We all carry within us tremendous power, an unquenchable fire. Faith and Hate.
They are often confused.
Faith always seems to carry the temptation to spiral downward into using God’s name to hate and exclude.
That downward spiral sometimes carries a fierce indignation, sometimes a cold rationalism, other times a warm friendliness that mixes the vocabulary of casting out with sugary religious jargon.
The end is the same, whether hot, cold or sugary sweet, using God to justify harm to others.
It is a plague that afflicts the calling of faith, and so many can’t tell the difference.
That fire that is within us, it can bring life, or it can bring harm. It can bring light in darkness or it can be consuming.
What do we do with it? How do we know that we use that power rightly?
“Bear the fruit worthy of repentance,” John tells us. What does this turning toward God look like, how does the life change manifest?
With amazing generosity and servanthood.
Not abusing authority to exploit the vulnerable.
That is the Gospel way of being in the world.
That is how we are told to prepare for the Advent of God’s Kingdom and the arrival of the Messiah.
It is so simple.
Stop using other people.
Stop hurting other people.
Be generous, really, really generous.
Time is running out.
Or else.
Simple.
Bear that kind of fruit or be cut down.
Use power in that way or be consumed by the unquenchable fire.
John the Baptist gives us this exhortation.
The way of faith in the Gospel lives in the world in a certain way. Not with the pointing of the finger but with the hand that serves.
John the Baptist calls us back to the way of faith, to the way of power that is for the other.
The Episcopal Church has never been more faithful to this Good News than it is right now.
The Episcopal Church has never been more faithful to scripture, to the Word, to the Gospel than it is right now.
It is an exciting time to be a Christian in the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.
There are always those who say we have forsaken the Gospel.
I used to have sympathy for those people, but I don’t anymore.
It always comes down to using pretty religious words to justify pushing certain kinds of people out.
They use the language of faith to justify hatred, whether of the hot, cold or sugary varieties.
John the Baptist says the ax is lying at the root of tree. Time is up. Bear fruit worthy of repentance, not hatred dressed up all pretty in church talk.
It has been an amazing year to be a Episcopal Christians, to follow Jesus, to be Spirit breathed.
The wedding sermon for the Royal Wedding. A wedding sermon that took the world by surprise, probably the most heard wedding sermon in human history. People sat up and noticed. A sermon about love! The world heard!
Or the presidential funeral. The ministry of word and sacrament. Beauty. Dignity. An offering not only worthy of the Dead, but worthy of God. We honored our dead, and in doing so we honored the image of God alive in the world.
Or even pop culture with the CBS television show God Friended Me, the Episcopal Church shows up prominently in a light hearted look at belief, family and the modern world.
Our curriculum on Civil Discourse had an in depth story in national news, featuring a friend and visitor to this parish, the Haiti missionary, Alan Yarborough.
The stories of the Gospel abound in the Episcopal Church.
And then there is the jewel in the crown of the Episcopal Church, this Parish, Grace Episcopal, an example of what it means to be a deeply Episcopal parish, lively, dignified, creative, beautiful, generous, fun with a vision of God that transcends the petty wedge issues of our culture.
Power that serves.
The unquenchable fire that gives light, but does not consume, a burning bush in the wilderness.
We carry an incredible power within us.
Proclaim that good news to the people.
Be that good news.