Christ the King-Epiphany, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

December 15, 2024 / Third Sunday in Advent

Luke 3:7-18

Do you remember the first GPS units?  Mine was a Garmin, and I came to refer it affectionately as Mrs. Garmin because of the friendly and (mostly) helpful female voice who guided my way when I was driving in unfamiliar territory.  But Mrs. Garmin also announced my mistakes with a word I came to dread . . . re-calculating.  Maybe it’s because I tend toward being a people-pleaser, maybe it’s because, like most people, I don’t like being wrong . . . but I always heard her emotionless statement of “re-calculating” like she was shouting at me:  “You idiot.  I told you to turn a block ago.  Now I have to figure out how to fix your mistake.  Try to pay attention next time.”  But Mrs. Garmin never got flustered.  She would just keep saying, with irritating insistence, “Re-calculating.” I tell you, there were many times when I wanted to chuck smug little Mrs. Garmin right out the window.

Now I have a GPS system built right into my car.  I still call her Mrs. Garmin because I like the thought of a friendly little person helping me to find my way.  But, you know, she doesn’t say re-calculating any longer.  I looked it up and discovered that Garmin products stopped the re-calculating announcement way back in 2012.  I guess I wasn’t the only one who found it annoying.  But I have to say:  I kind of miss it.  Because at least I knew I had made a mistake.  At least I knew where I stood.

John the Baptist is the old-school Mrs. Garmin of Advent, with an insistent message of our need to re-calculate.  We were introduced to John last week, in the earlier verses of Luke chapter 3.  This week, we hear him, and he’s not pulling any punches.  “You brood of vipers,” he hollers at the crowd to get their attention and alert them of their need to change direction.  “You brood of vipers . . ..  Re-calculate!”  Now John doesn’t actually say, “Re-calculate.”  He says, “Repent.”  But repentance is, at its heart, turning . . . toward God.  To repent is to figure out where you are on your path, to notice when you have gotten off track, and to turn you to a better alignment with God’s directions.  John is just like my annoying old GPS system, announcing to the crowd – and to us – that we need to refigure our bearings and re-calculate our path to our final destination.

The crowd, hearing the announcement of mistakes made, opportunities missed, and missteps taken, then wanted to know:  “What, then, should we do?”  It’s the same question that would pop into my head when Mrs. Garmin would unceremoniously announce that I had messed up.  How do we get back on track?  And John’s answer is pretty straightforward:  share.  Be generous.  If you’ve got two coats, give one away.  If you’ve got plenty of food to eat, turn around and notice those who don’t, and then feed them.  Not bad suggestions for us, either.  Then the tax collectors, hearing the call to re-calculate, asked the same question:  What should we do?  Tax collectors were hated by the people in the crowd, but the good news for them is that John has an answer for how they can get on the right path:  Be fair.  Only charge what you’re supposed to charge.  Don’t mark up the tax bill so you can skim off the top.  Also a good directive for us:  be fair in our dealings and in our judgments of others.  Finally, the soldiers in the crowd chimed in, too:  What should we do?  And even for the soldiers, even for those who were seen as the enemies because they represented the occupying Roman army, there is a way to re-calculate:  Be content with what you have.  Also an important directive to us, and one that recalls my sermon last week about gratitude.  So to recap:  Be generous.  Be fair.  Be content.  Sounds easy, but . . .

We’re hard-wired to do the opposite.  Being generous is the goal, but it’s human nature to hold tightly to what we have.  To be fair is the aspiration, but we’re programmed to look for ways to get ahead.  Being content sounds lovely, but oh, how we’re prone to want more.  All these inclinations are examples of the single worst wrong turn we ever take – the one we take all too frequently – and that is the turn inward on ourselves:  the focus on our wants, our needs, our comfort, our convenience, our timetable, our goals, our agenda, our selves.  And that, dear friends, is why we confess our sins nearly every week when we gather:  in order to heed John the Baptist’s call to re-calculate, to get us on the right path, to turn away from self toward Christ and toward one another.

It's hard work, this need for continual re-calculation, and it is a continual need.  Sometimes, some of us are totally lost, and need to draw up completely new directions to get on the right path.  Most of us, most of the time, probably just need little tweaks.  But none of us is ever fully aligned with God’s plan for us.  It is impossible to be completely generous, unfailingly fair, and content and grateful with every breath . . . because we’re human.  Which is precisely why we so look forward to celebrating the birth of the only human who never got it wrong because he was human but also divine:  Jesus Christ our Lord.  This is the good news which John proclaimed to the people:  that the one who was coming was the embodiment of God’s perfect life and love.

Jesus, to use John’s metaphor, was a tree who only bore good fruit – and yet he was cut down and thrown into the fire in our place, so that we whose fruit sometimes doesn’t develop to maturity, would be spared the same fate.  Because Jesus never strayed from God’s path, he can clearly see when we get lost, but like a good shepherd, he comes after us to return us to the fold.  Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will help us to sort out what in each of us needs to be preserved and what needs to be gotten rid of in order to build up God’s kingdom here on earth.

The one who is coming – the one we know as Lord and Savior – he brings the good news that, just as my GPS will endlessly keep re-calculating, keep turning me till I’m going the right direction, so will Jesus keep working on us.  If John the Baptist was like my old-school Garmin, though, always hollering at me when I made a wrong turn, then Jesus is like my car’s new GPS system.  He doesn’t scold us, but just endlessly adjusts to our current location so that, without fanfare, without sometimes our even knowing it, he will lead us home.