We have heard today the phrase in Luke’s Gospel that always catches me by surprise.  And since the soul of comedy is surprise, . . . we have heard today the phrase in Luke’s Gospel which always causes a little giggle to well up inside me and beg to come out and play.  . . . It is the phrase in which Saint Luke comments upon John the Baptizer having said,

“he who is mightier than I is coming . . . to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  [and then Luke says] So, with many other exhortations, [John] preached good news to the people.

Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, . . . but the idea that God’s Christ is coming to burn human chaff with unquenchable fire -- with an irresistible fire; with fire that cannot be prevented . . . that cannot be stopped . . . that cannot be extinguished; . . . the idea that God’s Christ is coming to burn with unquenchable fire those persons He regards as mere husks of humanity . . . hardly qualifies as good news.  . . . At least it doesn’t seem to qualify as good news to ears which have been conditioned by liberal Protestantism over the course of several decades.  . . . St. Luke’s remark, in fact, sounds rather like sarcasm.  Unquenchable fire, indeed!  Liberal Protestantism has accustomed us to a gentler approach to religion; . . . we’re accustomed to being wooed and to wooing souls into the Kingdom, not frightening them.  After all, doesn’t the Incarnation show that God wishes to affirm my personhood; . . . that He accepts me just as I am?  Isn’t the fact that I’m created in God’s Image sufficient proof that God honors my needs as appropriate expressions of my personhood?  . . . Liberal Protestantism may talk you to death, but it certainly doesn’t burn anyone with unquenchable fire!  We’re simply not used to that kind of talk.  . . . It only inspires laughter.

    But think about it.  . . . Who are these people to whom John is speaking?  Who are these people who have come out to hear him and to recognize the sin in their lives and to be baptized as a sign of their repentance?  Who are these people?  . . . Well, most of them seem to be the sort who put a lot of stock in the fact that Abraham is their father.  . . . In the Fourth Gospel Jesus has conversation with such people, whom Saint John identifies as “the Jews,” . . . a phrase John uses to indicate individuals who believe that their racial heritage has made them God’s particular favorites.  So, many of the ones who come to John the Baptizer are people who want God’s assurance that their personhood and their lifestyle and their values are affirmed.  Of course, there are the tax collectors and “soldiers” (policemen, most likely), who supplement their fairly meager wage by extortion.  But, actually, it is a fairly ordinary collection of people who come out to hear John; . . . as ordinary a collection of people as you might find while shopping in South-side Oneonta; . . . a fairly ordinary collection of people with a smattering of exceptional sinners thrown in for color.

    And what does John say to these people?  . . . He says,

You are all as good as vipers(!), full of poison.  So, if you repent of your poison, then become something else.  Who you are at this moment [John says] . . . who you are at this moment isn’t good enough.  The Lord God expects more from you.  If you want to live with the angels, . . . then you must become angelic!  . . . [For] I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming . . . [to] baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

The good news, you see, . . . the good news is that God isn’t indifferent to us.  The good news is that God cares about what becomes of us.  God cares that we were made for eternity . . . that we are spiritual cousins to the angels; . . . God cares that we were made for eternity but are squandering our heritage; . . . God cares that we were made for eternity, and He doesn’t want to see us obliterate ourselves in conflagrations of self-absorption so that we become ash; . . . so that we become mere chaff; mere rubbish to pollute eternity unless it is burned with unquenchable fire.  . . . The Lord God Almighty isn’t indifferent to us; . . . that’s John’s good news.  The Lord God Almighty isn’t indifferent to us, and so, He draws near to us; . . . He draws near enough to hear your very heart, . . . and the good news is also that if you’re quiet enough, . . . you can hear the heart of God as well; . . . if you are quiet enough, you can hear the heart of God and be transfigured!

