This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 27, 2009, the 1st Sunday After Christmas.
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Psalm 148
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2:41-52
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
For me, it has become impossible to read today’s gospel reading without thinking about the movie “Home Alone,” the 1990 comedy starring Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an eight-year-old who is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to France for Christmas vacation. This notion is seemingly inspired by this tale from Luke’s gospel.
In the movie, as the McCallister family hurries into a shuttle waiting to take them to the airport, an annoying neighbor child piles in with the McCallister’s spouting on about his family’s vacation plans.[1] When it comes time for mom, Kate McCallister, to count heads in the van, she mistakenly counts the neighbor child as one of her own. On the plane the parents are sitting in first class and the kids in coach, so this mistake is not caught until well after the family is in the air.
Whoops, Kevin is home alone in Chicago and the family is on the way to Paris.
Jesus shares a similar situation as his family leaves Jerusalem to return home after the festival ended. As the clan leaves, while there is apparently no head count, presumably each parent thinks the young Jesus is with the other. While there is no annoying neighbor child in a knit cap being mistaken for Jesus, I can imagine the scene of the family setting up camp after a full day of travel when Mary and Joseph look at each other and say, “I thought he was with you!”
Whoops, Jesus is alone in Jerusalem and the family is on the way home to Nazareth.
If you are going to lift plot lines, you ought to take from the best.
In the movie, Mom’s trip from Paris to Chicago takes several days. Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem taking two travel days, one out and one back, before they are in the same zip code as their son. Then they spend three days in Jerusalem before finding Jesus. This is a total of five days on the road and in town looking for a twelve year old who his parents fear is all alone in a major city after a major festival. Imagine losing a twelve year old at Times Square on New Years Eve or worse, in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, that would be close to the level of terror Mary and Joseph experienced every moment they were looking for Jesus.
They finally find him in the temple. And when Mary and Joseph arrive, they were in shock. He is not alone; he is with the teachers of the law where all who heard him were amazed at his understanding; his questions and his answers. When his parents find him, is Jesus received with relief? Well, of a sort. “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” Does this sound familiar to any parents here this morning? He is received with relief overwhelmed by a scolding.
If I am not mistaken, Kevin got the same reaction from his Mom when she finally found him home alone and safe.
While the differences are many, there is one very significant difference between little Kevin McAllister and Jesus of Nazareth that I want to make clear. Kevin was at home at the family manse in Chicago. Scripture doesn’t place Jesus’ residence at the homestead in Nazareth. No, according to verse 49 Jesus is at home in the Jerusalem temple.
Being found after three days of searching, and two more days of travel, Jesus asks “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus asks this question as if there should be no question about where he would be or where he should be. He was at home in the temple, of course. It is as if he asks Mary and Joseph and the world “Where else would you expect to find me?”
Where do we expect to find Jesus? Looking for Jesus, looking for God; is our holy journey. Jesus is found in body and in spirit, in praise and in worship, in word and in work; and as is obvious by our reading, Jesus is found in the temple. Jesus is found where He is worshipped. For us, for Christians, the church is where we look to find the Lord Jesus.
Jesus is found in the Word written and proclaimed. Jesus who inhabits all scripture is found in our Call to Worship. Jesus is found as we “Praise the Lord from the earth… young men and women, old and young together. Let us praise the name of the Lord.”[2]
Jesus is found in our proclamation. We say that Jesus is Lord, he is sovereign. In words more familiar to us, Jesus is in charge; all power and authority are his now and forevermore.
We say that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. We say that he is fully divine and we say that we are not. We say that he is fully human and we say that in the fullness of his perfection he is more human than we will ever be.
We say that he is God and he is the Son of God. He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from where he will come to judge the living and the dead.
We look for Jesus in the visible signs of God’s invisible Grace. We look for Jesus in the mystery of the sacraments.
