This coming Wednesday evening our Advent Theme is about seeing. Where and how do you see Jesus in your life?

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1 1 December 8, 2013 at Advent Lutheran Church in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Second Sunday of Advent. Matthew 3:1-12. The massive paradigm shift and the homeless Jesus! What is your question for me this morning? This coming Wednesday evening our Advent Theme is about seeing. Where and how do you see Jesus in your life? In today s Gospel John is telling us that following God s Will for your life just may mean the Holy Spirit will push, pull and blow you out into the wilderness from which John the baptizer came to deliver God s message! It is a call to change the direction of your life. The answer is right here in this Gospel lesson in John s words where he addresses the religious elite saying: You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our ancestor; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. He is saying that your religion will not save you because it is NOT about religion; it is about behavior. About how you live your life and what you do, and how you treat other people. That s why he goes on to say; Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. A rather obvious and powerful way of saying that you cannot stop God s Holy Spirit as it drives humanity and history always toward justice, and the journey is a dangerous one. With the election of Pope Francis, the death and legacy of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and the ordination and Call to serve University Church in Lansing, Michigan of our own Pastor Sara Cogsil you better believe change is in the air! You will hear more about the significance of Sara s ordination later for it was an historic event of rather major proportions.

2 2 So today, like it or not, we are confronted by a radical, wild looking and acting baptizer and a homeless Messiah. Many Christian churches teach that the way to salvation is to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. That sounds wonderful, but what does it really mean? One passage that is often referenced is from the 10 th. Chapter of Romans: If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. I ve often wondered what that really means. If this means accepting Jesus into our hearts I wonder what else it means? Just words alone don t seem enough. I recently ran across a story that appears to be a fitting metaphor for what I am talking about. Artist Timothy Schmalz created a sculpture that reminds us that Jesus identifies with exactly the people who make some of us if not most of us uncomfortable. The sculpture is that of a man shrouded by a blanket, looking remarkably similar to the homeless who lie on benches and grates in most of the big cities across America. In fact you would think of Mr. Bob s Under the Bridge because people who look like that are weekly regulars receiving hygiene and now warm clothes with the winter that is already upon us. In fact the sculpture is of Jesus! It s titled Jesus the Homeless. It is one of the pictures I am passing around this morning. In one of them you noticed the nail holes depicted in his hands. That piece is called Whatsoever You Do, and it is really a very moving and telling piece of art. What you probably do not know however is that that particular piece was made of resin and plans were made to cast it in Bronze. But before that could happen it was stolen from outside the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields in downtown Toronto, that s how troubling this reminder was for somebody.

3 3 And the other sculpture of Jesus as a homeless person sleeping on the park bench, was rejected by two prominent churches in Toronto and New York City and it is now displayed outside a Jesuit school of theology in Toronto. Afterwards the artist said; Homeless Jesus had no home, how ironic. This very same sculpture was on display recently at St. Peter s Square in the Vatican City where it caught the eye of Pope Francis, who briefly prayed in front of the statue and gave it an official blessing. Speaking of the Pope in a recent interview with Archbishop Konrad Krajewski an aide to His Holiness it became obvious that certain rumors about the pope were indeed true. Specifically that as the Huffington Post recently reported that, and Swiss guards confirmed that the pope has ventured out at night, dressed as a regular priest, to meet with homeless men and women. Polite society and most especially if it is affluent does not like to be reminded of the poor among us most especially since we know there is so much more that we could be doing to help. Speaking of polite society another, perhaps even greater irony than the homeless Jesus is the first Christmas card ever created and sent. The author is John Calcott Horsely and the year was I believe 1,000 copies were made and the people sending them entirely missed what un-christmas like message they were sending. In the center is the sending family obviously overfed and even the little girl is sipping wine from a wineglass, everyone is celebrating except of course the people on either side of the family. One side has a picture of an old man and a child begging the other side what appears to be perhaps a woman whose child has died and she is being covered up and comforted by another woman.

4 4 The message to anyone seeing this except apparently the senders who are very grateful NOT to be in either of the outside situations. The card created and outrage in many quarters as well it should have. The modern day version of this same thing are the two stories that recently hit the news about Wal-Mart putting out food barrels so their needy employees could receive help with food THE most basic of the three human essentials for life: Food, clothing and shelter! Somehow missing the irony of paying a living wage to their workers instead! And recently when a single mom with two children called McDonald s corporate office and asked if her wages at $8.25 just one dollar above minimum wage and placing her below the poverty level hour could be increased she was told to apply for food stamps, this while McDonald s profit margin continues to climb year after year. I don t use these examples to pretend that I have solutions to economic systems or anything of the kind, only to raise the issue that in a society like ours perhaps there really is more that we could be doing for the least of these among us. When theologian Thomas Reynolds came upon the statute of Jesus the Homeless he immediately thought of the passage The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Indeed! We are so used to seeing the sweet, romantic, lovely, and polite depictions of Jesus like the ones on our church windows and they truly are lovely I m not being cynical here, these windows are beautiful but they represent just one small facet of this God-man of ours who gave his life most specifically and willingly so that we might notice the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the homeless. The truth of what I just said is illustrated by the fact that whenever a controversial depiction of Jesus appears people get very angry. That alone should tell us something about the need to see more of them. It s hardly a new idea by the way.

5 5 The Antonine Monks of the monastery were noted for their care of plague sufferers as well as their treatment of skin diseases, such as ergotism. The image of the crucified Christ is pitted with plague-type sores, showing patients that Jesus understood and shared their afflictions. And that s really the point of what some would call religiously politically incorrect art, and I would call Gospel! In 2011, British sculptor David Mach created an agonized, shouting Jesus out of 3,000 straightened coat hangers that emerge like barbs from the body. Not very pleasant to look at that s for certain and yet oh so very necessary if you want to understand how some of God s children feel. And my final piece many of you have seen and some of you heard me say this at Eric Schade s memorial service. I believe Eric captured the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus with this open ended cross signifying that the cross of Christ is available to all of humankind as the Spirit flows freely flows in and out and at the very center a blood red cross reminding us that God s heart bleeds for his Son Jesus, for Eric, for Jacob Allen Garber and for every son and daughter of God who suffers in this world. AMEN.