Why does God send a Messiah? - and other interesting questions

You can listen to this sermon here

Gate Pa – Year A -  2nd Sunday of Advent,

Readings:
Psalm                          Psalm: 72:1-7, 18-19
First Reading              Isaiah 11:1-10
Second Reading         Romans 15:4-13                              
Gospel                        Matthew 3:1-12        

What I want to say:
Ask “Why does God send a messiah”
How we answer that shapes how we read this story and what we are preparing for in Advent and what we are celebrating at Christmas.
Explore identity and repentance in light of this.

What I want to happen:

take time at the end of each day to give thanks for ways God brought peace and hope into your day,  and to reflect on the roots that might help you to live peace.

The Sermon

     1.     Introduction:

   As we normally do on the second Sunday in Advent
-         get to hear about John the Baptist,
o   Matthew’s version.
Had quite and interesting conversation with this on Tuesday
Some read John like a good old time preacher scaring people into heaven
Others like me read it differently
So I wonder
-         What is John trying to do?
-         Who is he preparing for?
-         What kind of messiah or Christ – anointed one - was he looking for?
Or as one of the commentaries I read asked
“Why does God send a messiah?”
So why do you think God sends a messiah and how does that affect how you read John?
-         Discuss
-         Plenary

      2.     Jewish Messiah

    How we answer that shapes how we read this story
-         what we are preparing for in Advent
-         what we are celebrating at Christmas.
John was a good Jew
So was Jesus for that matter
So what does messiah mean with Judaism?
Within traditional Jewish thought– Messiah will come to Earth to bring a time of perfect peace and prosperity called the Messianic Age.
According to the Torah, the Messiah will be: [i]

-         a male descendant of the Jewish King David
-         human - he will have a human birth and human parents
-         a perfect teacher of God’s law
-         a great political leader - inspirational and a good judge
-         (now) able to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem
-         ruler over humanity - but he will rule with kindness
-         the bringer of peace to the world
-         able to unite humanity

    Some debate about timing of when messiah will come
-         time is set by God
-         messiah will come when humanity is most in need
-         messiah will come when we are proven worthy of him through our own behaviour.
o   When God’s peace and justice are already established
Jewish messiah is about establishing reign of God here on earth
-         what Matthew calls kingdom of heaven
-         what we pray for every Sunday when we pray the Lord’s prayer.
we read what has become description of that hope in Isaiah 11
-         reconciliation of all people
-         and people with creation.

      3.     Repentance

In light of that how do we read John’s message?

Heart of John’s message is repentance and being prepared
-         Themes of Advent
What is repentance?
Talked a lot about that over the last few years.
John was Jew
Starting point to think about what John was talking about its to begin with what repentance is within Judaism
The Hebrew word shûb (pronounced shoove) occurs 1058 times in the Old Testament.
It simply means to turn,
-         either literally changing direction
o   or returning
-         or as a metaphor for a radical change in lifestyle and behaviour.
ð It is not used of a mere change of intention, unconnected with behaviour.
The constant refrain of the prophets is calling Israel to repent (turn) from their idolatry and return to their God and the ways of God’s justice and peace
Within Christian context Greek word is metanoia
-         I’ve talked a lot about that
Commentator I have quoted before – Matt Skinner
“a radically transformed way of perceiving the world and comprehending God’s place in it.” [ii]
Another commentator – Stanley Saunders says
“Repentance is a perpetual state of readiness to challenge our commonplaces, the myths we live by, which produce not the fruit of repentance, but the practices of alienation and violence we too easily take for granted.”[iii]
What is happening in our country at the moment is that some of our commonplaces and myths we live by are up for debate
-         That is uncomfortable
-         Difficult have our assumptions about how things are questioned
Matt and Stan would suggest that this is exactly what repentance is about.
And that it is exactly what John is doing and saying
John is not asking people to be morally good
He is baptising them to again be the people of God
He is enlisting people to live God’s justice, God’s shalom, God’s wholeness and completeness, God’s peace for all people
-         What he calls wheat
And he is inviting them to see how they take part in the systems that bring violence, poverty, exclusion, death.
-         The chaff that is to be thrown in the rubbish fire
What are we being invited to repent of?
What are we preparing for this Advent and Christmas?

      4.     Identity

A significant part of all this in this reading is what people chose to base their sense of identity on
Number of commentators suggest that it is no accident that John chooses the wilderness to preach and baptise
-         Dangerous place
-         Thin place
-         Place where identities are forged
o   The place where Abraham and God made their covenant – that through God’s blessing, Abraham’s descendants would be a blessing for all people and all creation
o   The place where enslaved Hebrew people were led by God to safety from Egypt
o   The place where their identity as the people of God was forged
§  Where they learnt what it meant to live as the people to God
o   The place where they learnt that being the people of God was a privilege that brought the responsibility to be the means by which God brought peace, shalom, to all creation
o   The place they were taken through when they forgot they were the people of God and embraced the ways of all the surrounding nations
§  With Kings who enslaved
§  Rulers whose corruption left the people impoverished
o    the wilderness where voice came out of during the exile reminding them of God’s trustworthy commitment to them and to the covenants
§  And the promise to bring them back
§  to begin again the work of being the people of God
§  with the responsibility to be the means by which God brought peace, shalom, to all creation
He s asking those who come to hear him to reflect on what they base their sense of being the people of God on?
-         Being sons and daughters of Abraham
-         On the temple as a symbol of Gods presence and omnipotence
-         Or on their foundation story of being the people learning to trust God in the wilderness.
This Advent is asks us what do we base our sense of being the people of God on?

     5.     So, I wonder

• What are we being invited to repent of?
• What are we preparing for this Advent and Christmas?
• Why does God send a messiah?

I invite you to take time at the end of each day to give thanks for ways God brought peace and hope into your day,  and to reflect on the roots that might help you to live peace.

 

[i] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zh9vgdm/revision/4

[ii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/john-and-the-two-sides-of-the-pulpit

[iii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-matthew-31-12-6