The holy gospel according to Luke (3:1-6)
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 Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and
Lysanias ruler of Abilene,
2during
the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John
son
of Zechariah in the wilderness.
3He
went into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming
a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins,
4as
it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The
voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare
the way of the Lord,
make
his paths straight.
5Every
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;
6and
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
The gospel of the Lord.
-----
In the sixth year of the rule of President Obama, when Mark
Dayton was governor of Minnesota and Tim Walz representative for Minnesota’s first
district and his colleague Amy Klobuchar senior senator for Minnesota and Al
Franken junior senator for Minnestoa, during the term of Presiding Bishop
Elizabeth Eaton and the term of Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons, the word of God
came … to you, member of
Trinity and First in Rushford, Minnesota.
In spite of all the bigwigs and powerful people available,
God chooses to come to John in the wilderness and to us here in Rushford. This is what Advent is.
Advent comes when there is big stuff all around. The Christmas hubbub is all parties,
presents, and Santa visits, yet the word of God comes in the lighting of these
candles each week. Candles—small
flames of hope from last week, a flicker of peace this week, and joy and love
soon to come.
In the midst of the presidential race and caucusing to come,
with all the many candidates looking for a mandate to rule, God whispers to us:
you! You are my beloved, my chosen
child. I choose you to prepare the
way for Jesus. I’m coming into the
world. I’m coming to you.
This is the word of God—coming to the quiet places, the
wildernesses, to the children of regular folk like Elizabeth and Zechariah, who
were too old for kids. This is the
God who chooses you
to love.
This God comes here to you and to me.
Advent is this peculiar time, the beginning of the church
year, when… we wait. We begin… with waiting. It is so counter to the hustle and
bustle of Christmas shopping and decorating that it can be hard to figure out
how to even wait. How do you set time
aside to wait when there is so much to do? I just bought a tree yesterday—and now it needs lights and
ornaments and something for the top and I haven’t even had time for it
yet! Never mind waiting for… God?
How do you sit in the wilderness of time or place, away from
the rulers of our “pre-Christmas” time?
Is your weekly or daily wilderness the pause to light the Advent candles
on Sunday night? Is it prayers before
dinner? Devotions in the morning
or before bed? A run or walk
outside? Is it fasting from TV and
the internet for 15 minutes each day?
Volunteering with Meals on Wheels, or contacting an elected
representative to advocate for the poor and oppressed, to advocate for peace
and an end to violence? I decided
to let my tree sit undecorated in its stand for a bit. It still smells like Christmas tree and
so when I walk in my house and catch a whiff, I pause and breathe. And there is waiting in that breathing.
But that waiting, those ways we find of sitting in the
wilderness even during December and Advent don’t make the rest of the world
stop or go away. This week, as has
become the pattern, was a tough week for news. There were more mass shootings—more lives taken too
soon. It happens so frequently
now, that I wonder if I’ve become numb to it all—if it no longer registers as
the horror that it is.
In the midst of that, I wish this sermon could just be about
God’s love for you—about Jesus coming into the world. But you’ve seen the news as much as I have and that’s not
all there is to life or this world we’re in. Advent is the time of waiting and preparing for Jesus
to come at Christmas. It’s also
the time of waiting and preparing for Jesus to come again and really set everything right.
As we wait we pray “come Lord Jesus.” We pray “kyrie eleison—Lord have
mercy.” We pray and we pray and we
cry and we cry for the lives lost, for the violence in the words we hear on TV,
in the news, in the world. We cry
and we pray for our own helplessness, loneliness, and despair.
What I want is the answer. What I want is assurance that there is nothing I can do. What I want is God’s assurances that
God will fix everything. That is all
I want. And the answer I get, all
I have today for this second Sunday in Advent is that God loves you and me and
everyone. God loves you and comes
to you. Jesus comes to you and
gives his whole being that violence and death would be put to an end, that you
might fully know God’s love for you.
Jesus gives himself—body and blood, bread and wine, for a new covenant—a
new start.
Maybe that’s why
Advent begins the new church year—so that we begin with hopeful anticipation of
a fresh start—a clean slate. A new
covenant where we haven’t messed up too much—individually or collectively—for
God to still love us. We begin the
year with Advent, waiting for God to come to us in the Christ child.
But that’s the trick of it all, isn’t it? That we need the restart—we
need a new chance to feel worthy of God’s love, but God doesn’t. God doesn’t
need our past or our sins to be erased in order to love us. God
comes to Zechariah and even when he doesn’t believe that he and Elizabeth could
have a child—even when he loses his ability to speak—God still chooses
them. Even when John is wandering,
unknown and unimportant, in the wilderness, the word of God comes to him. God
still tells John, “I choose you.
Prepare the way.”
And even when we mess up. Even when we feel hopeless and helpless in the face of yet
another mass shooting, yet another tragedy in our lives or the world. Even when we want more time to get
ready, to be better, to do better, to be worthy, even just more time to
decorate the tree.
Even when we aren’t ready, God still comes to us. In bread and wine, God says, “I choose
you. This is my body. This is my blood. I love you. Let’s try again.
Follow me, wait for me, get ready for me. Let’s love the world all over again. And again. And again. I
choose you.”
Thanks be to God.
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