say it'll be better

i keep waiting forever.

(Editor's Note: This post is only tangentially related to the Advent-project. This is a reflection I gave on 12/12 at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, during the chapel-service. This reflection discusses the intersection of theology and practice, as we wait for God's reign of justice. For those who are unfamiliar, or uninterested, in Lutheran theological categories this post will be "most unsatisfactory." Mea culpa!)

Luke 3:7-18:

I had enough. I was tired of it.

No, that morning I would not be waking up early. That morning I would not be running in the cold before class. No. I didn’t need to, I had already secured my position on the varsity team. Nope, I was not going to run that morning.

Upon retrospect I can see I was throwing a tantrum. Petty fit or not, feeling arrogant that morning, I decided I would not go to cross-country practice.

And I didn’t...

…And I also had to run with the underclassmen for a week after that little stunt, and I had to sit-out of a race…

But the consequences are another sermon.

I tell this little story, because I believe I can see many striking similarities between my silly behavior and the way we are tempted to pigeon-hole John.

Captivated by our prowess, we become tempted to think we can distinguish the outcome from the process…

When we hear John’s preaching with its potent exhortations we become tempted to think we can separate John’s message from that of Jesus’.

Never mind that Luke clearly sees Jesus’ preaching as a direct extension of John’s…

The facts are all there, after all:
•“You brood of vipers?!?!”

• “Bear fruits worthy of repentance?”

• “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire?”

As if all this wasn’t enough, John dares to add insult to my protestant injury by explicitly prescribing acts of how to live! It is enough to make my Dominican brothers leap with joy, and shout; “Nah-ny, nah-ny boo-boo! I told you so!”

With my law-sense tingling to a breaking point, I grab for the law/gospel scalpel to alleviate these disturbing inconsistencies. The temptation to cut John from Jesus’ mission of grace is all too easy…

It doesn’t feel right, though, does it?

Do we want to separate this preaching of God’s alternative reign in the midst of an oppressive empire, from the gospel? Really?

Suddenly we want to see John’s preaching as some legalism that is not becoming of our Lutheran tradition…

But.

But what about all our food pantries, that do share food?

But what about the Circle of Protection that our own Bishop Hanson signed, calling for economic practices that remember the poor?

And what about our shelters?

What about all our hospitals?

In our desire to be Lutheran surgeons we risk severing our theology from our practice…

Worse, though…

What about vulnerable people who wait for God’s empire of mercy?

In our swiftness to separate the law from the gospel, we risk separating ourselves from all those people who long for God’s alternative reign.

With our strict categories, we forget what it was that drew us to seminary in the first place.

With our binary understandings of God’s work we confuse ourselves about what it is, exactly, we are waiting for…

The author of Luke, like the prophets before him, like John, like Jesus, understands that this preaching of repentance is part and parcel to God’s work. The preaching of Jesus’ followers in acts is replete with this preaching of repentance.

Yes, our lens of law and gospel is a gift from God, and it does broaden Christian dialogue. Except when it restricts it… When we forget that we are still waiting. This lens of gospel/law is a gift. It helps to sustain during the interim, but this lens is not the reign we wait upon.

Let us remember that these lens are simply the glasses we wear as we wait for the time when we will see God’s empire face to face no longer needing spectacles; or to stick closer to the analogy, bifocals.

John’s message of repentance is indeed consistent with our proclamation of gospel.

Really, we should know better, too. Day in and day out we dwell on this theology of unceasing grace.

With that perpetual promise that we are indeed God’s chosen trees bursting to bear good fruit; how can we doubt that this call to be what God is already making us into isn’t gospel?

Bear fruit worthy of repentance of the one on whom we wait. Bear fruit worthy of repentance of the one who has born this repentance for us. Bear fruit that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, participates in alternative life-giving economics.

No, that is not law.

That is the reign of God we wait on. That is the very work of a God of peace and justice who inspired us and drew us to seminary in the first place. This call to a life of repentance is the very frame that holds together our glasses of law and gospel as we wait expectantly for God’s empire.

While law may say it’s too late; we don’t get to be a part of God’s reign;

Gospel invites; what are you waiting on the courtyard is lacking your fruit? Bear fruit you good trees!

Bear fruit!

Amen.