Dec. 8, 2019 - Second Sunday in Advent – Isaiah11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-12
Scripture offers two possibilities this week. John the Baptist comes out of the wilderness calling Metanoia! Repent! Turn your life around! Metanoia implies a fresh start, a new direction, and we all need that. John calls for us to just stop what we are doing.
Is that the Advent cry?
Isaiah, a voice from the exile, speaks of a shoot that will come from the stump of Jesse; new life appears from what was perceived a dead tree, a lost community, and a people. A new vision of peace is sung to a captive people. Gathered into the new vision is one of homecoming and a peaceable kingdom, where the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together. There is the promise of a little child who shall lead them. Indeed, the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God, as the water that covers the sea.
Is that the Advent promise?
In these texts the possibility of hope becomes reality. Advent seems to offer a space for less talk and more thought. Perhaps it is a time to take a second look at what we have thought to be hopeless. People in East Peru, Iowa, like telling the story of the Quaker who planted an apple orchard. One tree seemed different so he cut it down. It was a stubborn tree and came back from the stump. Our Quaker farmer let it live. Later the tree produced one apple. The farmer said it was the most delicious apple he had tasted. Thus began the story of the discovery of the Delicious apple in East Peru and, we might add, quite a windfall for the farmer.
Perhaps Advent is about the newness to be discovered everywhere. This seems especially important these days as our church continues to make the same old tired arguments regarding who is worthy to belong.
I think of John Wesley in 1739, one year after his famous conversion. He spoke of doing a vile thing. He becomes a street preacher, decides to go outside the walls of the church and stand among all who for one reason or another were considered unworthy to be included within. The rest is history. Was that the Advent Moment?
Methodism became that movement within the Anglican Church that simply included all who would come. Wesley will join with Wilberforce to end the practice of transporting slaves on British ships. He will organize the first boycott of sugar because sugar was shipped on the same boats that carried slaves. He will work to get the children out of the factories, and through the weekly class meeting, the beginning of a thrifty middle class began to emerge in England.
It is true that Wesley was just too much for the organized Church of England. I suspect he would be too much for the United Methodist Church today. But for a moment, shut down the arguments regarding who is worthy---stop and listen to him—who knows—Advent moments might still happen—even for us. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
The Rev. Bill Cotton of Des Moines is a retired clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference. Together with friends and colleagues he produces MEMO for Those Who Preach, an email sermon resource.