RCL Year B (Advent 3) - December 14, 2008

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year B (Advent 3) - December 14, 2008

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28


John the baptizer is an interesting character. We heard about John last week, he was in the wilderness crying out, “prepare the way of the Lord… Repent and turn to God.” And as I said last week, he is there to get us ready, to get us to move over and make room… to lay aside the encumbrances of this life, and allow God a place to dwell among us.

In this process he shakes things up. John the Baptist's words are urgent and disturbing that the Judaean priests and Levites come out to him and demand: "Who do you think you are?"

This morning, that is what the Gospel message is all about. And John’s answer is even more alarming. He is already shaking up things as they are; he is baptizing for the forgiveness of sins. But John is not the Christ, nor is he Elijah, nor is he the prophet Isaiah. He is just a voice a voice announcing that God is near, he is pleading with us to wake up, be baptized and wash away our sin, and prepare ourselves for the One who will liberate us.

John the Baptist is a witness to God's coming in the midst of that isolated and confined world that we call "our life"… a confinement formed by our self-deceiving thoughts that we are, perhaps, self-governing, advantaged, knowledgeable, or even economically stable.

I bid you last week to sit still and be silent… so you that you could listen carefully… listen for that prophetic voice of God that talks to us though unlikely messengers and invites us to the in-between spaces… listen and heed their warnings, so that when the time comes, we could be fully prepared!

Whether it's a "still small voice" or an impassioned prophetic cry, God's presence in our isolated lives often makes us uncomfortable. We think our lives are private, and want nothing to upset the stability, and the familiarity. So the slightest sound that may be from God, or any sense of a “small” voice that upsets our organized life, are unwelcome disturbances to us! They don't fit into that carefully created pattern of living…

The Priests and Levites who came out to confront John the Baptizer would understand this patter of thought. They wanted nothing to upset their stability, the familiarity of their lives organized around their traditional temple worship. They were deeply invested in their traditions, but evidently a great deal more invested in themselves rather than God. That's why John and his message was so threatening to them.

If John were really from God, if he really were a prophetic voice, then things as they knew it were going to change, they had too! But, they didn't want anything to change; they wanted things to stay exactly as they were. This changelessness, however, is not what God is about.

Like the Priests and the Levites, and like most human beings, people like things to stay just as they are – Change in things makes us “comfortable” - we like the safety and captivity of the lives we have made for ourselves.

We hear the words of the Prophet Isaiah about rejoicing in Jerusalem, and being clothed with garments of salvation, and a robe of righteousness. We hear that our labors shall not be in vain, that the captives will be free, and they will have the oil of gladness and a mantel of praise. These are comfortable words, and comforting promises. But the promises are only fulfilled by the passing away of what once was and the coming into being of that new order that God is creating.

We don't like hearing those words of the repentant turning and change (greek: metanoia) that we must do, so we end up closing our ears, and we don't hear anything… as a result we really don’t hear God.

John’s prophetic voice invites us to live outside our own confining lives and calls us to be different from the established order around us. Paul's call to the church at Thessalonica very much holds them to the Baptist's call, also: Help the weak, do not repay evil for evil, seek to do good to all, hold fast to what is good.

If we have made our place and are firmly “dug-in” to the way it has always been done before, if we are secure in our captivity, in our isolation, than we can understand the world and the fears of the Thessalonians. We learn to be comfortable with the familiar. And in our cozy comfort, we fear anything that is different.

But a voice calls out, calls out to our spirits, souls, and bodies to be kept sound and blameless at the coming of God. The Baptist's cry as we heard it last week and this morning is so cold, urgent, and disturbing. He is a voice announcing that God is near, inviting us to wake up, cleanse away our sin, and prepare ourselves for the One who will liberate us from our isolated unchanging lives… An isolation formed by our self-deceiving thoughts that we are independent, privileged, educated, politically correct, or economically stable.

When we are on the edge of life – when we know that we are alone, without property or privilege when we know first hand the scripture's words of assurance to the least of God's people, because we have started to recognize ourselves as the least of God's people, then our self-deceptions start to fall away.

There are countless ways this can happen. Often it happens under conditions that seem to disrupt our life like progress, and growth – a sickness, a death, a layoff. Crises like these, crises of our personal and professional and political lives, are the points at which our Christian life begins, or maybe begins again.

We were called last week to be still and listen to the cry of John so that we could be prepared… But the most important step that we can take this morning is to respond in action to that voice that calls us out of our own complacency… it's a step that takes us out of the comfort zone of our lives. It’s a realization that we are dependent, that we share the same limitations as all other human beings. It’s knowing that our need for God is greater than any fear we have of God's demands on us.

The things that we are afraid of are all likely to occur, but they are nothing to be afraid of. As I said a few weeks ago, we are all witnesses of God in this world. The Christian life invites us to accept this mission with all its hazards and all its burdens. It’s tough work, it’s a crisis, but for us Christians the word crisis is morphed into “formation” or positive change for us…

Consider the lives of the saints. Consider Paul and John the Baptist. They were all engaged in God's plan – fearfully, no doubt, but they had enough courage, initiative, and endurance to love God more than fear God.

They knew themselves to be finite and dependent on a power far greater than themselves and they let themselves be formed by God and took their place in the great army, rescuing souls that are isolated from God.

So… Learn from them… Hear the cry and respond daringly. And if we let God… God will come to us and inform and transform our lives… God will release the captives.