Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Advent, 2020
Homily for Advent 1, 2020
Fr. Tony Melton
Christ the King Anglican
This morning, I’d like to walk us through the Propers and show the message they give when grouped together as they are.
This morning, our psalm is Psalm 50. Turn there in your booklets, page 5. The context is God judging the sacrifices of His people. God judging the sacrifices of His people. Verse 1: THE LORD, even the Most Mighty God, hath spoken. Verse 3: He shall not keep silence; * there shall go before him a consuming fire. Verses 4 and 5: He shall call the heaven from above, * and the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me; * those that have made a covenant with me with sacrifice.” It becomes clear in the next several verses that God is judging them NOT because they are withholding the sacrifices. They are faithful in offering up the required flesh. Verse 8: “I will not reprove thee because of thy sacrifices; as for thy burnt-offerings, they are alway before me.” God is judging His covenant people because the people are not righteous in their ways. Verse 16: “Why dost thou preach my laws, and takest my covenant in thy mouth; 17 Whereas thou hatest to be reformed, and hast cast my words behind thee?” God continues the rebuke by saying that they act like the thief, adulterer, the deceitful, and the slanderer. God warns them in verse 22: “O consider this, ye that forget God, lest I pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you. Whoso offereth me thanks and praise, he honoureth me; and to him that ordereth his way aright, will I show the salvation of God.” So, God judges the sacrifice of His people, and finds it wanting because are not righteous. His people say the required words of the Liturgy and offer the right animal at the right time, but they don’t live moral lives. God says He will pluck them away and there will be none to deliver them.
The Old Testament Lesson from Malachi 3 has this same theme: God promising He will come to judge His people’s sacrifice. On page 7 in the middle of the 4th line: “Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” Why is He coming? “And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.” It says that He will come suddenly to His temple, the place of sacrifices. Yet the reason for His judgment is a lack of righteousness in His people. And what does He hope to accomplish with His judgment of the temple? “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord.” So in the Psalm, God brings judgment upon the sacrifices because the people are unrighteous. In Malachi 3, God brings judgment upon the unrighteous so that they can offer a righteous sacrifice.
Have you ever heard of the book The Five Love Languages? What a frustrating book. If you’ve never read it, Chapman distinguishes receiving love into 5 categories: we receive love through acts of service, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, physical touch, and quality time. And each person has their own way of receiving love, their “love language.” God help you if you don’t know your spouses love language. You can be slaving away. Hands cracking and peeling from the Dawn dish soap, our voice hoarse from singing songs of her beauty, forearms burning from endless shoulder rubs, when what she really wanted was a new set of earrings, or a cup of joe with you in the morning. The analogy is not perfect, but the point is this: We can work our whole lives for God, but if we don’t take the time to learn what matters to Him, then we’ll find that He is not pleased with us. And this is what happened in this morning’s Gospel.
Jesus came into the city as their king, some of the people lauded him and welcomed Him as king, waving palm branches and spreading out their clothes. Just as our Psalm predicted, “Out of Sion hath God appeared in perfect beauty.” Just as Malachi predicted, “God came suddenly to His temple.” Matthew records: “And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
The Gospel so clearly fulfills the prophecy of Malachi. The people thought that God would come and congratulate them, fight for them. “Are we not His covenant people? Look at the Temple that Herod had built!” And yet they found that God’s love language was not in their ability to spout off the 614 laws of Moses, or in the size of the temple they’d built, or in the quantity of animals they sacrificed. What they discovered is that God has a zeal for righteousness that far exceeded their expectation. They weren’t ready.
This is the first Sunday of Advent, the season where the Church focuses on preparing for the second coming of Christ, called the Second Advent. Advent is about getting ready for when Jesus comes back. And it is important that we get ready, for we confess in the Creed that He will return to judge the quick and the dead, and what was true of Him in the first Advent will also be true of Him in the 2nd. “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire.” When Jesus returns, He will be looking for a righteous people. He won’t accept a people who go through the motions, who take His covenant in their mouth, but hate to be changed in their heart. The psalmist says that he will “show His salvation to him who orders his way aright.” So every year the Church our Mother walks us through this season that we can prepare and set our lives in order.
But it is also crucial that we at CTK hear this message as a mission. Like the people in Jesus’ day, we have built a church. We’ve developed guilds and teams, trained leaders, established cell groups, crafted mission and vision statements. It has been a fun process. Lots of work. We have even begun to adopt the rhythms of worship and Eucharist, learned to pray and chant the ancient Liturgy which fulfills the ancient sacrifices. And God is pleased with the work of His people, UNLESS it is in place of what is truly most important. In our mission emails the last few weeks, I’ve been focusing on this idea of returning back to the main thing. And what is the main thing that God requires of His people? In a word, it is righteousness. But what does righteousness mean?
Look at what causes Jesus to fly into a holy rage. It is a clue as to what He requires of us, and what righteousness means. The money changers in the Temple were creating obstacles and distractions for people coming to pray, especially the foreigner. They were being as Malachi said, “those that turn aside the stranger from his right.” In their actions, these Temple officials were violating the two Great Commandments. Their racket (in both senses of that word) prohibited the stranger from the love of God in prayer. Our Old Testament propers make clear that God is zealous for righteousness. In our Gospel, Jesus is zealous about two things: justice toward the stranger and prayer. In other words, love of neighbor and love of God. Righteousness.
Advent is a season to devote ourselves to prayer, ethics, and virtue. God’s people are to be a praying people known for their justice and righteousness. When God returns, He will look at our hearts, our hands, and our feet. Did our hearts commune with God through prayer? Did our hands do justice for our neighbor? Did our feet walk in the commandments of God? Prayer, ethics, and virtue.
None of us are where we should be. And this is why God sends messengers to prepare us. “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.” Today is a mercy for us all. Be reminded that God is coming. Be moved to get ready. At some point during Advent, one of our clergy will be calling you to discuss about your prayer life and about which virtues you are pursing during the next year. This, too, is a kindness. You have been given time and shepherds to help you. But, at the end of the day, every man and woman must prepare themselves. For the mystery of righteousness is found in the soil of your heart, where Christ has been planted by Faith. And this is the dawn of a new year! Is this cycle of the Liturgical Year to be significant in your growth as a Christian? What is your plan for growing in prayer, ethics, and virtue? May God grants us grace as we venture into this year together, growing in prayer and righteousness, that when Jesus returns to judge the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal in perfect joy and righteousness. Amen.