SERMON SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT YEAR C CHRISTMAS PARADE LUKE 3:1-6 / DECEMBER 9, 2018 Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. In December, 2015, there was a parade in San Bernardino, California, in the town when earlier in the same month a man and woman, apparently inspired by ISIS, committed an act of terrorism, killing 14 persons and wounding many others. People killing people, causing untold pain and anguish and grief is something we have sickeningly witnessed over and over again from Las Vegas to Toronto to Quebec City to Pittsburg. But in San Bernardino the people had a parade. It was a Christmas parade, with children singing and Santa waving, and a community coming together in their hurt to affirm that life is essentially good and the darkness that is evil will never overcome it. There does seem to be a lot of darkness in our world these days, darkness that threatens our way of life if not our very lives even human existence. Scientists tell world leaders how the climate of our earth is changing with looming catastrophic consequences if we do not take bold steps to reduce carbon emissions. People we label migrants, flee their homes because their countries have run out of food, safety, or hope. Nations clash and fears are raised that armed conflicts could escalate. Politicians shout 1
clichés, and ordinary people escape to electronic worlds and movie imaginations. Maybe, we all need a parade a parade to proclaim that no matter what, God is still God and we are all God s people. Such a parade would proclaim that God is still at work in the world in ways large and small, so that love and compassion overcome hate and indifference in this world. Advent is a season of preparation. Our scripture readings for the first couple of weeks of advent tell us such preparation is hard, hard work. In our homes people are cleaning, getting out their Christmas decorations, purchasing a tree, baking, hosting and attending parties, and simply doing the things we do to get ready for Christmas. But into our advent busy-ness, each year, enters John the Baptist. He interrupts our schedules and demands that we get ready, not so much for Christmas, but for Jesus. Before we can bask in Christmas joy and the birth of a special baby, John compels us to examine ourselves and our world. That is part of what it means to prepare for Jesus. In the style of the biblical prophets before him, John challenges advent people with a message of personal and corporate self-examination. It s informative in reading today s passage from Luke s gospel, how Luke begins the passage: In the fifteenth year of the reign of emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Phillip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanius ruler of Abilene. Luke gives us the political lineup of the 2
Roman world within the geographical region of the middle east. Then he adds a religious perspective It was during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. So, we are given the names of all the important people of that part of the world a who s who of the first century. Then the gospel tells us how important things happen but not to them: The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. Let s bring this text into our own day and age: it was the time when Donald Trump was president of the United States, Justin Trudeau prime minister of Canada, and Brian Pallister, the premier of Manitoba. Francis was the pope in Rome and Richard Bott was the moderator of the United Church of Canada. Luke situates the coming of the word of God in its historical context. But note the word of God did not come to these historical figures so much as to someone totally unexpected. Putting John the Baptist into a modern context it would be like saying the word of God came to an eccentric homeless person living in Central Park. God does not always work the way we might expect. In Luke, the word of God comes neither to the emperor nor to the governors, and not even to the high priests. It comes to simple John, son of Zechariah. Over time, John the Baptist became for us a great prophet who prepared the way for Jesus, but at the time he was just an ordinary, albeit weird, sort of guy. Compared with the political and religious leaders of his day, he was 3
a nobody. And yet, God chose John, and not the luminaries of his time, to be the messenger. God sent the message to John, not in Rome, the seat of political power; not in Jerusalem, the seat of religious power but in the wilderness the wilderness that often scary and confusing place where God had spoken to the people in the past and through which God had led the people to a promised new life. God s choice of John and where and what God spoke to John are indications of where and what God speaks to us. John speaks of repentance. This involves us in corporate and personal self-evaluation. Repentance is about turning around and looking in a different direction; turning to look at structures and systems and ways of the world around us in new and different ways. Luke makes a point of telling us that John was out in the wilderness when God s word came to him. Wilderness is an important theme throughout the Bible. It was a place where the supporting structures of life were absent. Theologian Walter Bruggerman has suggested that wilderness was a place that could not support life so the people had to learn to trust God to provide for them. John had learned to trust God to provide for him. And in doing so he had learned to hear the words that God was saying through him. Many of us have to leave home and find our wilderness before we are really able to hear what God has to say to us. So long as the comfortable familiar structures surround us we are not aware of the possibility that things could be different, should be different, will be different. Wilderness can be our 4
