Bible Text: Matthew 3:1-12 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: The Beatitudes | What do you think, is John the Baptist a good example of a peacemaker?   There is an aggressiveness to John the Baptist that might strike us as anti-peace.  But notice in the Beatitude, Jesus does not say, “Blessed are the peace-lovers.”  Jesus says, “Blessed are the peace-makers.”  John the Baptist knew his calling was to stir things up so people who were not at peace with God could change their ways and get right with God.  Sometimes John the Baptist was able to accomplish that with gentle confrontation.  Other times he was anything but gentle.  “You brood of vipers!”  That’s probably not a sentence we’d associate with peacemaking!

I chose to talk about John the Baptist today because, during Advent, we always talk about him on Peace week.  Advent is the season the Church sets aside as preparation for Christmas, when we focus in on the hope, peace, joy and love that Jesus brings.  The lectionary readings for Peace week focus on John the Baptist.  He urged people to prepare the way of the Lord, for the Lord brings peace!

The peace we celebrate on with the birth of Christ is, in part, the end of strife between God and humankind.  One commentary I read this week said if you want to be a peacemaker, you should try walking up to random people and saying, “God knows you are a sinner, but peace!  Jesus was born to forgive us for our sins!”  I don’t know anyone who would be willing to do that.  But we get the idea.  The peace of Christ has to do first and foremost with forgiveness for our sins.  During Advent, we always take a week to read about John the Baptist and remember how he called the Jewish people to repent of their sins and be reconciled to God.

The peace of Christ is, in part, the end of strife between God and humankind.  But that is just one part of the peace of Christ.  The other part has to do with bringing an end to the strife between groups of people.  This was very difficult for the early Christians to understand, that Jesus came to bring peace between the Jews and the Gentiles.  Through their mutual faith in Christ, these two groups of people who had been divided and avoiding or exploiting each other for centuries were now expected to be brothers and sisters in the faith.  If you remember from our study of the book of Acts last year, it took some pretty bold visions from God to convince Peter to even visit Cornelius, who was a Gentile.  Even though Peter was right there at that first Pentecost, it took a while for him to understand that God intends the Christian church to be bigger than any one nation or race.  God intends the Christian church to be a multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-faith background, multi-generational, all-inclusive body.

And that, truthfully, has been a struggle for Christians in every generation.  A little over two years ago I took a confirmation class to Historic St. George’s United Methodist Church in Philadelphia.  St. George’s was the first Methodist church in America, and for a time in the 1700’s, whites and blacks were worshipping together in a way that shocked the rest of Philadelphia.  The members of St. George’s had captured the vision of Pentecost and wanted to foster true communion with God and with each other, regardless of skin color.  But sadly, it wasn’t long until the white members of St. George’s began to cave to the pressure from their fellow citizens.  Suddenly, blacks were forced to sit in the balcony and forced out of leadership.  The black members left, angry and saddened that the church was not willing to stand against a culture that said one kind of people is better than another.

We have not learned all the lessons we need to learn when it comes to God’s vision for the church to foster equality despite skin color, language, gender, or any other difference.  Of course we haven’t!  Sin separates the people of every generation, first from God, and also from each other.  Thank God, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace” because Jesus is our peace, the path to reconciliation, on both fronts!  But before we can celebrate that good news, we have to swallow some bad news.  Peace always begins with repentance.

I’m sure there were many Jews who heard John the Baptist preaching and said, “What are you talking about?  We’re not the ones who need to repent!  It’s the Romans, they are the ones who barged into our country and are pushing us around and being unfair.”  That was certainly true.  But John the Baptist called even the underdogs of society to repent, because the kingdom of God was within them.

We study John the Baptist during Advent because his call to repentance extends to us as well.  It’s not just the people in power positions who need to repent.  It’s all of us!  It is very tempting to watch the news and point a finger at all the people in the world who are doing things you don’t think are right.  But the truth is, healthy people spend the bulk of their time and energy on their own issues.  If you are finding that other people’s shortcomings are dominating your conversations, please take a hard look at yourself and figure out why that is.  As John the Baptist would say, “Repent!”  Repent and be reconciled to God, because the kingdom of heaven is within you.

This call to repentance shouldn’t come as a surprise.  Think back to when we first started the Beatitudes, do you remember the first one?  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus promises a blessing of acceptance and new life if we are willing to admit our own faults and struggles.  There is no blessing to be had in dwelling on other people’s issues.  Like we talked about last week, plant yourself in that bigger pot of God’s love, and nurture your own roots.