In the waters of our baptism, we are covered in the newness of life. The world of our old life is washed away. When washed, we are fully reconciled to Christ. We are free to fully trust that we belong to God. Dressed in the robe of Christ, we are to free our minds and hearts, bodies and souls to be truly free in this world, free to be ministers of His reconciliation. Only in this sacramental relationship can this happen, otherwise we fall back into our self doubt and self rejection.[3]
Nourished by the Lord’s Supper, we are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation. We rest in the promise that it is Christ who comes to the door and knocks. He calls us and if we hear and invite him in then we will eat with him, and he with us. We invite no one to this table; we give thanks that Jesus invites us to come, taste, and see that the Lord is good. We remember that in these gracious acts of Jesus Christ, we take the bread and the cup and joyfully celebrate his dying and rising as we await the day of his coming in victory.[4]
As much as we are called to look for Christ in the church, by the Word and sacraments we are called to take Christ into the world. It is important to remember that the world looks at us while looking for Jesus. It is in wearing the clothes of Christ that we become the body of the Lord in the world.
Colossians provides us with the most excellent way to wear the clothes of Christ, to become the body of Christ in the world. We are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We are to bear with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, we are to forgive one other; just as the Lord has forgiven us we too must forgive.
Above all, we are to clothe ourselves with love that binds everything together in perfect harmony. Letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we are called in the one body. And we must be thankful letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly; teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. With gratitude in our hearts, we are called to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever we do, in word or deed, we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
This is the time when we begin to make New Year’s Resolutions. We must resolve to improve our relationship with one another and with the Lord God Almighty. We begin with remembering our baptism into the body of Christ. We are to be clothed as Samuel was in this robe of white, this robe representing our membership with the baptized wearing this robe as Jesus wore his; as Jesus wears his faith in the water of his baptism.
We are nourished in his faith by the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper. By this meal we become empowered through the Spirit of the Lord to be Christ’s presence in the world. Nourished in this sacrament, as Jesus is God with us, we are called to be the hands and feet of God with the world.
I am not saying that we will become Jesus, but our call, our vocation, is to become more Christ-like. And this is a noble and worthy goal. It is truly the only one that matters. It is how we participate in Christ’s work of reconciliation.
Let us look for Jesus here in the church, and then go taking Jesus out of the sanctuary and into the world for those who also seek him.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Alone, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099785/ accessed December 31, 2006.
[2] From the 148th Psalm, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.
[3] Nouwen, Henri, Bread for the Journey, A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, December 26 entry.
[4] Christmas Communion Setting, paraphrased from the Presbyterian Book of Worship.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Mary Treasured All These Things
This sermon would have been heard on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009 had it not been for inclement weather.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.
We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.
Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.
Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.
We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.
We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!
And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.
Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.
This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.
This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.
The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.
God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.
And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.
She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.
She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.
Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.
Ah, the things worth treasuring…
I treasure the moment.
I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.
I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.
I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.
I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.
We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.
Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.
Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.
We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.
We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!
And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.
Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.
This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.
This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.
The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.
God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.
And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.
She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.
She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.
Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.
Ah, the things worth treasuring…
I treasure the moment.
I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.
I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.
I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.
I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Go
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 20, 2009, the 4th Sunday of Advent. This sermon completes the series "Ready, Set, Go."
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.
But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.
Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.
There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.
For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.
In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.
Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.
Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.
Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.
Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.
We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.
So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.
In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.
Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.
This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.
We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.
Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.
Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]
God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.
Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.
[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.
Micah 5:2-5a
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-46
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
As a boy of the suburbs, I have had very little experience with milk straight from the farm. I remember having farm fresh milk once or twice, but it has been a long, long time. What I remember is that there were a flood of flavors that I just can’t get from a half-gallon of 2% from Price Cutter. The farm fresh was just so rich; its flavors so distinct and so full I can imagine that I remember, even if most of that memory was created.