metaphor for the places in which we feel insecure, out of our comfort zone, even frightened where we know we must depend on God. Remember the story of the prodigal son. He went to a far-off country and discovered a wilderness that would make him come to his senses. And, of course, the Israelites sojourned in the wilderness for 40 years until they came to a place of trusting God, and one another, and were ready to enter the promised land of milk and honey their new home. I wish every one of you could experience the wilderness oasis of Oak Table or the overnight sleep centre we call JAWS an acronym for Just A Warm Sleep. For many volunteers, the first time at the Oak Table drop in or at JAWS can be disorienting, unfamiliar, out of one s comfort zone, scary even. And yet it is there that we come to our senses, come to recognize the deep and rich and beautiful humanity in these places and come to understand the injustice of systems and structures that oppress and marginalize; while at the same time having stereotypes dismantled, receiving the great gift of seeing others as the beloved children of God that they are. John called the people who would listen to him, to repent which is not some moral retort about being sorry for doing something wrong. No, he was calling them to see the world in a different way, to experience a reality that they previously had not known even existed. In other words, John was saying, There s a parade about to come down through this wilderness, so make ready or you will miss this new thing that God is doing. Prepare in 5
your wilderness experience, for God is coming into your life and your world will never be the same. If you have served in a community ministry, in a soup kitchen, in an emergency shelter; if you have volunteered in a hospital, or in a prison ministry; if you have been involved in offering support or befriending the addicted or mentally ill you know all about God s coming into your life and how your view of the world will never be the same. Sometimes our wilderness is within. Wildernesses of loneliness, worry, uncertainty, illness, grief. How do we prepare for the Christmas parade in those kinds of wildernesses? The Bible makes clear that God comes into our lives, not where we are strong and sure, but where we are weak and uncertain. Sometimes in our emptiness and loneliness, in our losses and struggles, we must make ready. Maybe especially in those times we are to make ready, to prepare the way of God. What that preparation is for one person is surely different for the next. But in our preparation, we enable the parade to happen; it happens like it did in San Bernardino. We come together in community; we come together in our hurt to affirm that life is essentially good and the darkness that is evil will never overcome it. The world as we know it is compost for the new world that God has been trying to give us all along. And what an amazing world it is! It was always there; always before us for the taking, but we have always found reasons to refuse it. 6
Jesus spent his adult life describing and revealing that realm of God to us, but it was a lot more difficult for us to live in than we first imagined. It was a world that demanded a lot of togetherness more than most of us might be comfortable with. Not just worshipping together but living in caring communities with others, making decisions together based on precepts like love of neighbour, forgiveness of sins, faith that the future with God can be trusted. The new world demands a much greater sharing of resources than we had been willing to allow. It is a world of inclusion and welcome and kindness of justice and hope and peace. God comes into our world in surprising ways, in unexpected places, and most often through ordinary people like me, like you. The word of God came to John, in the wilderness. The word of God comes to you and me in the wilderness of our lives and our world. Like John, let us prepare the way of God making paths straight; filling valleys and lowering hills; making the way straight, not crooked; smoothing out the rough places and by so doing reshaping the world into God s realm of justice and peace and goodness. And then all flesh shall see the salvation of God. May it be so. Amen. Major Sources: Homiletical Perspective by Kathy Beach-Verhey in Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume I, pp. 44-49. Editors: David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Westminster John Knox Press. Louisville, Kentucky. 2009. Preparation by Rev. Woody Edding. www.unitedmethodistwinsted.org/2015-12-06.ser.pdf December 6, 2015. 7