Five fingers is for very easy. One finger is for not so easy.

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1 Dec. 9, 2018; Second Sunday of Advent Luke 3:1-6, In These Days The Rev. Dr. Lynnette Delbridge I d like to start off today with a poll. This should be easy. It s a simple poll about prayer. Five fingers is for very easy. One finger is for not so easy. First question, how easy is it for you to mention out loud in a prayer that other people will hear, something for which you are thankful? Something like this: Thank you God for a safe trip. Thank you, God, for the love of my family. Show me a five if you would be comfortable sharing that kind of prayer out loud? Show me a 1 if you wouldn t. OK. Most of you seem to think praying a prayer of thanksgiving is fairly easy. So let s try it. Turn to your neighbor and share a prayer of thanksgiving to God. I ll start, God, I thank you for my parents and for the ways they showed their deep love for me. Great. Not so hard right? Second question, how easy is it to share a request, something you want to ask God to do for you or for someone else. Something like this: God, please help me with this new assignment I have at work. Or God, please help my friend who has cancer. Show me a five if you are comfortable sharing this kind of prayer out loud. A 1 if you would not be comfortable. OK. A good number of you seemed to think that kind of prayer is reasonably comfortable to share. So, let s try that. Turn to a neighbor and share a concern, share a request to God for help. I ll start again, God, please help me be a good parent myself. Now, the third and last question. How easy is it to share with someone else a prayer in which you tell God you are sorry for something you have done wrong? Something like this: I am sorry I did not tell the truth yesterday. I am sorry I lost my temper and yelled at my spouse. I am sorry I kept more than I needed for myself and did not share. 1

2 Show me a five if you are comfortable sharing this kind of prayer out loud with someone else or a 1 if you are not. Ah yes, saying thank you to God or asking God for help is relatively easy. But this confession thing, this repentance thing isn t quite so easy, especially if someone else can hear our confession out loud. I m with you, I d much rather keep my confessions just between me and God. I wonder why that is. Why is it relatively easy for us to thank God and to ask God for help but much harder for us to confess or repent what we know we have done wrong? Maybe we don t like the queasy feeling of shame and self-reproach that comes when we admit to ourselves and to others that we have failed and not done what God would want us to do. Maybe we don t like giving up the myth that we should be perfect. Maybe we dread the heavy disapproval of others. More importantly, maybe we don t like to repent because when we do, we are also admitting we need to change and embrace a better, different way. I hope I don t do this but for the sake of an example, let s say I confess I ve been tearing down my daughters self-esteem by telling them they are stupid, by brushing them off, by ignoring their needs. If I truly repent, then I m going to try to treat them differently. I m going to point out the good things they do. I m going to take their ideas seriously. I m going to make meeting their needs a priority. All that would mean a significant, long-lasting change in my behavior. And change is hard, so very hard. Maybe we are reluctant to confess or repent because we really don t want to change. Understanding that we can be ambivalent about truly repenting, understanding that repentance isn t the easiest thing to do,. is there anything in our scripture lesson that could send us skipping out of church with hope and purpose today? Is there anything in this story about John the Baptist preaching a baptism of repentance that is relevant for us? Let s look more closely at the passage. Luke starts off by placing the events he describes in a specific time in history. 2