    There used to be a Wal-Mart commercial on television that got aired at this time of year . . . in which a very charming child says (most earnestly), “Christmas [meaning this present season of Advent] . . . Christmas [the child says] is a time for giving and loving.”  Which is precisely wrong.  . . . The child is charming but not well taught.  Because, you see, there’s no season for giving in God’s sight!  For, what does God’s prophet John the Baptizer say?

Bear fruits that befit repentance, . . . He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.

God doesn’t designate a season for generosity!  He expects us to be generous all the time!  And neither is generosity uniquely associated with Christ . . . with “Christmas”.  I refer you to the Old Testament and the Law which preceded Christmas by some two thousand years; . . . I refer you to the Book of Exodus 22:26-27 where it says,

If ever you take your neighbor’s garment in pledge, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down; for that is his only covering, it is his mantle for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

and look in the Book of Leviticus 19:9-10 where it says,

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field to its very border, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest.  And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.

The Lord God Almighty communicated to Moses, many centuries before the Advent of Jesus; . . . God communicated to Moses an expectation for humanity of habitual generosity and mercy.  . . . And, again, neither are these expressions of love associated with a particular season as far as you -- the people of Christ -- are concerned.  For, what does John the Baptizer say to the soldiers he baptized?  He says,

Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.

    This season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is not a time intended by God for extraordinary giving, . . . although that is a pleasant custom among us.  This season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is a time especially consecrated by the Church for remembering the good news given to us by God’s prophets, that

he who is mightier than I is coming, . . . His winnowing fork is in his hand . . . to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

This season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is a time for remembering that God is not indifferent to you and to the fruits of your life, . . . and if you desire not to be put out with the rubbish of eternity and burned to a mere molecular vapor; … if you desire to live with the angels and to know the ineffable and breathtaking joy of seeing what they see and hearing what they hear; . . . if you desire to live with the angels . . . then you must become angelic.

    This season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is not a time intended by God for extraordinary expressions of charity, . . . although that is an angelic trait.  Rather, this season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is a time especially consecrated by the Church for heeding the exhortations of God’s prophets, such as that of Zephaniah, who says to us that

The LORD, your God, is in your midst, . . . he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love

This season of Advent which precedes Christmastide is a season for receptivity; … for being rejoiced over by your God; . . . for hearing His heart of love in the stillness of your own . . . and being renewed by it.  . . . Because, if the Lord your God promised to come to you, as the prophet Zephaniah says, . . . as a warrior who gives victory; . . . if the Lord your God promised to come to you in power and majesty and might that would inspire awe and wonder and happiness and trembling; . . . and the thing He chose in order to fulfill this promise at His first advent was the power of infancy; . . . if the Lord our God came to us with a power that evokes our own simplicity; a power which evokes our tenderest and most innocent and selfless instincts; a power which evokes enormous reverence for our Creator (all of which an infant has the power to do); . . . if the Lord our God came to us with such power the first time, . . . it is very important that our Christian Life forgets enough liberal Protestantism . . . becomes self-forgetful enough . . . to become so simple and detached and focused . . . so poor and chaste and obedient to God . . . become so angelic . . . that we can hear God’s heart all the time, and not miss Him when He shall come again to bring us home.

    . . . Last Sunday I observed that as we wait in the twilight of our Redemption; . . . as we wait at the threshold of Heaven for the magnificent effulgence of our Salvation . . . we are ever in danger of becoming bored and wandering off to incorporate into our lifestyles the Darkness from which Christ has redeemed us.  . . . We are ever in danger, in these present times, of enjoying the self-reliance of being apart from God in the Darkness . . . until we expend all of our finite resources and collapse into a heap of dust; . . . until the kernel of our being is eaten up . . . and all that is left of us is chaff.  . . . The remedy for boredom as we sit at the threshold of Heaven; . . . the thing that keeps us from wandering off into the Dark . . . is to be still; . . . to be still in this season of Advent; to be still and attentive to God . . . so that your God might rejoice over you and His love renew you . . . to be still so that restlessness might not make chaff of you, . . . chaff to be burned with unquenchable fire.