But, in a day and time when dairy farms are huge operations shipping milk off to plants for processing and distribution, it is impossible to keep that farm fresh flavor. In fact, it’s impossible because milk straight off of the farm will turn a lot faster than milk that has been pasteurized. Pasteurization slows microbial growth[1] keeping milk fresher longer.
Still, what is lost is that straight off of the farm freshness. Well, given a choice between pasteurized milk and a game of Russian roulette every time eat cereal, I’ll take pasteurized milk. It is a pity though; pasteurization makes everything so consistent that for me the taste of farm fresh milk is lost to a vague memory.
There is a tendency in our lives to look at scripture through pasteurized eyes too. We are so used to reading the gospel and hearing it interpreted that it tends to become pasteurized. This loss isn’t exclusive to church members; it is a tremendous danger for ministers too. We see the gospel through academic eyes, historical eyes, denominational eyes, and theological eyes; it can get to the point that the farm fresh nature of the Word of God becomes as lost to us as the taste of milk straight from the cow.
For example, this passage is utterly absurd. Through the way 2,000 years of interpretation has pasteurized this scene, we lose how scandalous it was then and still is. We are used to thinking of it as a wonderfully somber candle lit meeting between two women whose sons will change the world, but when we look at it with unpasteurized eyes; it’s absurd.
In the movie, Elizabeth and Mary should be played by members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus! I imagine Graham Chapman as Elizabeth and Eric Idle as Mary. I can also see a place for a Terry Gilliam cartoon depicting the extra-super utero conversation between Jesus and John.
Let’s take this absurdity even further using names from the news. Imagine if you will Elizabeth and Mary’s conversation in this setting: Imagine a couple of months before her due date, the oldest woman ever to give birth sitting down for coffee with her pregnant cousin, a seventh grader. That’s what’s going on in our gospel reading.
Looking to a modern equivalent, in 2007 Maria del Carmen Bousada became the oldest woman ever to give birth at the age of 66.[2] When her true age was revealed, and it was discovered that she lied to a California fertility clinic taking ten years off of her age so she would be eligible for invitro-fertilization, the firestorm rang in the news for a week. Given the modern American news cycle, a week is an eternity.
Consider the younger end of this equation, whether Sarah Palin’s daughter or Brittney Spears’ sister, these high school aged girls giving birth was fodder for pundits for weeks. Even though teen pregnancy no longer carries the stigma it once did, the press, both liberal and conservative, was making hay with these young women. Whether a family values issue or an issue of whose family, these scandals were the talk of the airwaves for ages.
Consider now that these girls are about five years older than Mary and I can imagine Bill O’Reilly having a seizure talking about this meeting between two women who should not be first time mothers.
We’re all used to seeing the visit of Elizabeth and Mary as a meeting of peers, and nothing could be further from the truth. We have become so used to this story that we now fail to appreciate how absurd it really is until we look at it in a setting that’s closer to home for us.
So now in the name of absurdity, I have invoked Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fox News, Pepper-Pots and Bill O’Reilly. Yes, I want us to get a firm grip on just how absurd this meeting really is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of wonders: that God became human. Holy Theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology.”[3] What is wonderful and glorious about our reading from Luke is that it gives us a preview of Bonhoeffer’s theology.
In our reading, when these absurdly pregnant women come together, their children recognize one another before their birth. These cousins come together to celebrate, or perhaps at their respective ages commiserate, their pregnancies only to discover that their unborn children are all ready partners in the greatest of all scriptural prophecies.
Elizabeth cries, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth knows what is happening, her son knows what is happening; they are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary and her son too know what is happening and are able to see the glory of the Lord being fulfilled through this absurd situation.
These women come together, glorifying God and testifying the faith, in Bonhoeffer’s words the theology. They testify to the persons and work of the Baptizer and the Christ at the dawn of their birth. Their testimony is bold and dynamic; it’s filled with life in the midst of scandal. It is nothing like the pasteurized readings I have heard, and on occasion have given.
