Third Sunday of Advent
December 15, 2024
Luke 3:7-18

The audio of this sermon is available here. The livestream of the full worship service is available on the Trinity Episcopal Church YouTube channel.

Using current technology, it would take six thousand three hundred years to reach the nearest star in our galaxy.¹ That’s a long, long, long time. If you were to go back six thousand three hundred years, you would be in the Stone Age. Traveling in a spaceship for six thousand three hundred years, just to reach the nearest star, well, it’s simply not feasible. Think of it – that’s three hundred generations who would be born, live, and die on one spaceship. That isn’t to mention the food, air, and water needed for such a long journey. And, let’s suppose those travelers were going to that next nearest star to look for life. All very well and good, but there is no guarantee that life would even be there, six thousand three hundred years from now. Whole civilizations could have risen and fall by the time we got there. And let’s be honest, there is no guarantee that life will be here on Earth, six thousand three hundred years from now. 

One of the most chilling facts that humans face, is that even if the universe is teeming with life among the stars, we are separated by mind-boggling distances. For all intents and purposes, we are alone.

Why am I so interested in this? See, as a naïve sophomore in college I signed up for a class called, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Life.” I had taken basic astronomy for one of my science credits, and I thought this would be something of a fun, amusing, a blow-off class. You know, UFOs and stuff. Boy, was I wrong. It was an intense, academic, rigorous look at just how massive the universe actually is, we studied how we think life begins, the necessary ingredients for intelligence, where else life could exist, and the very serious question – should we even be looking? And that’s why I’ve come down where I’ve come down – that even if the universe is teeming with life, for all intents and purposes, we are alone on this planet Earth, our island home.

The ethical implications, to me, are immediately obvious. We need to take care of each other. This is all we have. There is no lifeboat, there is no Plan B, there is nowhere else to go. This is it. So the only reasonable thing to do, is to take care of each other.

Like John the Baptist said we should. John is out there talking about the Kingdom of God and about one more powerful that is coming. So the crowds ask John the Baptist, “what should we do?” “In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’” Look around, John the Baptist is saying. This is all you’ve got, you’ve got each other. So take care of each other. “Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’” In other words, John is telling them to quit ripping people off. Be fair, be honest. These are the only neighbors you have, so be good to them. “Soldiers also asked John the Baptist, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’” John is saying, look around. This is it. There is nowhere else to go, these are the people you’re stuck with – so be good to them. 

And after saying all of this, John the Baptist drops an absolute bombshell. He says that all of that – sharing your coats, sharing your food, being fair and honest – John says all that is good news. Good news. The literal translation of that word, is gospel. This call, this command – to share, to give, to be fair – that is the gospel. 

Now, if you’ve got two coats, it sure doesn’t sound like good news. If you have a pantry full of extra food, this doesn’t sound like good news. If you’re a tax collector and you’ve been lining your pockets with a little extra off the top for yourself, this is not so good. If you’re a soldier who has been making a few extra bucks by extortion at the point of sword, what John has to say is bad news. Because when the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting ripped off; there’s going to be trouble. There’s going to be bad news.

But twist this around. Say you didn’t have any coat, and your neighbor just heard John the Baptist talk, and then your neighbor turns around and gives you their extra coat. That’s some good news. If you don’t have any food, and the person next door shares their meal with you, that’s really good news. If you’ve been threatened and beaten, and all of a sudden, that stops – then what John had to say is gospel. And when you have received something in grace, chances are you more likely to give something away in grace. That’s the vision. That’s why it’s good news. Because it’s not about making my life better or your life better – it’s about making the whole world better.

That’s the vision of the Kingdom of God that John the Baptist has. It’s not that being rich, or being tax collectors, or serving as soldiers is wrong. No. It’s that greed by anyone is wrong because it keeps us from actually living together. 

If you’ve been reading the Gospel of Luke, as I have asked you to, you’ll see that Jesus is always filling up the poor, raising up the oppressed. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is turning the world upside down and inside out with this good news. Because that’s the vision. The cold, hard reality of Advent is that this is it. The people we are stuck with on this planet, are the people we are stuck with on this planet. So it would be far better for us to love and share and be kind; not only because it’s better for them but because it’s better for us. This, I believe, is the vision of the Kingdom of God. A reality in which God is Lord of all. A Kingdom forged by the Holy Spirit and fire. A Kingdom in which our greed and idolatry have been burned away, like chaff in the fire.

And I know – I know that we all like to escape the harsh realities of poverty and oppression in this world. We don’t have to travel in spaceship to other stars to do that – we simply roll up the windows. We lock our doors. We move to a different neighborhood. We send our kids to a different school. We don’t have to travel light years to find creatures who live differently than we do – there are children on this island, who go to bed hungry every night. There are adults who have lost all hope. There are prisoners, trapped in cycles of despair and violence. We drive right by then on our way to church. In a way, we function as if there are two separately inhabited planets anyway.

So what would John the Baptist have to say? “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” John has good news. Good news, but hard news. If you look up into the stars and see the vast expanse of space and wonder why we are alone, perish the though. For we are not alone. We have each other. This is it. And in two weeks, we will celebrate again that we are not alone. That God has chosen to live us, at Christmas, through Jesus, and that through him, the Holy Spirit is binding us together in this thing called the Kingdom of God. And as it says about John the Baptist, we now give thanks – for “with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

1.  https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/06/22/142160/this-is-how-many-people-wed-have-to-send-to-proxima-centauri-to-make-sure-someone-actually/ ↩︎

Other References

Cooper, Keith. Contact Paradox, The: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Illustrated edition. London: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020.