And when we do that, God’s pure love, love that is broad like beach and meadow, flows through us.  Our judgmentalism gets replaced by mercy, and our anger turns into a sense of call.  Instead of being angry and wanting our own will, we become passionate about pursuing God’s will.  As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, we are called to forgive every offense.  But because God loves mercy AND justice, we are not called to tolerate bad behavior.  In fact, we are commanded by our Lord to confront bad behavior in the church and establish consequences if someone is not willing to change.  You can look at Matthew 18 if you want to see that for yourself.  And Methodists, historically, have believed it is also our job to confront bad behavior and unfair systems in our society.  Peacemakers bring about peace by working on earth for the justice that will prevail in heaven.

Ironically, the most effective way to work for justice is to ADD FRICTION.  The most effective way to work for peace is not to smooth things over, not to gloss over issues, not to go with the flow.  The most effective way to work for peace is to ADD FRICTION that will call attention to and slow down the injustice so the Spirit of God has room to finally bring justice.

Jesus puts peacemaking pretty far down the list of Beatitudes, because this is work for mature Christians.  It takes courage and wisdom to know when and what to say no to so that the world can say yes to God.  But look at the blessing Jesus promises!  When we become mature enough in our faith to hear God’s call to work for justice, we become “sons of God”—we become like the Son of God.  Can you think of a higher honor than that?  But Like Jesus, we know we will be taking a risk, because we will likely get some people mad at us.  We will likely experience some unpleasant consequences.  Just ask John the Baptist! His preaching about repentance led to his head being served on a silver platter to Herod at a banquet!  But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.  “Blessed are the persecuted” isn’t until next week.

God raises up peacemakers and calls them to add friction, to rock the boat, to stir things up.  This has been happening in our own congregation.  About a year and a half ago, a group of Lima’s members began meeting to talk about our denomination’s official policy regarding human sexuality.  Two dozen church members felt called by God to work for change in this area.  When I first announced that a Reconciling Team had been formed, a few people left the church.  As the process moved along, and it became clear that there was considerable support for this work at Lima, a few others left.   That was painful for the members of the Team to know that their work was making people who had previously been very comfortable here uncomfortable.

Still, they felt called by God to do this work, and after meeting for a year, studying the scriptures, praying, and learning together, they crafted a statement and shared it with the congregation in February.  And on March 1st, the Reconciling Team conducted a straw poll to measure the congregation’s willingness to adopt a statement of inclusion.  On March 8th I announced in worship that the results of that poll were so overwhelmingly in favor of adopting the statement, that we were going to schedule a formal vote for April 19th.  Seventy five out of eighty votes were in favor of adopting the statement.  The Reconciling Team was hopeful that during the rest of March and into April, they would be able to answer questions and address fears so that an even greater majority of people would affirm the statement of inclusion.

That vote did not happen, of course, because March 8th was the last time we were all together in worship before the pandemic.  Initially the Reconciling Team decided to postpone the vote until we could meet in person again, thinking it wouldn’t be all that long before things were “back to normal”.  We know now, though, that back to normal won’t be happening for a long time.  And as much as the Reconciling Team does not want to add friction at a time when people are already stressed and strained, the need for justice has not gone away.  The desire to promote inclusiveness is stronger than ever.  And so, the Reconciling Team has set of goal, of conducting a vote for Lima’s active members, on or before October 11th.  While this is a controversial issue to some people, it may seem like an unnecessary stressor and source of friction at an already difficult time, the Reconciling Team feels called by God to do what it can to straighten out an unfair policy in our church.  If you are an active member, look for a letter coming soon with more information about this issue.  You can also go to our website, www.limachurchpa.org/way-forward to learn more. In the meantime, let me read you the Statement of Affirmation the Reconciling Team would like to see our congregation adopt.  I hope you will agree these are words with an aim of true peace:

Lima UMC celebrates that all people are created in God’s image and are of sacred worth.  We are a welcoming community that affirms and values all people without regard to age, race, culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, mental or physical ability, family configuration, faith history, or socioeconomic status. We seek to love all people because God loves all people.  As generations before us have done, we humbly continue to explore and live the meaning of Christian discipleship in today’s world.

Since I came to Lima a little over two years ago, I have felt something is missing here.  I love the phrases that you chose to define yourself some time ago:  Christ centered, faith building, mission minded.  I believe Lima is all of those things, and those are all great things!  But Lima is a congregation that is maturing in its faith, and I think another descriptor needs to be added now, “justice seeking.”  When I look at the people of Lima and what they care about, Christ centered, faith building, mission minded, those three descriptors only tell part of the story.  We are people, rooted in the vast pot of God’s great love for humankind who are now being called to work for justice.  God is calling us to learn to lovingly confront what is unfair and unholy in our midst, and to take the risk to speak up on behalf of those who are not being treated fairly.

Blessed are the peace MAKERS, for they will be called sons of God. May we be a people after God’s own heart, a people aligned with God’s own will, a people committed to seeking justice for all.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.