Calgary First Mennonite Church

Get ready! God calls us to choose the path of peace

Written by Marv Thiessen

GET READY! GOD CALLS US TO CHOOSE THE PATH OF PEACE

Advent 2

Recently, someone made the comment regarding my preaching that I do guilt quite well. I checked with the maker of the comment for permission to say this publicly and received it but the commentator didn’t remember the comment so I couldn’t determine the exact meaning the comment by checking with the commentator. But I understood the comment as suggesting that the way I preach facilitates an experience of guilt in the listeners fairly readily. I didn’t receive the comment with a sense that it was a critical comment; it was just a statement of opinion and it came in comparison with other speakers. I might induce guilt in my preaching more than some other preachers do.

This was a comment that grabbed my attention because I’m sensitive about this. I have sometimes attempted to evaluate my own preaching to see if I lack grace in my preaching. I have sometimes concluded that I have a tendency to be moralistic and that I am inclined to push us toward discarding sinful choices and making good moral and character choices. And I’ve wondered whether I need to find ways to communicate Christian life differently.

Now, I have also remembered some historical context as I’ve done that evaluation. I think I would have spoken with quite a stronger sense of moralistic thinking when I was a youth pastor. And I think that I would have been even more moralistic when I was a 22 year old graduate from Bible College. And then I think about the style of preaching that our leading minister used when I was a teenager in church and I think I have never even come close to the guilt inducement that he managed in preaching. As a result, I don’t feel too self-critical about what my preaching might now inspire.

And so I ponder the comment about my preaching. And I wonder if the inducement of guilt is a bad thing. I am inclined to conclude that the experience of guilt is frequently beneficial for us. I know that it also can be hurtful and debilitating when we take on guilt that doesn’t belong to us when other people make wrong choices or when we can’t accept forgiveness from God and others and gain freedom from guilt. But I suspect that our culture has taken us a good way down the road of not accepting guilt for our wrong and sinful choices. And I don’t think that the Bible allows us to ignore the guilt that should accompany our sinful choices.

The texts given to us for this morning’s Advent theme challenge us to consider the clarifying and purifying presence of Jesus in this world and in our lives for the purpose of us accepting the correction that he provides. Let’s begin with the text in Luke 3 in our consideration of the challenge to prepare ourselves as indicated in this morning’s theme.

I want to draw your attention to a line of thinking about this passage that intrigued me this week. If you were here last Sunday, you may recall that we spoke of how the coming of Jesus into the world is something that threatens the geo-political governing bodies on Earth. We observed that the message of Jesus is something that promises to make things right for those under the oppression of ruling powers. Today’s text suggests a complementary direction. The description of John the Baptist in Luke 3 begins by setting a historical context. Luke was a careful historian and by listing seven political and religious leaders of the time, he was setting a clear historical context for when John the Baptist proclaimed his message. But there is likely more reason than that for Luke’s inclusion of the names of these leaders.

After Luke names these people, he tells us that John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and then relates that to a prophecy from Isaiah, a prophecy calling for preparation for the way of the Lord. When Luke used this prophecy which began with the statement, "A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord," we understand that he saw John in that prophecy, calling in the desert and preparing the way for the Lord. The prophecy went on to say that preparation for the Lord’s coming would include the filling in of valleys and the lowering of mountains and hills. Crooked roads would become straight and rough ways smooth. (By the way, it occurred to me that this is a hopeful text for those who play golf. The crooked becoming straight and the rough smooth carries some extra meaning for that segment of our population.) As Luke couples this prophecy with his statement that John was preaching repentance, he highlights the need for humans to prepare themselves for the coming of Jesus by evaluating their lives, recognizing their sinful choices and turning away from those choices. It seems clear that this must be the meaning that Luke gives the prophecy of Isaiah in the context here. Preparing for the coming of the Lord includes repentance.

Now, here’s the new way of thinking about this passage that came to me this week. When Luke places this preaching by John and this prophecy within the context of naming religious and political leaders of the time, he may well be setting the stage for the tension that continues throughout the gospel, the conflict between Jesus and the political and religious leaders of the time. Jesus preached so that people would turn away from paths that stand opposed to God and directed that message at the leaders on many occasions. Here, in Luke’s seemingly innocent listing of historical leaders, we see an introduction to that ongoing tension. We see the beginning of the way that Jesus would challenge and provoke humans. We see Luke’s declaration that this message of repentance is for these political and religious leaders along with all of humanity. For ourselves as we reflect on this text, we are reminded that John told the people that repentance was the way to prepare for the coming of Jesus. Repentance, again, contains a careful evaluation of ourselves, our decisions and actions, and how those all align with God’s revealed will for humans. Where we see ourselves misaligned, we admit it and decide, with God’s help, to turn around in our direction and become aligned again to God’s will.

