Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Advent 3
December 17, 2006
Becoming Heaven
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Luke 3:7-18
John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
I’m a big fan of James Lipton’s program The Actor’s Studio. In it, actors and actresses come before a mostly student audience and answer rapid-fire questions about their careers, their personal histories, and their approaches to acting.
When Martin Sheen—actor, Roman Catholic and political activist—was Lipton’s guest, I tuned in very curious to see just how explicit Sheen would be about his faith in front of an audience of New York City acting and directing students. And Sheen did not disappoint. He spoke of what his Catholicism meant to him and the connection between his faith and his choices to get involved in acts of civil disobedience that had landed him in jail some 15 times.
My favorite part of the interview was right at the end when Lipton asks each guest an identical series of questions, a series that always ends with this same question: “If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you once you reach the Pearly Gates?” Sheen looked down, laughed, shook his head and said, “Well, I don’t believe we go to heaven, I believe we become heaven.”
John the Baptist seems to hold a similar belief. In our gospel for today he upbraids those who have come to be baptized thinking that going through these ritual actions will bring them close to God. “You brood of vipers” he says, addressing the people—don’t think that you can have life with God and real life with others by just going under water and coming back up again. “You must bear fruits worthy of repentance.” In other words, you must revise your life, you must, as Sheen says, “become heaven,” acting with more compassion for others.
But revising our lives to act in a more compassionate manner is challenging. So much conspires to keep us just where we are: the almighty force of habit, our own self-protection, feeling overwhelmed by the need for compassion in the world, the fear related to anything that is a radical departure from the current.
You must revise your life. You must be heaven. How can we do this? And what will it mean if we do it?
There are two schools of thought about revising our lives toward greater connectedness to God and to compassion toward others. One school of thought holds that revising our lives has to do with something happening to us that brings about a conversion of heart and mind that then leads to new actions. This is what the idea of repentance or metanoia is all about—a change of mind or turning in a new direction that leads to more compassionate and justice-loving action toward others.
The other school of thought comes at it in the exact opposite way. It asserts that engaging in new actions can lead us to a change of heart and mind. In other words, acting as if we cared for our neighbor produces feelings for and commitment to our neighbor. Or as a saying attributed to Jesse Jackson goes: It is easier to walk your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of walking.’”
And this is what John the Baptist seems to focus on with many of the people who have come to be baptized by him but who do not know where to start in revising their lives. He focuses on simple, down-to-earth affirmative actions that are right before them and that can bring a little of heaven to earth.
And so he tells the people: “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
And he tells the tax collectors who during the time were known for resorting to any means possible to extract money from people “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
And he tells soldiers “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
In other words, in every case, he urges people not to forsake the circumstances of their lives in order to save the entire world, but to give others their due, the simple, just act that in God’s economy they deserve.
Where are you being asked to share something simple with someone right next to you? Where are you being asked to offer to another the simple, just act—what they are due in God’s economy? What are the ways in which God is calling you to revise your life? To bring a little more heaven to earth?
I saw some of you bringing a little heaven to earth this last week in the power outages and the flood of our parish hall. A small crew spontaneously arrived to survey the situation and clean things up. And then at Evening Prayer each night, connections were made that yielded offers of a warm places to stay for people without electricity or simply the comfort of someone who would listen to the chaos in life brought about by this latest storm.
But probably the most touching act I experienced was when I stopped to talk to Jim and John, two of our homeless people who had camped out on the sidewalk under the heat exhaust vent on the side of the Marqueen Hotel. They greeted me as I walked past and asked me how I was doing. I told them that my electricity and heat had been off for four days. Jim looked up at me and said: “Oh, Melissa, how awful. Want to sit down her beside us and get warm?”
Wendy Mogel, in her book entitled The Blessing of a Skinned Knee that is all about using Jewish teachings to raise self-reliant children, speaks about these simple, just acts called mitzvot in this way: “the word mitzvah does not mean “good deed” but actually means commandment. In Judaism giving to the poor or the needy or caring for the sick is not charity, it is justice. By helping others you set the world straight when it has tipped against an individual or group.”
Today is Gaudete Sunday—the Sunday we light the pink candle on the Advent Wreath, have our priest associates vested and functioning in our liturgy and generally give ourselves a little more room for rejoicing in the nearness of God’s presence even while we await God’s coming at Christmas.
Part of this presence is in the simple, just acts that you and I do. For in these actions, we not only live in accord with the commandments of God, we participate in and make present, the one whom John came to herald—Jesus: the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire, the one who showed us what becoming heaven on earth is all about.
Works Cited or Consulted
Wendy Mogel, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
The phrase “You must revise your life” is borrowed from William Stafford’s book by the same name.
