Third Sunday of Advent (Year C, RCL)

The Advent 3 readings present an awkward tension.

I am struck by just how different my baptism prep process is from John the Baptist’s.

His followers realized there was no quick exit from the discomfort of his words.

It’s hard to take Paul’s admonition seriously these days.

The first step of repentance is telling the truth about ourselves.

It's a great question to ask people. But not this person.

“If we can’t afford two boxes,” my grandmother said, “we can’t afford one.”

Most social problems are rooted in the failure of the strong to be gentle with others.

What does true joy require of us?

The main purpose of prayer is to enjoy God.

God loves everything that God made, and God loves you especially, and the only way you can avoid that love is by deliberately removing yourself from it. That is how I want to preach this Gospel on Advent 3. John the Baptist tells us that we can, in fact, separate ourselves from love, and describes some of the ways how.

In response to John’s insistence that the ax is at the root of the tree, poised to cut down trees that don’t bear good fruit, three groups ask, “If that’s so, how then shall we live?”

The tension between the joy of the first three readings and the judgment of the Baptizer’s proclamation is theologically instructive. It presses us to hold the two together.