The first Sunday in Advent is the church’s New Year’s Day, so we just started a new church year last week! Each year of the church’s three-year cycle of readings primarily uses one of the Gospels in our Sunday readings. This year, it’s the Gospel of Luke; I’ll say more about Luke next week. Today’s Luke reading introduces a figure who appears in all of the Gospels: John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness outside Jerusalem, calling people to repentance and transformation of life. 

As our song of faith today we read the Song of Zechariah. Zechariah is John’s daddy, who sings this prophetic song of joy at the birth of his son. Zechariah describes John’s calling as one who will go before the Lord (meaning, here, Jesus) to prepare the way for him. That language echoes our Old Testament reading from the tiny little prophetic book of Malachi: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” It’s not entirely clear who Malachi thinks he’s talking about; but Zechariah, and Luke, and centuries of Christian tradition, have read his words as pointing towards John the Baptist, and his role gathering seekers and proclaiming Jesus before Jesus began his public ministry. 

So that’s how some of our readings fit together! But what do they have to say to us?… 

Last week we heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointing out our tendency, in Advent and Christmas, to focus on the “pleasant and agreeable,” and not the “shiver of fear” that we should feel when we consider the idea that “the God of the [cosmos] draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us.” But our Advent readings – this year, and most years – don’t shy away from the fearful!… 

In the weeks leading up to Advent and in last week’s Gospel, we have heard Jesus talking about challenging times ahead for his followers and the world: signs in the heavens, wars and rumors of wars, floods, earthquakes, birds and snakes and aeroplanes… and so on. 

Today, Malachi talks about God’s people being purified like silver in a furnace – which is an uncomfortable process for the silver! – or like a fleece, wool fresh off the sheep, filthy and greasy, that is violently scrubbed with harsh soap to make it, eventually, clean and white. And then there’s John the Baptist and his “good news”: “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.” 

Later on we’ll sing the lovely Advent hymn “Comfort, comfort ye, my people,” but these are not comforting images! 

Or are they? I love Advent; it’s my favorite church season, and I know I’m not alone in that. Many years – and this year – I do find a strange kind of comfort in Advent’s apocalypticism, its insistence that everything will change and everything will end, the things we love as well as the things we dread or despise. Advent confronts us with both the fear and grief of things passing away, and the fierce assurance that God still reigns, that God’s love can and will break through into our broken world. That, yes, there is a crack in everything – and that’s how the light gets in. 

But acknowledging the precarity of existence, the transience of any given order of things, does not tell us how to deal with it in the day to day. How do we live? … beyond listening to ourselves churn?

Father Tom McAlpine and I were chatting about this year’s Advent readings a couple of weeks ago, and he called my attention to a word in these readings that I hadn’t really noticed. 

It’s a word that’s central not just in our Advent Scriptures but throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike; but we don’t necessarily use it much in our faith talk or daily lives. That word is righteous. Or the noun form: righteousness. 

One way we use that word is in the phrase self-righteous. That means an assurance of one’s own correctness and superiority. It’s not a quality that we admire! But even when we drop the “self” and just say “righteous,” I think it’s a word that carries some ambiguity and discomfort for many folks. It tends to show up hand in hand with other words, like righteous anger or righteous zeal. It suggests that even when someone is on the right side of things, maybe they’re so sure of themselves that they’re a little bit scary, a little bit dangerous. There’s a sense of inflexibility and intensity.

I’m sure there’s an interesting history to how “righteous” became an uncomfortable word for many today. But it’s a very positive and important word in Scripture! There’s a deep and rich well of Jewish commentary on the Hebrew word that’s translated as righteous, Tzedek. The word has a close kinship to justice (mishpat in Hebrew). One modern translator (Fox) renders tzedek into English as “equity.” Tzedek means fairness and compassion. It means truth and integrity. It means caring for the socially and economically vulnerable, neighbor and stranger alike – and building a society in which people have what they need and don’t have to depend on charity. 

Tzedek is a characteristic of God. It’s also a call on God’s people; those who belong to God are called to be righteous, individually and together. But righteousness is also understood as a manifestation of God’s presence among God’s people. A gift, something we can tap into. Something that just happens when we’re grounded in God. 

The words righteous or righteousness, translated from Hebrew or Greek, appears 630 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. We’ve had six of those occurrences just in last Sunday and this Sunday’s readings!… 

Last Sunday, we read Jeremiah chapter 33: “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land…And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’” It’s a prophecy about a just and righteous ruler who will one day lead God’s people and help them become a people known for their holy righteousness. 

In our Malachi reading today, we heard about God’s people – specifically, the priestly leaders who interacted with God on behalf of the people – being purified “until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” You weren’t supposed to enter the Temple to do the holy work of that place if you were in a state of sin or ritual impurity! It was a much more hardcore version of what’s embedded in our pattern of worship, in which we confess our sins and speak peace to our neighbors before approaching the Eucharistic table. 

This is a complex little passage, but one thing it’s expressing is that God’s desire for God’s people – past and present – is not just to say and do the things they’re supposed to say and do, but to be people of righteousness, in some deep sense. 

The Song of Zechariah, from Luke’s Gospel, seems to be riffing on this Malachi text. It takes that idea and gives it an interesting little twist. Within this song of praise, Zechariah reminds God of God’s promises to God’s people: to set them free from their enemies – “free to worship You without fear, holy and righteous in Your sight.” 