This is a problem with our lives and our faith in the eyes of Bonhoeffer’s theology. So often our knees fail to bend before the mystery of the divine child in the stable; our faith becoming pasteurized so it won’t spoil. We must resist this.
We testify God was born of a woman. We testify God lived the life of a Palestinian Jew. We testify he performed miracles. We testify he was crucified, dead, and buried; and on the third day he rose again from the dead. We testify he ascended into heaven without a second death all so that we may have eternal life. This is scandalous, this is controversial, and this is absurd; and we believe-we have faith that this is true. We have faith this is the truth.
Over the past four Sundays, we have come along the path of the Advent, the coming of the Lord. Over these last three, we have been going through the “Ready, Set, Go” of preparing for Christmas. We have made straight the ways for the Lord. We have repented at the behest of John the Baptist. And today as we go, we need to go knowing that what we testify, what we are all called to share with the world is wonderful and glorious and scandalous and absurd.
Thomas Heagle testifies, “In the human experience of Jesus, God became available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human condition, but a journey through its dark waters.”[4]
God comes to us in the depths of where we are. Too often, we have added layers of piety that bind the Holy Spirit into a straight jacket that takes God out of those dark waters. I become party to this straight jacket when worship becomes more pious than God’s own self. More than once, I have left inadequate the wonder and the glory that is two unlikely mothers bearing their even more unlikely children.
Let us go into those dark waters with the story we hear year round, the story of the fully human-fully divine God of all creation. Let us share his grace, his peace, and his mercy so that all of God’s children will be able to see our Lord at work in us and even more importantly beyond us. The Lord will not be contained by what we consider to be absurd or common sense. Let us take the unpasteurized God into the world, sharing God’s life with God’s creation.
[1] Pasteurization, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization, retrieved December 13, 2009
[2] Woolls, Daniel, “Oldest Woman to Give Birth Dies at 69.” boston.com, http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/07/16/oldest_woman_to_give_birth_dies_at_69/, retrieved December 13, 2009.
[3] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, “I Want to Live These Days with You. A Year of Daily Devotions.” Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005, page 363.
[4] Heagle, Thomas, “A Contemporary Meditation on Hope.” Chicago: Thomas Moore Press.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Set
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 13, 2009, the 3rd Sunday in Advent.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]
In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.
Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.
The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.
But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.
Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.
Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.
In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.
What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.
This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.
The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.
Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.
In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.
Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.
The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”
John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.
At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.
In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.
But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.
He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.
The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.
The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.
[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Isaiah 12:2-6
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
A couple of weeks ago[1] I lamented the way that preparations for Christmas are getting earlier and earlier each year. On Tuesday, I read a posting on one of my favorite websites by a Mr. Mike Kowalski of Rancho Cucamonga, California. He writes, “[I] Went to Disneyland on November 24, in search of, among other things, Disney-themed Christmas ornaments for 2009. Alas, none could be found. But there were plenty of Christmas ornaments with the date 2010.”[2]
In that sermon two weeks ago, I said that before Labor Day seemed excessive to begin preparing for Christmas, but compared to over 13 months in advance of the next Christmas August seems downright reserved.
Disney, in a kind of a sick way, is calling us along side toward the celebration of our dear Savior’s birth. Of course I think they’ve gotten ahead of themselves and that’s what I love about the liturgical calendar as opposed to the marketing plan of a major multi-national corporation and their mouse.
The joy of the liturgical calendar is that at this time of year it prepares us for the coming of the Lord and the coming of Christmas. The discipline of the liturgical calendar also exhorts us not to get ahead of ourselves. We get ready; we get set for the season that is to come. This exhortation is where we start this morning, leading us into John’s exhortations to the crowd.
But first, what is exhortation? According to the dictionary,[3] exhorting is like urging, advising, or cautioning earnestly. It also means admonishing urgently. It can also mean giving urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings. According to my big biblical dictionary,[4] the goal of exhortation is to persuade someone or some ones to act, or think in a particular way. Going back to the Greek roots of the scripture, exhortations came in two ways,[5] as comfort and as admonition. So in by whatever measure you use, exhortations contain elements of discipline and of soothing. There is not necessarily reprimand, but neither is there molly coddling.
