Last year about this time, my grandson, Will, then age six, was talking to his cousins in Minnesota. His boy cousins were chattering excitedly about the new hockey skates and video games Santa was bringing them for Christmas. This being Minnesota, his girl cousin was also talking about the new hockey skates and aluminum hockey stick she was getting, as well as several dolls. They asked Will, who was a three year veteran of the Godly Play Church School curriculum, what are you getting for Christmas? Will was quiet for a time, but then replied, well, I m not sure. Here is Washington, D.C. it s Advent. We re just waiting. In our culture, we do not wait well. If we have to wait in traffic, we often get so frustrated that we begin to honk, shake our fists or worse. If we have to wait in line, such as for the special sale at a Walmart, as happened in the Valley last week, our inability to wait can even become deadly. Advent is one of the few times when we begin to learn how to wait. Advent is a time of holy waiting. And it could not be more counter cultural. It comes at the busiest and most hectic time of the year. So to get us ready to wait.. Sing with me. Listen, listen wait in silence listening. For the One from whom all blessing flows. Waiting in silence is not my forte. I m impatient. It s very hard for me not to just charge off, following new visions for St. Matthew s, without sufficient knowledge of what dreams and visions The Holy One has given all of us, together. My prayer might be- Give me patience God, and give them to me right now! But when I begin to feel bad about not being patient, I know I am in good company. This inability to wait is nothing new. In Second Peter, we can almost feel the anxiety that little church community was having that Jesus Christ would not come again. The Apostle Paul and others had assumed that they would experience the second coming of Christ in their life times. And the writer of Second Peter, scholars agree it was not Peter, but perhaps a follower of his writing long after his death, is reassuring them and telling them to live their lives as if Christ was coming again in glory at any moment. In fact, listen to the words of the Eucharistic Prayer today when we pray, For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the saviour and redeemer of the world. We live in expectation and await his coming again in glory just as they did 2,000 years ago. We do the work Christ has given us to do-doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God. Sing with me again. Let the words sink into our hearts and minds and bodies, and quiet all our planning and rushing and buying and decorating and entertaining as the commercial Christmas juggernaut rolls on, and sometimes, over us. Listen listen wait in silence listening. For the One from whom all blessing flows. As our staff reflected upon today s gospel at our Tuesday staff meeting, Earlyne Butler, listening with the ears of her heart, said what this gospel about John the Baptist was
telling her was this. You just don t know how God is going to share the good news. You have to be ready to listen and it s not always a guy in a suit or person in a clerical collar giving us the message. How right she is! The Prophet Isaiah had predicted the coming of this strange voice in the wilderness who would herald the coming of the Messiah. But John the Baptist? He ate insects. He wore smelly old clothes that the Thrift Shop wouldn t think of accepting. He looks more like Jerry Garcia on a diet than Billy Graham or Joel Olsteen, Rick Warren or our contemporary t.v. evangelists. He likely was illiterate. He was homeless. And finally, he becomes a death row inmate with his head on a platter because a dancing girl had enticed Herod to give her anything she wanted namely, John s head. Would any of us have put up with him even for a minute? Can you think of a more unlikely messenger of God than that? I can. At one particularly difficult time in my life, we were living in a run down, 1890 s Victorian house which needed lots and lots of work-to get it to the level of being a fixer upper. With the help of a college friend we were spending the summer rehabilitating the ancient structure. One morning as I was making my first pot of coffee, I shuffled toward the table and looked up to see, hanging upside down on the brand new track lighting, tiny wings gathered about it so that it could stay warm, a bat. I grew up in the country in a drafty, rickety old house where bats were our constant companions. So I grabbed my landing net, netted the little guy and released him outside. The next morning, I entered the kitchen and, there he was, hanging peacefully on the track lighting, upside down, snoozing. I got the net and released him again. The third morning..well you can guess. I realized that my catch and release program was not working. I took the bat to the park a few miles away, and then began searching for the hole through which it was entering the house. I looked and looked and could find nothing. Finally, after an exhaustive search of the kitchen, I found the only possible source of entry. It was an almost invisible rip in the window screen. Surely this was too small to allow the bat, wings and all to get in. But in talking to a wildlife biologist friend that very day, he said Surely it could get in. Bats are virtually all cartilage and can squeeze through even the tiniest of holes. After reflecting a bit on this bat, and how small a rip in the window screen was necessary for it to get in, I realized in a flash of recognition-god is like a bat! Throughout scripture, and in my own life, and the lives of others whose stories I know well, God always seems to find a way to sneak through the screens in our lives that we create to keep the great mystery that is God, and other troublesome creatures out. You see, if God gets into our busy, hectic and pressure filled lives, our whole schedule may be thrown off. We may actually encounter the living God and our lives might be transformed. Michael Seiler referred last week to the bumper sticker, Jesus is coming again. Look busy! It s very apt. Let s face it. Most of us don t have much time in our busy lives to listen to God. God is like a radio transmitter, always broadcasting a message of love and repentance. But we have our receivers off, or most likely, tuned to another, more commercial channel.
Henri Nouwen speaks of the world s message to us in his book The Way of the Heart. He writes of our lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this failure by gathering more - more work, more money, more friends. But there is NEVER enough. This false, insecure self, partly created by the commercialism of our culture, and partly the human condition, can only be transformed when we surrender to the Holy One. This is the one thing we must do in response to the Baptist s call. John the Baptist was the battering ram God sent to the world to get our attention. He shouted to get us to listen, to watch for the one who was coming after him (his cousin actually) Jesus. But John knew that his way was not the ultimate answer. He tells us, across the centuries, that The Christ will baptize us with the cleansing, fiery power of God s Holy Spirit. John calls us to conversion (in the Greek, metanoia) or a turning away from the world s rules and values which create a false self, to the values of the reign of God, a God who is the Hound of Heaven. The Good News is- God pursues us! God reaches out to us. God loves us and will stop and nothing to reach us. Because God speaks in a still, small voice, as well in the loud and urgent call of John the Baptist, we must listen. God comes to us in and through the most mundane and unlikely of things- a bat, the sound of the ocean wave hitting the shore, the stunning beauty of the view from the Santa Monica Mountains while we are on a hike, or, in the smile of a baby or the laughter of children. Or, in the most unlikely way-that God came into the world as a tiny, helpless baby. And we, Dear Ones, we are the ones who can help the world to listen, to receive the message of Jesus Christ. We, and we alone, can let others know that the Christ Child whose coming we soon will celebrate, loves us all, great and small. And only through our actions in our busy, over-extended lives, will anyone at all around us in the bustling Christmas rush, realize that the light has entered the world, a light that not even death could extinguish. So sing with me one last time. Listen, listen, wait in silence listening. For the One from whom all blessing flows. And here in the Palisades it s Advent, and we re just waiting. Amen.
The Lessons Isaiah 65:17-25 I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-- its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD. The Epistle 1 Thessalonians 5:(12-15)16-28 [We appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you, and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you; esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.]
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. Beloved, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of them. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. The Gospel John 1:6-8,19-28 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No." Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, `Make straight the way of the Lord,'" as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, "Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" John answered them, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal." This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.