Sometimes I dream of leaving ministry behind, and starting up a Christian Animal Café.
It would embody clearly the promises of God we find today in Isaiah,
it would so baffle anyone who caught sight of our awning,
or took a look at our menu,
or came in to order a meal and saw our customers,
In their confusion at what they saw there, they might actually hear the good news of God.
The name of the Café would be “The Vegan Lion Café.”
Eating at The Vegan Lion would be a unique dining experience.
The focus would be serving meals to carnivores, and their guests.
My day would consist of serving wolves salads and Leopard lattes.
-Lions would eat cheerios and so would little boys
-and bears would eat bushels of hay with their cow friends.
-Snakes and children would play in the ball-pit together,
and Little Miss Muffet would have no reason to scream when the spider sat down beside her.
There would be no hurt or destruction in that place…
A guy can dream, right?
Just as Isaiah dreamt,
Just as John prepared…
Just as Jesus promises…
Let us pray
Repent!
Change the direction from which you look for happiness.
Beginning again.
Repent!
The act of turning around.
The GPS saying, “Recalculating!” “Recalculating!”
Repent!
Luther writes that is the whole of the Christian life.
He writes: Our whole life is returning to the font of our baptism.
Sluff off the old skin!
You are something new now!
The old creature is drowned,
You are a new creation!
Repent!
Go off into the wilderness like Moses and the people,
subsist and persist, and in so doing
find what is needed, what is necessary.
“Lord I am an empty vessel, fill it.”
Repent!
So that when God is active in the world,
you will be someone who can see it
So that that you will be part of it,
that your light will shine,
that you’ll meet God at banquet, not the ash heap,
that when God asks other people about you, they say you’re the forgiving type,
that you will have cared for God without even realizing it.
Repent!
You so often think you’ve arrived,
but we’re still in exile,
still Exodus,
still in need of being led through the Red Sea,
across the desert,
into the Jordon,
down into Baptismal Waters!
Repent!
Hear the words of the prophets,
salvation as from old is arriving in the one John baptizes.
Repent!
You are among a whole host of people returning,
coming around.
Repent!
Matthew’s gospel makes a clear distinction between bad religion and good religion
—one is narcissistic and the other is humble.
One is fixated on spiritual window dressing,
the other cuts to the heart.
Repent!
Not to beat yourself up and look sad,
but that good may grow!
Repent!
Too often you hold onto who you once were…
self-justify based on who you are,
not whose you are.
Repent!
Time draws short and the Lord draws near,
be fruitful,
be on the right track.
Repent!
The one who is coming,
Jesus Christ,
is near,
is here!
Repent!
His reign is like a winnowing.
Have you seen it?
The grain tossed up into the air,
again, and again,
landing with a rhythmic beat,
in the air all that is unfruitful,
the chaff and dirt and any other thing,
is blown away,
like the Spirit in her fierce gentleness, making us holy
—only the fruit remains, gathered!
Do you know the words that come next in Matthew’s Gospel?
Then came Jesus!
Repentance is preparation for the Kingdom of Heaven,
for a New Age where all is made right,
for the New World, that,
for we Christians,
is already here and not yet complete
—that’s the strangeness of Advent,
it’s the season when we are given permission to consider God’s time,
as we prepare,
as we actively wait,
for Christ’s coming,
even as we prepare to celebrate on Christmas that he has already arrived.
In our ongoing life of repentance, we prepare for a world, not unlike the “Vegan Lion Café.”
A world without the predatory instinct,
a world that doesn’t feed off of death.
A world where there is neither prey nor predator.
Have you ever seen a cat react to a cucumber?
They throw themselves into the air, crazy-like,
sometimes this response even gives them a heart attack
and kills them.
They are reacting by instinct,
they don’t want to be preyed upon by a snake.
Think of all these instinctive flinches caused by instinct
—fear of predation,
caused by the food chain.
Mice react to cats, cats to snakes,
snakes…
in the eyes of most biblical writers…
react to humans…
And humans, we flinch when confronted by our gods… right?
For most religion in the ancient world, humans were to hide from the gods,
make themselves small
—like a terrified mouse.
the best-case scenario is that the gods walk on by…
we find this way of thinking even in Genesis in the garden
—hide…
be careful or be consumed.
Flinch if the eyes of the Fates fall upon you.
Feed them sacrifices,
so they do not consume you.
Then came Jesus!
Then came God into the mix…
a god who is killed,
a god who is consumed...
A god who rises from the dead and says:
“Enough!”
“The new world is not filled with predators and prey …
the Kingdom of Heaven is not like this!”
A God who takes the food chain and transforms it into a feast for all!
Even today, those things we fear, love, and trust
—all our little gods
Money and more than my neighbor,
The newest and best,
the past and what once was,
a future I can control,
Free time or obligation,
Self-sufficiency, success, and safety,
Wisdom and winning…
they make us flinch,
we act crazy in order to keep the little gods happy,
we try to grow small for them,
we press ourselves up under the radiator until these predators pass us by,
we gladly sacrifice to them,
so they don’t eat us alive.
But then came Jesus.
Like “The Vegan Lion Café” the food chain is flipped on its head and redeemed,
no one need flinch,
for there is no hurt or destruction in that place.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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