Now, let’s think about the other text from Luke for a little while. There, Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father exulted in the birth of his son, John. His son’s birth spoke to him of God coming to Israel to free the people from their enemies and to enable them to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness. Then he grew perhaps even more excited as he foresaw his son being a forerunner of Jesus, preparing the way for him as he would come "to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace." (Luke 1:79) I see in Zechariah’s exultant song also a sense that Jesus would come to inspire repentance. That sense is not explicit, but I think it’s there. It’s there when Zechariah speaks of Jesus enabling people to serve him in holiness and righteousness. That speaks of the power of Jesus that encourages people to forsake sinful choices and to choose to live as God desires. The last phrase that suggests that Jesus will guide our feet into the path of peace also speaks to me of repentance. That’s because the word peace here means more than an absence of conflict. William Barclay tells us that peace here means all that makes for a person’s highest good. In this context, it must mean people in full and restored relationship with God. That’s what Jesus came to bring and that is what we humans prepare ourselves for when we choose the path of repentance.

In some ways, this talk of repentance sounds negative and undesirable to our ears. We want to be made to feel good, not to feel bad about ourselves. We would rather not face the thought that we might bear guilt for something. What we need to remember when we struggle with that is that the goal of repentance is a very positive, desirable one. It is to right-side-up our lives and bring us into a place of full restoration with God.

In a response to Katherine Schifferdecker’s commentary relating to this Sunday in Advent, respondent wrote "I tend to prefer a "tame" God who complies with my notions of good and evil. In this way I am like the young child who resists the cleansing of a wound, even if the infection might cost an arm or even my life. People harbor ghastly tumors in secret rather than face the terror of diagnosis and treatment. It might be that what we experience as judgment is more like treatment? For myself I resist being separated from my favorite sins more than I fear God's judgment. Perhaps grace is the scrubbing of those attitudes and habits I so fiercely cling to." (found http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?tab=1#) I think that’s a helpful perspective when we consider the reality of guilt and the need for repentance at times when we don’t particularly like it. And then, just as I was in the process of writing this, I read Carolyn Arends’ recent column where she reflects on repentance. "For those of us who grew up in the hot, scary shadows of brimstone pulpits, the command to repent causes an involuntary shudder. But the Greek word is metanoeite, which is more invitation than threat. It means ‘change your mind’ or ‘reconsider.’" (Arends, "Wrestling with Angels, Christianity Today, October 2009, p. 60) Recognizing guilt and exercising repentance is good for our souls. As we respond to God’s invitation to be allowed to work in our lives via those avenues, we are refined and purified, words that Malachi 3:2 uses to describe the work of the Lord at his coming.

Our text of hope for this morning guides us toward a perspective similar to that. Let’s spend a few moments with the text from Philippians 1. There Paul expresses his profound thankfulness for the Christians in Philippi because they have partnered with him in the good news of Jesus. And then he continues on to express his prayer wish for those people. His prayer is that their "love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that [they] may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God." (Phil. 1:9-11) Three ideas in this passage speak to our theme of repentance and provide a hopeful note. The first is that the work that is occurring within us is God’s work and is a good work. The second is that this work of God enables us to discern what is best. The third is that this work would bring us toward purity and blamelessness that prepares us for the coming of Jesus. This description is reflective of the portrait of guilt and repentance we have been painting. God does reveal to us where we go wrong. When we choose to view this as good work and pay attention to it, we are able to see what is better and make changes with God’s help to bring our lives into line with God’s intentions in order to be prepared for Jesus.

And so these ideas of guilt and repentance that have sometimes been repulsive to us are transformed and we recognize that this is good stuff. Positive responses to valid guilt and the decision to repent prepare our hearts and make them fertile ground for the character of Jesus to grow within us. They are the means that God uses to guide our feet into the path of peace, that is, that which makes for a person’s highest good.

Is this a message we need? Do we need to be reminded that the work of God in our lives may produce guilt and inspire toward repentance? Well, if we ever sin and are inclined to gloss over our sin, then we need this reminder. And if, as I suspect, our church culture has moved in the direction of helping people to avoid feeling bad about themselves, then we need this reminder. In 1928, Deitrich Bonhoeffer preached an advent sermon in which he chided Christians for becoming so comfortable with the thought of God’s love in coming at Christmas that they fail to feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in them. Are we in the same boat? Is the North American church, and are we, so focused on helping people feel good in the church that we forget about the need for honest self-evaluation in the face of sin and the call to turn from sin toward the path of peace? Does the church sometimes reflect the ideology common among teens and young adults to some extent in current North America that has been called moralistic therapeutic deism? This ideology believes in a good God that is there mostly to help us with personal problems. God exists and is there to make us feel better.

My opinion in response to those questions is that we are more negative about feeling guilty than we once were so we have moved in the direction of thought that emphasizes that God makes people feel better and that the church participates in that. That direction has been very helpful in some ways. God does help us feel better and I don’t want to return to the kind of guilt inducement that happened in the church of my teenage years. But that direction hurts us if we stop recognizing that our sinful actions should inspire guilt and if we stop thinking that responding to that guilt with repentance is a good thing. On this second Sunday of Advent we find ourselves inspired by the account of the birth and ministry of John the Baptist to consider the positive effects of repentance in preparation for the work of God in our lives. We find that we are led toward paths of peace. And I find, in the end, that I feel all right about a comment that suggests that my preaching may lead to guilt.