Just as important, the Greek version of this word also involves calling the people to the exhorter’s side.[6] The one who exhorts calls the one who receives the word to come together and walk together. This becomes no more evident than when we discover that the Greek root of this word is later used by theologians to describe the Holy Spirit, Paraclete.
Our passage contains four very specific exhortations. I want to start with the last three before returning to the first.
In the first of the set of three exhortations, the crowd asks John “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”
John’s exhortation calls the people to share. But there is an important condition he places on this giving, a qualification which makes a great difference. John calls for those who have two coats to share and those with food to do likewise. John calls those who have more than enough to share with those who do not have enough.
What John advocates is radical. In a way, it is a privately supported welfare system which provides that those who have enough share with those who do not. It requires people who have enough coming forward to share, and it also requires those in need to come forward and receive what they need that they may survive.
This is truly a tightrope of love. While many people with more than enough are more than willing to share, there are others who are not. While many people with need seek help and assistance, there are others who are ashamed to ask. There too are those with surplus and those with need who manipulate the system, causing skepticism among all. Still, when this tightrope is walked with love, when those with more than enough walk alongside those with need; there is enough for everybody.
The next exhortation is directed at the tax collectors that came to be baptized who ask John “Teacher, what should we do?” John tells them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”
As the old Revolutionary War saying goes, “Taxation without representation is unfair.” As the old Mad Magazine corollary goes, “Taxation with representation isn’t all that great either.” John exhorts these men to be honest, and more than being honest is the exhortation to be fair in assessing taxes.
Lurking just below the surface of this exhortation is a little known fact. Being a tax collector wasn’t always the job of “robbing from the poor” we think of when we think of tax collectors. The tax collector’s job is to pay tribute to Rome through the proper middle men. It didn’t matter if the people didn’t pay the tax collector; the tax collector still had to pay the state. So if an individual failed to pay their taxes, the collector was left in a lurch with the Roman overseers. Since this position was also often inherited much in the same way as a family farm, the problem became multi-generational.
In short, some tax collectors were as poor as the people they were collecting taxes from. Some of the tax collectors were in as big a pinch as those they were collecting taxes from. In a way, the only way a tax collector could be assured that they would have no need to over-collect from those who had more assets is for everyone to pay their prescribed taxes. How’s that for an odd exhortation, while directed at the tax collectors to collect no more than the prescribed amount, it also exhorts the people to pay the prescribed amount so that the tax collectors wouldn’t be tempted to take more than was due.
Again, this is a call to be fair in dealings, even paying taxes in love. Again, there were those who manipulated the system. The gospel story of Jesus dining with the tax collector is a fine example. When the tax collector promises to repay those he has cheated three times what he cheated them, we learn both that there’s a lot of tax cheating going on and it can be profitable, but this is not always the case. John exhorts us to respond in love, even in paying taxes.
The third exhortation was in response to the soldiers who asked “What should we do?” John tells them do not “extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with [your] wages.”
John tells those with direct and immediate authority to act justly. I can’t speak to the wages of what were probably local men serving as soldiers protecting the tax collectors. But John made their call to the general well being, protecting all manner of people from all manner of evil.
At least one scholar posits that the soldiers were paid poorly and expected to shake down the people to make ends meet[7] making manipulation a part of the system. So this is more than just a call to the soldiers to do their jobs and be satisfied with their wages, it is a call to the government to pay soldiers enough so that they won’t need to shake down the people to make ends meet. It is a call to the people to pay workers equitably so that they not be tempted to steal.