Once again righteous worship is the goal, but Zechariah says: it’s hard for us to offer the worship God desires when we’re bound by our enemies, subject to powers that oppress our people and don’t respect our faith. Liberate us for righteousness, God! … 

Out of four Scriptures today, our Gospel text is the only one that doesn’t use the word righteous. But John the Baptist is absolutely talking about righteousness. He uses these frightening, urgent images, drawn from the agricultural practices of the time: there’s an axe ready to cut down a tree that won’t bear fruit, wasting space in the orchard; there’s a winnowing fork ready to separate wheat from chaff, and burn the useless chaff in eternal fire. 

I know some folks are very sensitive to anything that suggests hell or damnation. Let me say that both John the Baptist, and Jesus, do not want people to choose good out of fear. We only get a little of John’s preaching in the Gospels, but his core message is a call to metanoia – a word often translated as repentance, but really meaning something like, a renewed way of knowing. I like to translate it as a changed mind that bears fruit in a changed life. 

And it’s very clear in Jesus’ teaching that he wants his followers to become people who operate from love – love of neighbor, love of the world, love of God; people who fundamentally aren’t driven by fear, because fear tends to shut us down and close us off. 

Over and over again, God or God’s messengers tell us, “Don’t be afraid!” So, yeah, John says some stuff about unquenchable fire. He’s that kind of preacher. Don’t take it to heart. 

I think the conversation between John and the crowd is so interesting! People ask him, What should we do? How do we show this metanoia in our lives? And John’s responses are honestly so basic! If you have an extra coat, give it to somebody who’s cold. I bet half the people hearing this have done that, one way or another. 

Same with having extra food; give it to someone who needs it. By the way, our food drive for WayForward Resources starts today!… 

John’s not talking to people who have more than enough consumer goods, as many of us do. He’s talking to people who don’t have much, and might be tempted to hold on to extra. In our lives of relative plenty, it may be important for us to dwell with what’s enough and what’s extra. 

Then some soldiers and tax collectors ask John, Well, what should we do? These are people who are part of the structure of oppression in this time and place. The soldiers are in some direct or indirect way part of the occupation – the domination of Judea by the Roman Empire. And the tax collectors, likewise, serve the government by, well, collecting taxes – which were punishingly high. And again, John’s advice seems so minimal! He doesn’t say, Drive a spoke into the wheel of the machine of unjust government! He says: Do your job honestly. Don’t take more money than you’re supposed to. Don’t threaten people; don’t be a bully. Be satisfied with your wages. 

Times were hard and things were uncertain. Just like holding on to an extra coat, taking a little extra money in the course of your duties was a rational choice. It meant you could do a little more for your own family, or hide something away just in case. These small corruptions weren’t the acts of bad people, but of ordinary people. But John tells them: Don’t deepen other people’s misery. If you want to align yourself with God, be honest. Be just. Be righteous. 

I think John would say that giving away a coat or not taking a bribe is the beginning of metanoia and the path of righteousness, not the fulfillment. Square one. You can’t start down the path of love of God and neighbor, when you’re cheating them both. 

I love what the apostle Paul says about righteousness, in our epistle today. He prays for this community, the church in Philippi, that their love for one another may overflow more and more, with knowledge and full insight.  What a powerful, important idea: that love can lead us to knowledge and insight! And that knowledge and insight in turn will help them determine what is best to do. How to be honest and just. How to share. How to do good, when things are bad. And that process – love leading to understanding leading to discernment of right action – that’s what will make Jesus proud of them, as people who have produced the harvest of righteousness. 

A couple of days ago, on December 6, the church honored the feast of St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas is a cousin of sorts to Santa Claus, who is famous for giving gifts to nice children and coal to naughty children. I’m not sure how “nice” and “naughty” in this context relate to righteousness, exactly! 

Nicholas the saint was a bishop in the port city of Myra, in the fourth century, in what is now part of Turkey. He became beloved during his lifetime, and honored as a saint after his death, because he was righteous. 

Some of the stories about Nicholas may feel more like folklore than history, like the one where an evil innkeeper kills some traveling students and makes them into stew, and Nicholas by holy magic reassembles them and brings them back to life. 

But other stories have the ring of truth. That Nicholas secretly gave gifts – bags of gold coins tossed in a window or down a chimney – that allowed poor families to care for their children. That he would buy a big bag of bread, then go out at night and leave loaves beside the unhoused, sleeping on the streets. 

That he was friendly with the sailors and dock workers of the port, and prayed with and for them, in their dangerous jobs. That when a rich man’s son killed someone, and a corrupt judge was paid off to pin the crime on others, Nicholas showed up to pray with that judge until he changed his mind. That despite the comfort and privilege that could have kept him apart from the ordinary people of Myra, Nicholas chose to be among them, and to be for them. That he let love overflow and lead to understanding, and then to knowing what to do. 

How do we live, in cold, hard seasons? How shall we live, when the times are strange and frightening, and many are fearful, or struggling, or at risk? I expect we’ll be spending a lot of time with those questions. But one old, bold, hopeful answer offered by our faith and our faith-ancestors is: Strive for God’s righteousness. 

I wonder if we could reclaim righteousness as part of our core values and vocabulary. Righteousness as integrity and compassion. Righteousness as choosing kindness, choosing truth, even when it’s hard. Righteousness as what bubbles up at the fierce fruitful places where our joy intersects with our anger. Righteousness as the manifestation of God’s presence among us. Righteousness as deepening love that leads us towards understanding and into action.