Rejoice in the Lord always

“Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice”. These words of St Paul perhaps present a resonant beginning for Gaudete Sunday – the Latin word means literally ‘Rejoice!’ It strikes an odd note in the midst of winter, when the hours of daylight are short, and the days enveloped by darkness. Winter is upon us. And during these days of Advent we may be forgiven for imagining a world in which it is ‘always winter, but never Christmas.’ Poverty, the cost of living crisis, war and conflict. We may feel ground down by the daily news cycle – the stories of corruption and cruelty and neglect in the world today. If that wasn’t enough, in recent weeks, the safeguarding failures of the Church of England have been laid bare – and for victims and survivors, these things have been hard to bear. And as I said a few weeks ago following the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, safeguarding will always be a priority at the University Church, and the care and protection of victims and survivors will always come first. Safeguarding is a responsibility that all of us share. But then we read our epistle. ‘Rejoice?’ What can there be to rejoice about?

Curiously, the gospel reading which we have heard today sounds a rather divergent note. John the Baptist, this odd and creatively maladjusted figure who appears at the beginning of each of the gospels from the margins, the wilderness, the edge of civilisation, arrives on the scene as the great forerunner of the Messiah. And what does he say? Rejoice? No, he says ‘You brood of vipers!’ 

It’s not the most promising of starts. Not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. I suspect that if one addressed the congregation at St Mary’s like that, it would certainly generate some discussion over coffee after the service. The sort of sermon where perhaps the only polite response or constructive feedback to the preacher might be, ‘Thank you so much for your sermon. I could hear every word.’ 

But the crowds, even though they are rebuked by him, come to be baptized by John the Baptist in their hundreds. They are a motley assortment of tax-collectors and sinners, people who come with all sorts of needs, people who are broken, people who are helpless, people who are at their wits' end, people whose lives are so dominated by restless competition and anxious self-defence that they won’t hesitate to take advantage of someone else’s misfortune, if it puts food on the table. 

And yet what does John say to them?  ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ To the tax collectors, who were notorious for their corruption and agents of an occupying power, John says: ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ And to the soldiers, who were probably the armed guards and mercenaries of Herod Antipas rather than Roman soldiers, he says: ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

Note that John seems preoccupied with economic questions. And this is significant. Since Advent Sunday, we have started to read from Luke’s gospel Sunday by Sunday. Last year, we read Mark’s gospel, and the year before, we read Matthew. There is a three year cycle in the Revised Common Lectionary, which we use in the Church of England and which is used also in the Roman Catholic Church and other denominations. At festivals, like Christmas, we read passages from the Fourth Gospel, from John the Evangelist. But when Luke introduces John the Baptist, he reinforces some significant themes in the way he presents the gospel. At the Visitation, Mary sings to Elizabeth with joy of the God who ‘has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.’ At the birth of Jesus, Luke records no Magi bringing extravagant gifts, but poor shepherds. And then at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus teaches at the synagogue in Nazareth and reads from the prophet Isaiah:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 

‘Good news to the poor’ – in the Greek phrase, the verb εὐαγγελίζομαι is the word from which we derive the English word ‘evangelism’. Of course, we sometimes associate evangelism with the sort of thing that other churches do. We may associate it with crude forms of proselytism. Sometimes the rhetoric around evangelism in the contemporary church can sound ever so slightly coercive, even predatory, placing undue pressure on others to make them adopt your own point of view.

But I suspect that St Luke would have been horrified at these associations. This is not what evangelism means. For Luke, evangelism - εὐαγγελίζομαι – is always about communicating the gospel – the εὐαγγελίον. The word can also be translated ‘good news’. And when Luke speaks of ‘good news’, he almost always uses it in speaking of ‘good news for the poor’. When Luke speaks of evangelism, it is always about bringing hope and consolation to us in our deepest need. It is always about proclaiming release to those among us who are held captive, imprisoned by their past. It is always about bringing health and wholeness to those among us who are weighed down by pain or trauma. It is always about setting us free. It is never about coercion or control. It is always about attending to those of us who are marginalised or broken, those whose hearts are held captive by fear or grief or addiction.  

So the passage which we have heard this morning ends by saying that John the Baptist ‘proclaimed the good news to the people’. Luke’s gospel presents us with the reversal of worldly standards, and that’s a phrase that Luke himself uses in the Acts of the Apostles, when he describes a group of early Christians who are dragged before the magistrates and condemned as ‘troublemakers who have turned the world upside down’ (Acts 17.6). And every time we draw closer to the mystery of the incarnation, to the mystery of the Word made flesh, to the face of Jesus Christ, we discover again the promise of this good news for the poor, this promise of release to the captive and freedom for those who are oppressed. For Luke, the world is turned upside down by the gospel of Jesus Christ – and that transformation of the world is always tempered by love and gentleness, by compassion and mercy.

And so even in the darkness of winter, we can say with St Paul, ‘Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed for the night is far spent and the day is at hand.’ And that is why we can celebrate Gaudete Sunday. That is why we can ‘Rejoice!’ That is why our hearts are still filled with Advent hope. Because soon in the mystery of a new-born child, we will discover again the joy of the gospel.