In all three of these cases, John illustrates the “fruits worthy of repentance.” John calls for radical and sweeping reform of the way business is handled in first century Palestine. He calls for the people to take care of each other and the government to take care of the things individual people cannot. People are to refrain from exploiting their positions for their personal gain at the expense of others. People who have wealth, power, and authority are to care for those who are less powerful.
But before we leave the specific exhortations, let us look at the first exhortation. John cried out to the crowd, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” I see this as more the discipline element of exhortation than the soothing.
He sees many of those who came out to be dead trees unable to bear fruits worthy of repentance. He sees the unrepentant as ax fodder, kindling for the fire which burns hot the chaff. Still, this is the same crowd he addresses with the exhortation on sharing. John knows that as God can raise children for Abraham out of these stones, the people can repent. John also knows that the people have come, and that is their start.
The crowd comes out to see John. Last week he tells the crowd to get ready. He tells them to prepare the way of the Lord, making his ways straight. This week he tells them to get set. He shows the crowd different ways that they can make straight the ways bearing the good fruit of repentance through a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He also warns that those who do not follow will face horror of unquenchable fire.
The last verse in our gospel this morning reads, “So with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” John walks beside us, providing examples to prepare us for the one who will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Comfort and admonition are how we get ready and set for the Advent of the Christ child. Next week, we complete the set.
[1] Coming. http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2009/11/coming.html
[2] Easterbrook, Gregg, Tuesday Morning Quarterback. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091208&sportCat=nfl, retrieved December 8, 2009.
[3] Exhort, dictionary.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhort, retrieved December 12, 2009.
[4] Exhortation, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 2.Nashville, TN: Abingdon Publishing, page 366.
[5] parakale,w, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Volume V. Gerhard Kittel, Editor. Grand Rapids, MI, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, pages 779-780.
[6] parakale,w, Bauer, Walter, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third Edition. Frederick William Danker, Editor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
[7] The New Interpreter’s Bible. Vol. IX. Leander E. Keck, Senior Editor. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995, page 84.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Ready
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 6, 2009, the 2nd Sunday in Advent.
Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
I have been a fan of “Godspell” for years. I first found out about the musical at First Presbyterian in Overland Park, Kansas in 1974, just a couple of years after the movie release. The Reverend Doctor Donald Evans did a Sunday youth study of the musical and connected it more directly to the gospel. I remember him commenting that the church organist, a woman this twelve-year-old thought of as an old lady, would have loved playing “Turn Back, Old Man.” But as was the case with so much of my teen-age theological development, it really didn’t stick.
Godspell really began to mean something to me just twelve years ago, after meeting Marie. So compared to many, I am a Johnny-come-lately of “Godspell” love, but that’s fine with me, it became important to me when it was right for me. So of course when I read today’s gospel passage, this voice of John the Baptist singing “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” thunders in my head. Then I let it thunder in my ears.
The next song asks the musical question, “When will God save the people?”
John takes this on in our reading from Luke’s gospel, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah, the words of preparation for all of Israel. John tells a people who have always sought their messiah that he was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare. John tells a people who have been waiting for a prophetic voice since the words of Malachi over 400 years earlier that their messiah was coming to save the people. It is time to prepare.
Make his paths straight. It’s not as if we have to take a scythe and cut back the long grasses, so how do we make his paths straight? What do we do to prepare the way of the Lord? The Reverend Jeff Parker asks three questions to help congregations make straight his paths. He asks:
What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?
When we answer these questions, both as individuals and as a congregation, we tell the Lord how we prepare the way. When we answer these questions, we tell the world how we will prepare the way. When we execute the preparations, we actually do the work of making his paths straight.
William Sloane Coffin[1] quotes Teilhard de Chardin saying, “The world will belong tomorrow to those who brought it the greatest hope.” Coffin follows this asking “What can we [the Church] bring the world if not hope?”
Coffin continues, “I want to irrigate the community with hope, because without hope we are all literally hopeless, creatures of despair. If we cannot feel something more, we will become something less, just as if we cannot look to something above us, we will surely sink to something below us.”