3 He is not referring to some glorious time in the past or some idealized hoped for time in the future. He is referring to the now, to the reality of the people who live their lives when Tiberius is the emperor of Rome. when Pilate is the governor of Judea. when Lysanius and Herod rule over little kingdoms called tetrarchs under Rome s watchful eye. and when Annas and Caiaphas are the influential high priests running the temple state in Jerusalem. These people are the movers and shakers with power on the top. They are the people who can determine economic policy, who can support infrastructure projects, who can start and end wars. As we will learn later in Luke s gospel, they also have the power to determine whether a political and religious trouble maker will live or die. Herod will order the execution of John; Annas and Caiaphas will send Jesus to Pilate; and Pilate will condemn Jesus to death on a cross. In this time when they are ruling, John the Baptist comes preaching a baptism of repentance. He comes telling people that they should confess what they have done wrong not just quietly in their own minds. He invites them to confess publicly by letting him wash them in the waters of the Jordan River. Now in the best of all worlds, who in that time and place should show up and confess? Who should repent and make a commitment to change? Wouldn t it be great if the people on the top humbly came to John: Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Lysanius, Annas and Caiaphas? Wouldn t it be great if these powerful people whose names we still know today, confessed their greed, their addiction to violence, or their fear of losing power? Wouldn t it be great if they made a commitment to live a different way? Just think what that genuine repentance might have meant to the poor and hungry, to the lame and blind, to the prisoners and captives in their own day. But, as Luke s account goes on, it s not the powerful people at the top who come and let John wash away their sins in the Jordan River. It s the ordinary people, the peasants, the tax collectors and the soldiers. It s a multitude of people whose names we will never know. I have to say I admire these ordinary people. I might not be so willing. I might prefer to stand back and point the finger at the people on the top. I might say, if only the people with power would repent and change then, the world would be a better place for all of us. Why do I need to repent and change? 3

4 But that s not the attitude of the people in the story. In the days of Tiberius, Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas, it s the ordinary people who make the conscious choice to take responsibility themselves, to repent, to change. Why? Are they on to something that maybe we just don t get at first glance? Maybe the clue is in the passage Luke quotes from the prophet Isaiah. This passage is the call, the invitation that John cries out to those who will listen to him: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. (Isaiah 40:3-5) John is offering the people who come to him a word of hope. He tells them repenting is a way to make things better. Repenting is like the road work that takes out the dangerous curves, the steep mountains, and the twists and turns on a road so you can safely travel up and down the highways of life. Repenting is leveling the mountains of your arrogance with humility and filling in the deep valleys of your shame with a self-worth grounded in God s love. Repenting is taking out the twists and turns of the crooked, self-serving lies you tell yourselves and providing a way instead that goes straight with the truth. Repenting is letting go of the roughness of the disrespect you often heap on each other and replacing it with the smoothness of kind regard. When you repent, John says, here s the really good news. You are taking part in God s larger drama of making salvation available for everyone. Repent your fear of not having enough and instead, share. You will be part of God s abundance. Repent your dependence on violence. You will be part of God s peace. 4

5 Repent your hatred of those who are different. You will be part of God s love. Repent your despair that the world can ever be a better place. You will be part of God s hope. In the days of Tiberius, Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas, there were people who heard the hope in John s invitation. Maybe they even heard something that felt quietly but powerfully subversive. When we repent, we are saying we are not satisfied with the status quo in ourselves or in the world around us. When we repent, we are saying that change should and ought to be in the air. When we repent, we are saying that we are willing to change and to participate in what God is doing in the world: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming the stranger, forgiving the repentant. In these days, during the time when Donald Trump is our President, John Roberts is our Chief Justice Tom Wolf our Governor, and Pat Tomey and Bob Casey our Senators, In these days when Jeff Bezos is the CEO of Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook, In these specific days, not some romanticized time in the past or some hoped for, idealized time in the future, During these very days, we, the ordinary people, have the same opportunity to turn away from or to embrace John s invitation to repentance. Come and confess, John says. Come say you are sorry. Come make a commitment to change. Come be part of God s care and salvation for everyone. 5

6 Offertory Prayer: Each week Lord, we come offering you our gifts: Our time, our energy, our financial resources. Today we remember that our prayers are gifts, offerings to you as well. And so we ask you, Amen. Accept our honest prayers of repentance. Accept our prayers for the wisdom and courage we need to change. Accept our prayers of thanksgiving that however ordinary we may be, you invite us to be part of your coming salvation, your blessing for people everywhere. Benediction As we go forth this week, may we embrace and live these words of hope: Every valley of despair shall be filled in with God s joy. And every high mountain of daunting challenge shall be made low with God s courage and strength. Every crooked and rough place in our souls shall be straightened out and smoothed by God s compassion. And we, with all God s human family, shall see the loving salvation of God. Amen. 6