The Comfort and the Challenge
The Comfort and the Challenge by Rev. L. John Gable
December 6, 2020
There is a well-worn saying, at least among preachers, that the Bible is able to “comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” As I thought about that phrase I wanted to give credit where credit is due, so I began doing a little research as to whom to attribute that quote (which means I went to Wikipedia) expecting it to be credited to one of the great pulpiteers of past generations, so was surprised to find that it wasn’t coined by a preacher at all and it wasn’t even referencing the Bible.
Apparently Finley Peter Dunne, an American humorist and newspaper reporter/later editor in Chicago around the turn of the century, first used the phrase in one of his nationally syndicated Mr. Dooley sketches. The fictional Mr. Dooley expounded upon political and social issues of the day and had quite a following. It was Mr. Dooley who first used the phrase mocking the hypocrisy and self-importance of the newspaper industry itself, saying, “The newspaper does everything for us, including “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” That phrase was then picked up and later used in a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, and again by Gene Kelly in the 1960’s film, Inherit the Wind, and countless other places, including, apparently, numerous pulpits over the past century.
That being said, whether intended to be applied to Scripture or not, it fits, as we can see in both of our lessons this morning.
In our Old Testament lesson we hear the Lord speaking through the prophet Isaiah saying, “Comfort, comfort My people! Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term!” We can almost hear the choir singing that beautiful refrain from the Messiah, can’t we?
Isaiah is speaking to an exiled people who have been displaced by a warring nation, whose land has been overrun and decimated, whose identity as the People of God has been all but devastated by the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The message is clear and hopeful: God is with you still, even in this present darkness, a word of comfort we need to hear still today as well. So in this season of Advent we, as were they, are called to wait and watch for it, to pray and prepare ourselves for it, for the day will come when “every valley will be lifted up and every mountain and hill will be made low; when the uneven ground will be made level and the rough places plain.” On that day, “the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people will see it together!” And the promise of this is sure, “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it!”
There are many passages of Scripture which remind us of the comfort which God alone can give us in our times of suffering and sorrow, of grief and affliction.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 23
“Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives give I to you. Let not your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid.” John 14:27
“Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39
And there are countless others which I know you call to mind when you need a measure of God’s comfort. These promises are given to us in order to comfort the afflicted, and they do; in fact many of you have let me know that during this time of pandemic you have gone deep in to Scripture and enriched your prayer life and felt closer to Christ than you ever have before. It is little wonder why the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter and Luther spoke of the church as being a “fellowship of conversation and consolation”: “conversation” about matters of great and eternal importance, and “consolation” where we give comfort to one another, even in our time of separation, using hands and voices, through meals served, notes of encouragement and appreciation written, expressions of kindness and sympathy shown which make real the comfort of God. Drawing on the promises of our faith, in these ways, we partner with God in giving “comfort to the afflicted” even as we experience it for ourselves.
True as this may be, and it is, the Scriptures also have the ability though to “afflict the comfortable.”
In our Gospel lesson from Luke we are introduced to the ministry of John the Baptist, the one who fulfilled the prophecy spoken by Isaiah by crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”, and needless to say, John was anything but “touchy feely” in doing so. Rather than being comforting, he was confrontational and challenging, intent on “afflicting the comfortable”, and that not in the kindest, gentlest way. Yet he too was pronouncing an important message of Scripture as he calls the people, then and now, to confession and repentance as the way to prepare for the coming of the Lord.
Every year, in this season of Advent, we turn to listen again to the ministry and message of John the Baptist. His message is plain and clear: Prepare! This word has two components: “pre-“ which, of course, means “before”, which speaks of preparing as something we do before or in anticipation of something that will be happening soon, and “pare” which means to cut or trim, like a paring knife. This is what John comes announcing, these things we are to do “before” the coming of the Lord, in preparation for His coming. And what are they?
Interestingly enough, he tells us to “bear fruits worthy of repentance”, and the examples he gives are remarkably “worldly”. To the crowds who ask him, “What should we do?” He says, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do the same.” That doesn’t sound overly spiritual, does it, but rather quite practical and tangible, like looking out for the needs of our neighbors. The story is told of the time that Mother Theresa visited the home of an impoverished family in Calcutta. As she spoke the woman began dividing what she had been given in to two equal piles. When Theresa asked her what she was doing, she said, “The family next door is hungry too!” We who are comfortable with well stocked cupboards and closets full of unused clothes would do well to feel the “affliction” of this command.
To the tax collectors, John said, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Short-hand for, conduct your business affairs with honesty and integrity, this too is part of the spiritual life, part of what it means to “bear the fruit” of the Kingdom.
And to the soldiers who asked him “What should we do?” he said, “Do not exhort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages”, that is treat one another, particularly the most vulnerable among you, in a way that respects and honors both them and God. Don’t lord your power or position over them.
French theologian Jacque Ellul describes John’s call to “bear the fruits of repentance” in this way; “The Christian who is involved in the material history of this world is involved in it as representing another order, another master, another claim…Thus he/she must plunge into social and political problems in order to have an influence on the world, not in the hope of making it a paradise, but simply in order to make it tolerable – not in order to diminish the opposition between this world and the Kingdom of God, but simply in order to modify the opposition between the disorder of this world and the order of preservation that God wills for it- not in order to “bring in” the Kingdom of God, but in order that the Gospel may be proclaimed, (so) that all people may really hear the Good News of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” In a similar, and perhaps simpler way, it was this same theologian who said, “If we can’t identify with the suffering masses our words are empty orthodoxy” which sounds very similar to John the Baptist’s warning to anyone who assumes an air of spiritual superiority or holds to the illusion of innocence or thinks themselves not responsible for caring for the needs their neighbors, by saying, “We have Abraham as our ancestor.”
Taken to heart, John’s words should “afflict” those of us who feel too “comfortable”, spiritually or otherwise. They are intended to give us pause as we consider the needs of our neighbors in light of our ample pantries and portfolios, the way we conduct our public and private lives in contrast to the command we have been given to “love God and our neighbor as ourselves.” The preparation we are called to in this season has both a spiritual and a material aspect to it, and these are not in competition with one another, but are component parts. As John Stott put it, “Social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion.” That is, as our hearts are touched and changed by Christ, not only does our relationship with God change, but so also our relationships with those around us as we come to see neighbor and stranger alike as brother and sister, children loved by God even as we are.
While Advent is a season of waiting and watching, of praying and preparing, we see that it is also a season of confession and repentance, of introspection and self-examination as we prepare ourselves for the coming of our Lord, into history and into our hearts.
So, in as much that Advent is a season for the “afflicted to be comforted” with the promised coming of Christ, so it is also a season in which we who are comfortable should feel challenged and afflicted because, look around, all is not as it should be, not at all as God intended it to be and one day will be. There are mountains of injustice which must be brought low, and valleys of inequity and inequality which must be raised up. There are crooked places in our personal relationships and places of business that must be made right, and rough places of discrimination and bias which must be made plain. There is the pruning of prejudice and racism which must be done in our hearts and in our society, and the chaff of judgmentalism and intolerance which must be sorted and burned off if we desire to bear the fruit of repentance, and demonstrate the Kingdom of God.
All of this is the work of Advent, both the comfort and the challenge, which readies us to hear the Good News “Here is your God!” Get you up to greet Him! Amen.
I close with this poem and prayer by Howard Thurman.
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among peoples,
To make music in the heart.
And may it be so in us. Lord, hear our prayer.