Preparing for the Present Second Sunday in Advent December 9, 2018 Gordon Wiersma. Text: Malachi 3 Luke 1 Luke 3

Transcription

1 Preparing for the Present Second Sunday in Advent December 9, 2018 Gordon Wiersma Text: Malachi 3 Luke 1 Luke 3 I don t know about your household, but in my household dinner happens every day it is relentless whether we want it to or not, dinner time arrives. The question is not if it is going to happen, the question is how how will we prepare? And we make choices about that every day. Perhaps you are accustomed to preparing for dinner with elaborate recipes and hand-picked ingredients, curated into gourmet culinary creations to delight the senses and satisfy the most discerning of palates, all served on china with candlelight and classical acoustic guitar? does that sound like dinner at your place? Or does it sound more familiar to pick up a hotnready pepperoni and slap it on some paper plates as people come and go from various activities with leftovers used for lunch (or breakfast?!)? Which one is you? It s different, I know, for everyone not just one or the other, but day to day. My household hits both ends of that spectrum - usually somewhere in between. Dinner is going to happen but how will you prepare? we all make our choices. Or how about something not so every day ordinary as dinner something instead like Christmas. Christmas is going to happen so how will you get ready? Are you someone who finishes your shopping on October 1; Christmas cards, November 1; decorations, December 1? All so that you are free to spend the holiday season entertaining and bringing fresh baked Christmas cookies to all your neighbors and friends (the kind of person who we all say that we admire but actually deeply resent because we re jealous?!). Is that how you prepare? Or is it more that you start your shopping on December 24, and on the way home pick up the last Christmas tree on the lot and a quart of eggnog from Meijer? Which one is you? Christmas is going to happen how will you prepare? - we all make our choices.

2 2 It s an interesting thing to think about there are all sorts of things that are going to happen, every day, every year, in life so how do you prepare? And I don t really want to put a value judgment on it so much saying someone prepares poorly or well there re all sorts circumstances and styles for how one prepares; but it is fair to say that most times we do have some choices, some decisions we make about getting ready; and fair to say that how you prepare makes some a difference in what something is like for you it makes a difference in the experience. Prepare the way of the Lord well what kind of preparing is that? Malachi talks about it; Zechariah talks about it; Luke uses Isaiah to say that John the Baptist is about it prepare the way of the Lord. But as often as I ve heard about it and sung about it ( prepare the way of the Lord! ), perhaps I m not entirely sure what it means do you know what it means? Prepare the way of the Lord why would we need to do that? Well, I ve been thinking that perhaps it makes most sense to think about it connected to those other sorts of preparing that I ve mentioned in our lives dinner, and Christmas. By which I mean this isn t preparing so that the Lord will come; this is preparing for something that is happening: Malachi and Isaiah and John say the coming of the Lord is happening you have no say in it; the question is, how will you prepare? And what s interesting about that, is that I think it means that prepare the way of the Lord isn t first about prepare it s first about the way of the Lord. It is first about the reality of God coming to us, present with us; it is about the reality of the ways of God, the way of life, made present in our world in Jesus Christ. It is that reality God s coming, God s lifegiving way that calls out a response; the way of the Lord calls out to something in us that we long for and need. Preparing sounds like something you do beforehand, but it turns out really to be more of a response a response to something that is happening. The reality is the way of the

