Westwood Presbyterian Church

December 6th, 2009

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Second Sunday in Advent (Isaiah 11: 1-9; Luke 3: 1-17)

     There is a stump in our front yard, a stump that has been there a long time. It is dead – it is rotting away. This summer the across the street neighbours planted a sunflower in our stump – it was strange to look out our front window and see green coming from the old decaying stump – to see new life coming out of what was dead.

 

     The Isaiah passage we read and the section from Luke about John the Baptist share a common image – the “Divine Forester” is at work in the world. God is out with his axe and is chopping down trees that do not bear fruit – John tells us.

     And Isaiah reminds us that the God who cuts trees down can make new life come from their stumps. Now the new life that God brings from the stumps is not the kind of new life the neighbours put into our stump – no, the new life that God brings comes from the dead and decaying – it is not brought in from outside it comes out of those places where there seems to be no hope – no possibility of new life – where there is just deadness and decay – out of that deadness and decay God brings new life.

     It seems completely impossible that new life can arise from dead and decaying stumps – it also seems impossible that the dead can be brought back to life – but that is exactly what God did when he raised Jesus Christ to life again. It seems impossible that virgins should become pregnant and bear children – but that is exactly what we are getting ready to celebrate in a few weeks. It seems impossible that wolves and sheep would be able to co-exist in the same pasture – but that is exactly what Isaiah tells us will happen in the new reality that God is building.

     This passage is about the new that God is bringing – a new world, a new reality, a new way of being. A way of being that seems like a dream – seems too impossible to believe. Wolves and sheep together, lions and lambs, leopards and young goats – and who said that leopards could not change their spots? There is only one word for all this transformation – it is a conversion – a conversion brought about by God. A transformation that God alone can bring. Because only God could change wolves and lions and leopards from being creatures that love to eat flesh to being animals that eat straw. This transformation is not just about outward appearance – not about the changing of a façade – no this transformation is about the changing of the inside – changing of the heart. This is a heart transformation – a personality transformation – that is being pointed to.

     But the transformation is not just about the aggressors changing – the conversion is not only of lions and leopards and wolves – the sheep and goats – the lambs and the kids need to be changed as well. One summer I was a student minister in rural Alberta, and I was billeted on a sheep farm. One of the things I learned about sheep is that they are extraordinarily skittish – they do not trust anyone. The farmer was moving the sheep from one field to another – and he asked me to open the gate between the fields as he herded them from behind. But he told me – “Once you have opened the gate, you have to stand well away from it because if they see you – and they don’t know you – they will not go through the gate.” The inherent distrust that sheep have also needs to be transformed if lions and lambs, sheep and wolves are going to be able to be together. There can be no fake trust if sheep and wolves are going to rest together, be together. No façade here.

 

     And maybe we are getting closer to understanding that strange comment in the middle of the Isaiah passage – “he will not judge by what his eyes see, or by what his ears hear.” On first reading, don’t we want judges who judge by the evidence in front of them – what eyes see and ears hear? But if what the eye sees, if what the ear hears, is a façade – is just surface – then maybe that is not enough. We are back to the question of the heart – a heart transplant is what is needed – a transformation of the inner being – the inside needs to change. An inside that we can not see – that only God can see.

     If only God can see the heart, then only God can bring the transformation needed in people’s lives. And that transformation is as amazing – as unexpected – as a new shoot coming from a dead, decaying tree stump. As the psalm said – “we were as people who dreamed”. Our lives have been changed from the inside – from the heart – renewal is the work of God in us. God is the one who brings the renewal – the transformation – the new life.

     No matter how hard we work at it – no matter our striving and our struggle – we can not bring about that transformation. And we know that – for we have experienced the wilderness – the wilderness of hopelessness – the wilderness of wanting to be different but finding that we could not change ourselves – the wilderness of crying out for something different to be – to happen – but not knowing what. For some of us that wilderness experience – that not knowing if we will ever find hope – is still with us. For others of us we can look back and say – “I remember those times well.”

     Whether it is in looking back to our wilderness experiences – or if there are things we are living right now – we are invited to trust the work of God in our hearts – bringing transformation and renewal – bringing new life. In the wilderness – among the dead and decaying tree stumps – God has been at work and still is at work. The Divine Forester is in the business of bringing new life out of the deadness – out of the decay. We do not need to know how to bring new life – we don’t need to know how the work of conversion works – we are simply called to let the God of new life bring new life to our inner selves.

 

     But if wolves and sheep are going to get along – if lions and lambs are going to be together – there is more going on then just an inside change. It is not enough for wolves to say, “I have a new heart – but I still love the taste of lamb so here goes.” The internal change had to bring about external action. That is part of what John the Baptist was on about when he said that God was wandering around with an axe to chop down trees that did not bear fruit. There has to be an external transformation.

     By now we know that while this is about wolves and sheep – it is also about human beings. The powerful, those with influence, those who have the ability to wield the muscle to make things happen – need to stop using their power and influence for their own personal ends. The top dogs need to make sure they don’t engage in the dog-eat-dog patterns of our competitive world.

     John the Baptist helps us think through what that might mean. People came to John and asked – so what should we do – what will show that we have been transformed on the inside. John said, “If you have two coats – give one away – because there are people who have no coat. And if you have food, share it with people who have none.” We need to notice the direction here – the important thing is not that others are helped. The important thing is that our sharing is a sign that we have been changed. Yes, the people who have no coat get coats, and the hungry are fed – but that is not the really important thing. The really important thing is that we have been changed. It is the fact that we give – not the use the gift is put to – that is the good thing.

     God is capable of providing food and coats without us – the sign of our change is that we join God in his mission of bringing about a world where the hungry are fed and the coatless get coats. So this first challenge is to those of us who have this world’s resources – to show that we have been changed – by being willing to hold this world’s things loosely as we hold on tightly to God and God’s action in our world.

 

     The next two groups – tax collectors and soldiers were poorly paid because they were expected to use their positions to add to their income. And John tells them to be content with what they receive – to not use their position – their power – to extract more.

     Is Jesus then saying that the poor and the poorly paid should just learn to live with it – not seek more? If we go back to the wolves and the sheep – the powerful and the weak – the sheep – those without power need to trust that God is moving in the hearts of the powerful – that God is converting the powerful – those who hold resources – to share those resources – to give them to those who are the poor and the poorly paid.

     The sign of the transformation for the tax collectors and the soldiers was to trust that God could and would change the powerful and the rich and those who had this world’s things. To trust the God who had moved in their lives – who had converted them – to convert others.

 

     A number of years ago a reporter for the Globe and Mail who was tired of the Canadian trait of seeing ourselves as the victims of someone else’s actions – decided to find out who it was that was not a victim in Canada. And after extensive research this reporter determined that there are 100 white, male lawyers who work on Bay St. in Toronto who are not victims – but the other 30 million of us are victims. All of us function in positions where we have some power, and all of us function in positions where we have little or no power.

     The truth of the matter is that almost none of us is all lamb – all victim – and almost none of us is all wolf – all aggressor. We need both conversions – the conversion of being willing to hold loosely to the things of this world – to let things go – to give up the taste for being top dog – we need conversion. And we need the conversion of being people who trust that God changes those who have power – trust that when God changes them they have been changed – trust enough to welcome them into our communities of faith.

 

     This advent may God the Divine Forester bring new life out of the dead and decaying wildernesses of our lives, so that we might rejoice in the conversion of the wolf and sheep, the lion and the lamb. May we look forward with hope to the transformation his kingdom will bring to our world.