The second Sunday of Advent finds the Church still desperately trying not to be too Christmassy, and to keep a penitential season of preparation and waiting, while in the world around us trees sparkle everywhere, shops are full of people spending whatever they’ve got left after Black Friday, and Christmas carols surround us, or more probably songs by Slade, Wizzard, the Pogues and Bing Crosby.
Those of us who sing in choirs, mind you, we’ve been singing Christmas carols since September, and some of them are probably beginning to grate a little. I’ve already sung my first Christmas carol concert, and there’s another this afternoon (3 o’clock at Llangyniew Church, if you’re interested: they’ll probably fit you in). And there are several more to go. My first Christmas card had the grace to wait until after last Sunday to arrive. To be fair, it’s from my cousin Barbara, who’s moving house, so it’s good she got in early with the change of address details.
I’m some way off yet from sending any cards myself. Advent always catches me on the hop, and I’m never very good at organising all the Christmas stuff. But the theme of Advent is only partly about getting ready to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. Advent’s big theme is really getting ourselves right with God as we reflect on his promise that we will be judged. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come” we pray in one of the traditional Advent prayers, and that isn’t the coming of the baby but the coming of the King. It’s the time when, as we read in the Book of Revelation and elsewhere, this morning the Old Testament Book of Malachi, all must stand before him, and all sin and imperfection will be exposed. And some serious cleaning up will be done. You could be forgiven for feeling that this sort of Advent message jars a bit when set against all the cutesy feelgood stuff in the Christmas promos.
Fact is, though, Jesus had a lot to say about judgement; it was the subject of many if not most of his parables. And John the Baptist before him, part of whose story we heard in our reading from Luke - John was certainly and uncompromisingly about judgement, wherever he went and whoever he was speaking to. Malachi the prophet also used strong language as he complained about the shabby and half-hearted observance that was the temple worship of his day. It’s time for change, he tells us, and the one God will send will come like refiner's fire or fuller's soap to clean things up. This won't just be a surface clean, not just a lick and a polish. This will be the real thing: cleansing of the temple.
It occurs to me that the word 'cleansing' has acquired some negative vibes in recent years, not least in that euphemistic expression 'ethnic cleansing', which is surely always a monstrous and terrible thing. Far too often there's a religious element to it, that should shame anyone who takes religion seriously. Catholic against Protestant, Hindu against Muslim, or the terrorists in Mali who executed those hostages who couldn’t quote from the Q’uran. How is that people who do things like can believe that what they do pleases God?
Malachi the prophet was a zealot and a puritan; he probably won’t have been the easiest of people to live with. The same was surely true of John the Baptist, who could be every bit as uncompromising as any of the Old Testament prophets, both in his message and in the words he used to convey it. He called those who trekked out to see him a 'brood of vipers', which was not the most flattering of greetings. But it’s good and needful that people of prophetic zeal and passion rise up at times when religion has become stale and jaded. We need stirring up from time to time when standards slip, we need to be freshly challenged when we forget what we’re here for.
For what does it means to be a Christ-like and Christ-filled church? The Church is called to be creatively different from the world around it; and yet also to have a positive, hopeful and useful ministry that we bring into that world and offer to those around us. Paul, writing to the young Church in Philippi in our second reading this morning, prays for them to be kept pure and blameless, and to be able to discern what things are best: best for their own souls' health, and also best for the Gospel cause and the world that needs to hear that message.
The other day I bought some stuff I’d seen advertised that was supposed to be a really effective cleanser. It looked the part, and it had quite a nice perfume, but - well, maybe I didn’t use it right, but it seemed to me to be totally useless at getting rid of dirt. Churches also can look good and maybe even smell good, without really being much good. You’ve heard the phrase, "so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good".
Well, we do have to be heavenly-minded, of course. Jesus told his disciples they were already citizens of heaven. But we do have to some earthly good as well. Jesus wants his Church to care about what’s going on around it, and to challenge what’s wrong, unjust, hateful, thoughtless, greedy, and dirty in the world; he wants his Church to be practical, compassionate and helpful - a place of healing, comfort, reconciliation and good teaching. There has to be a real connection between what we do in here and what we do out there. Jesus calls us to be lights placed high on a lampstand, not hidden under a bucket.
And that has to begin where we are. The great prophets of old never asked others to do anything they weren’t already doing themselves. No preacher has any right to speak except that he or she knows their own need to hear the message, and to receive God’s healing grace and salvation. If you don’t recognise that in yourself you can’t teach it to others.
All we ask and do and teach has to be tested and measured against what Jesus tells us and shows us. Are we sharing and showing and proclaiming the love we see in him? We must take care not to produce what passes for righteousness, but is at its heart unloving - for nothing unloving can express the righteous will of God. So Jesus promised his disciples that the Spirit of Truth would lead them into all truth. Paul tells us that the Spirit we receive is the Spirit of Christ, whose nature is love. This the Spirit of the one for whom mountains were levelled and rugged paths made smooth; may he be like refiner's fire for our hearts, nerving and enabling us to take his message of love and light out into all the world.
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