3 Lord the way of the Lord is happening. What matters for us, is that we have choices to make about how the way of the Lord, the presence of the Spirit of Life among us about what that is like for us; and perhaps even how that is for others. How we are prepared to live with the reality of the way of the Lord, makes a difference. 3 I think that helps to understand some of what is happening in the story of John the Baptist this one who is all in for preparing the way for the Messiah. You could wonder why Jesus needed someone to prepare things for him after all, it wasn t a matter of whether Jesus was coming or not, or what Jesus was about or not Jesus was coming already. So, what John the Baptist gives a picture of is what preparing is about it is about the choices, the living, that happens in those who encounter and embrace the good news that God is coming. It is life lived in the reality of such a God who comes to us and the difference that makes in life. What resonates through John s life and message are themes like this: the restoration and valuing of relationships, the turning from evil to righteousness, the gift of forgiveness, the light of God s presence, the ways of wisdom and peace those are the pictures of preparing. Malachi and Isaiah have their images too: a refiner s fire, a cleansing soap, offerings of goodness; difficult terrain made level, a way made clear. And all of this is summed up in John the Baptist in that we re told he is all about repentance. Repentance has come to mean being sorry for bad things, but it is much more than that to repent is about turning one s life toward God in all things - to turn to God. And when people asked John how to do that, he said: share what you have; live faithfully with others; put your life in God s hands he spoke to the people, we are told, of good news. And what this all leads us to see is that John speaks to, shouts to, calls to the people not to prepare for the future no, this is preparing for how to live in the present. Maybe you ve heard this description of life: life is what happens when

4 you re busy making other plans that rings true sometimes, doesn t it? Or you could say: life is what happens while you re busy preparing for things to happen. As important as preparing for things in the future is, there is always the present, the daily threads that weave together in our lives and it turns out there is a kind of preparing for how we live in the present, too. In our daily realities not just dinner, but in relationships and vocations, in interactions and decisions there is something tangible and impactful in having heart and mind and hands prepared to live with grace, with conviction, with generosity of spirit and integrity. When John says to turn to God and trust your life to God, it is about preparing your life to encounter the everyday as the place in which God s ways of life are played out. It means that in all the seasons of life, as individuals and community, as Christians and citizens, we are prepared to live with courage and compassion. 4 And what about all we are not prepared for? because it turns out that life happens often in ways we cannot expect or control. Life happens not just as dinner and Christmas, but in encounters that ambush us, that pull us apart, unsure of how life will be reassembled things we are not prepared for: pain and loss, tragedy and conflict, disappointment and illness. And when we open our hearts to our world, the scale broadens encountering realities of brokenness in our world we cannot expect or control. How do we live when those things become a part of our present? those things for which we cannot be prepared? Well, we prepare we prepare the way of the Lord; which is to say, we prepare our lives to know, trust, believe, be claimed by the truth that God is present in such circumstances; that s what you re doing here today, in case you didn t know it it s what Advent worship is: it is making way for the Lord in the present circumstances shared among us that we call life. It is the faith to see our lives claimed and called, held and directed, healed and blessed, turned and formed, by our Lord by the Spirt of Life present within and among us. We prepare to live

5 in the truth that life is more than circumstances; that life is the place where God s grace is at work, and that no circumstance can separate us from that. 5 In the Advent devotionals written by this community, by you-all, the theme has been about Way-Shōwers and as I ve read those reflections (and read ahead a bit too), I think a lot of what is shared is about the kind of preparing for the present that I m trying to get at today. The stories told are not about people preparing for things in the future, but about people that in various ways were prepared to live faithfully in the present; people who in the unexpected, leaned into the presence and gifts and grace of God; people who in circumstances beyond their control, brought to bear the realities of compassion and conviction, courage and hope, that God s Spirit had prepared in them. It is the stories of people who show us the way to prepare the way of the Lord. It s a peculiar thing, this life not just dinner and Christmas but all that we encounter, expected and unexpected; in this present moment that is your life, how will you live? It is a peculiar thing, this preparing the way of the Lord making way for the one who is to come and who is present. And it is as we bring them together, our present and God s ways, that is what prepares us prepares us to live as people claimed by the truth of God s presence in our lives and our world, the ways of true life and saving grace. Life happens it is relentless expected and unexpected. And in the song of John the Baptist s father, Zechariah, the way of the Lord prepares us to meet all of life in ways such as this: God s blessing and favor, mercy and freedom, forgiveness and grace, dawn and light preparing us in the present to walk in God s ways of peace, of shalom. Thanks be to God. Amen.