So here are the questions again:
What are we; what is the Church living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?
By Coffin’s reckoning, the church lives to give hope. The church lives to give hope. As the Body of Christ on earth, it is our place; it is our mission to bring hope to the world. This is what we are to live for. How’s that for almost answering the question. We live to give hope. We live to bring hope to the hopeless lest we become less than what the Lord has called us to be. This answer is almost as vague as a beauty contestant saying that she hopes for world peace. Still, it is undeniably what we are here for.
This quest, this vocation may seem overly vague, then again to others it may seem overly specific. I have had trouble with both extremes lately. But as ethereal and other-worldly or as dead solid perfect as it may seem; the passage from our Gospel reading begins with something very, very specific.
When we read the first verses from chapter three, we learn about the powerful people of the day. Tiberius was the emperor in Rome, Pilate was Governor of Judea, and Herod ruled Galilee. In the Temple, Annas and Caiphas were the high priests. John, the son of Zechariah was in the wilderness. Jesus wasn’t even in this part of the picture.
There are a good many things we can take from this part of the reading. We can talk about the political climate of the time. There are many things known about Tiberius from history that are not from scripture. The chronicles of history are also filled with facts and stories about the Judean contingent from this reading too. We can also pick apart the economics of the era and the face of the church.
If we wanted to, we could rip apart every detail, every fact, and try to discern what is accurate, what is exaggeration, and what is pure fiction. We could get a full cable news show, or even series about the history found in these very verses. What am I saying? Dozens of these shows have been produced and reproduced since the golden age of television. But there is one thing all of the history will never quite say to us, one thing that is important to us today.
What these verses show is that there is a context, a specific time and place to the ministry of John the Baptist in Galilee. There was a political climate. There was an economic climate. There was a religious climate. Luke’s gospel puts a great big pin into the timeline of history and says this happened here and then.
In this time and place, this is what happened. It is always within a specific time and place that ministry happens. Ministry and faith, evangelism and justice are more than just things studied in Sunday School or in seminary. They are more than just words put into the Sunday morning sermon. They are more than discussion points for some author’s new book. They are things we are called to be and to have and to do here and now. They are things the prophets displayed long ago. They are the things the apostles and the disciples took to the countryside and to their crosses.
Ministry is always done in the context of God’s creation to expand God’s glory. Ministry like the missions that take the Word of God to places where it is unknown in tongues and ways the people understand, this is ministry done in context. Ministry like the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank, ministry like the back pack project, ministry like visiting the sick and imprisoned; these are all set to a specific time and place.
The song asks, “When will God save the people?” John answers “Get ready, because here he comes.” In this time and place we answer, “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people.”
So we respond as John calls all of the children of the wilderness to respond. He proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He calls us to turn from the lives we lead now and be anointed in the waters of the baptism he proclaims. John calls us to come to the water to join together as a people turning from the political intrigue of the day and turn to forgiveness of sins.
How do we respond to our own words “He has come, he has saved the people, and he continues to save the people?” When we figure out the answer to that question we will be well on our way to answering Rev. Parker’s questions about what we are willing to live and die for. We will be ready to answer Rev. Parker’s question about what excites us.
These may seem like rhetorical questions, questions that don’t expect answers, but they are not. The answers to these questions take us from receiving a baptism for repentance for forgiveness of sins and actual repentance. It is how the church brings hope to the world. It is the difference between having hope for the future and in the words of de Chardin bringing hope to the world; and being a place to kill an hour on a Sunday. It is the reason we go to church, not just to hear the word, but to participate in bringing the word to life.
Let us prepare the way of the Lord. Let us become a part of the answer to the question, “When will God save the people?” And it is in this motion, going from hearing the word to participating in the word that we make the turn from getting ready, but that is for next week’s sermon.
[1] Coffin, William Sloane, “The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The Riverside Years.” Vol. 1. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, page 480.
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