John the Televangelist

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Advent Yr A
December 8, 2019
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
The Reverend Canon Michael J. Horvath
Gospel:  Matthew 3: 1-12

Growing up in Virginia in the early 1980’s, Sundays were fairly quiet.  Blue Laws were still in effect, which meant that stores were closed and the sport of Sunday Shopping was non-existent.  As a kid, I would get up early to have breakfast and watch cartoons until my friends returned home from church and we could play outside (my parents not being church goers at all).  Before the Sunday cartoons would start to air, the television was inhabited by televangelists who always seemed to start their programs at the ungodly hour of 6 or 7am.  Every once in awhile, I would turn on the television and be met by a preacher screaming at the top of his or her lungs at me.  Jimmy Swaggart waved his arms frantically in my face, Pat Robertson made it clear that I would be doomed to Hell by the time I finished my bowl of cereal, and I would try to figure out how long it would be before Tammy Faye Bakker would start to cry, leaving her cheeks covered with a slick of tears, black eyeliner and mascara.

But what was cringe worthy to me, even at that tender age, was their forceful use of the word “repent”, which they used liberally throughout the morning.  I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I was sure it wasn’t good.   And that fact that the word “repent” was often coupled with the arm waving, the yelling and the crying, meant that I really wanted nothing to do with whatever it could mean.

To this day, whenever I hear John the Baptist cry out “You brood of vipers”, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” in my mind’s eye I see Jimmy Swaggart dressed in camel’s hair with streaks of mascara running down his face.  John the Baptist leaves me uncomfortable, even a bit cynical.  Perhaps, just perhaps, I get this feeling because I know deep down inside that I needed to repent, but no one wants to be made to feel judged, criticized or uncomfortable.  That sensitivity keeps my own preaching in check.  And while I don’t want to be made to feel judged and criticized for my own shortcomings, I don’t want to become complacent when it comes to my relationship with God.   And I don’t want you to become complacent either.

The fact is, however, that complacency and contentedness is what usually gets between God and us.  We have found ways to arrange our lives so that everything moves along in the way we need it to move, our relationships or lack of them pursue a course that we lay out depending on who we deem to be worthy of friendship, and our own internalized value systems make us feel as though we have some semblance of a moral compass or self-control.  We have become comfortable, and we don’t need anyone, especially the likes of John the Baptist, telling us where we fall short.

And I get it.  Many of us come to church to find some form of affirmation or approval, in a society that rarely affirms or approves.  We want to know that we are loved just as we are, and we shouldn’t have to change a thing.  After a while, however, that starts to gnaw at us. Deep down if we are really honest we know better. We know ourselves and we know our world. We know the deepest parts of ourselves that still need healing from hurt. We wince at the thought of relationships that are struggling and broken. We still need to face up to the words and actions that have hurt others in our lives. Hunger, poverty, and injustice are ever present, but our default may be to offer explanations, excuses, and blame rather than our time, our resources, and compassion. We see how anxiety sometimes drives us to busyness and other times to isolation. We know how fear can control our lives. We medicate ourselves with that which can never heal us and search for meaning and identity that will seal the cracks of our broken selves. Our appearance of being content seems rather like a pipe dream if we really look at it.

So, while I may not preach like John the Baptist or a televangelist, as I grow older, I appreciate the message they are trying to get across – namely, that my life has to change in ways that reflect a relationship with God if I am to call myself a Christian.

But a lot of the time, complacency gets between me and my efforts to live a Godly life, so repent I must.  And if that word still makes the hairs on the back of our necks bristle a bit, what if we were to look at it as something other than nagging, or condemnation or malicious judging about who we are and what we do in our lives?  Something other than a gateway that we need to get through to make it to heaven?

What if instead we use the word “repent” as an opportunity to ask ourselves whether we have truly let God transform our lives and us? You see, in today’s Gospel, John doesn’t say repent or you won’t get to the Kingdom of Heaven.  He says that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, it is amongst us in the life of Jesus and we are already living with the very God we proclaim to worship.  And if that is true, if God is indeed amongst us, then how do our lives reflect that?

Last Thursday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced at a press conference that the House will draft articles of impeachment against President Trump, setting the stage for a vote before Christmas.  As she was ending the press conference, a reporter asked her if she decided to move ahead with the impeachment process because she hated the president.  As a New York Times article noted, “She was not pleased.  She wagged her finger at the reporter and stormed back to the podium. Then, staring straight at the camera, she delivered a dramatic retort.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office,” she said sharply. “As a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone.””

Now, whatever you think of Speaker Pelosi, her stock increased in my estimation because she was able to articulate how her value system is directly tied to her relationship with God. And I think that is what we are asked to do when John the Baptist exhorts us to repent.  How does each and every aspect of your life reflect your relationship with a God whose very presence is near you?

Seen another way, John is not condemning us or asking us to prove that we believe in God, but is asking us if we are truly transformed by the faith we proclaim?  And that is a harder, more difficult question to answer because it requires an honest and humble assessment of how we show God’s love to one another in this world.  Repentance as an honest appraisal of our lives doesn’t get us to Heaven.  It’s already here and we are already part of it.  Instead, repentance is our response, in word and action, to the joy that the Kingdom of Heaven has brought.  Jesus has brought the Good News we are not condemned to death, but life eternal; that in his Father’s house there are many rooms in which he is preparing a place for each of us.   I don’t know about you, but whenever I receive a bonus of good news and riches, I simply want to share it.  How are we sharing this Good News, John asks?  How do we say that we proclaim and share the Good News in our world yet be content with the status quo?

And if we aren’t sharing the Good News, if we are not transformed by our faith, then we need to be reminded that we can change and that God is always coming to us. John the Baptist speaks that truth. His words call us to a life of holy discontent.  So, let us all repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  Amen.