to roll back time to before the Roman Empire’s conquest of Judea; instead, John wants to reconstitute society based on a different ethic. He isn’t trying to eradicate tax collectors. John insists that tax collectors be just and fair. He isn’t trying to get rid of soldiers. He wants them to be ethical and do Justice. John calls for a spirit of generosity and the sharing of food and clothing. John calls for a social and ethical reboot, not making things great again as things are imagined in some mythological past when wives obeyed, and we were a predominantly white, European, Protestant Christian Nation. That nation never existed, but the arc of Justice has consistently marched into a future where all can share the joy of hope, peace, and the freedom to love as Christ has called us to love one another through his Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon from the Plain.
It seems easy for us to notice when we feel sad. How many daily conversations do you have that primarily consist of our grievances? Now, think about how many conversations you have in a day about happiness. Did you struggle to come up with one? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. We live in a world where the bad is easier to find than the good, but what if things could be different?
Our joys can be reborn when we share our joyful remembrances. At First Millbury Congregational, as in many congregations, we share our joys and concerns each Sunday. When we hear concerns, we share empathy and compassion. When we hear joy, we smile and feel relief from the world’s burdens. We strive to make the Realm of God on Earth as it is in Heaven. We find joy and restoration through love and welcome. We find ourselves not wasted on the threshing floor with each good act. We find ourselves closer to our Creator through his Beloved Child, whose mercy and grace restore us. We discover our joy each time we reach out to those in need. We are restored through our kindness. We eagerly await the coming of the child who will redeem all through his teachings and sacrifice. So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. Amen