C and E Christians

I am apparently in a significant minority of pastors in that I tend to prepare sermons well in advance. I usually complete a sermon just over a week before it is preached. That means that right now I am reading in Matthew about John the Baptist's second thoughts on Jesus. John had almost refused to baptize Jesus, saying it should be the other way around. But now John is in prison, and he seems less certain. "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"

I can only assume that John had expected things to change more than they had. He expected the Messiah's arrival to rework the world and its structures in some way, but things still looked the same. Maybe Jesus wasn't the one after all.

We're a long way removed from John, and so his disappointments may not be ours. Our Christian faith has lived for a long time with a world slow to come around to God's ways, and so we may not be so acutely disappointed as the Baptist. But we still have to deal with all those promises of a kingdom drawn near, good news to the poor, and peace and goodwill. If we've always been Christian, we may simply shy away from John's question and instead operate with greatly lowered expectations of Jesus.

Today's lectionary gospel reading is Matthew's account of Palm Sunday, and I found myself thinking about how the tendency to rush from "Hosanna" to "He is risen" may, in some way, parallel the way Advent has been swallowed up by Christmas. Granted, Advent as Christmas may spring largely from the secular, consumerist, economic focus on Christmas while jumping straight from palms to Easter lilies is more about avoiding the ugliness of the cross. Still, both seem to focus on a happy event to avoid looking at something else.

The term "C and E Christians" is sometimes used to disparage church members who only show up a couple times a year, but I'm using it differently here. I refer to the much larger group of us that focuses on Christmas and Easter so that we don't have to consider some more troubling questions. Skipping over betrayal, arrest, trial and execution on a cross as we hurry to celebrate Easter not only avoids the messiness of the cross, but it also avoids Jesus' call for us to take up that cross as well. And spending so much time and energy celebrating Jesus' birth, on a babe in a manger, allow us to bask in the warmth of God's love, or at least in the warmth of a wonderful, old story, without needing to consider just who this baby is and what his coming demands of us.

But when we engage in a bit of Advent, we are again faced with John's (and perhaps our own) question. "Are you the one?" No need to ask that of a baby. We can imagine and mold the baby Jesus into whatever sort of Messiah we want. But Advent keeps asking who this baby is, what he will bring, and how we must prepare to be a part of that.

No doubt it is easier, certainly less costly, to be a C and E Christian. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace" comes to mind here.) But I feel fairly certain that any faith with power to transform and make new can't be all C and E. With apologies to the musical Mame, maybe we really "need a little Advent, right this very minute."

Click to learn more about the lectionary.