Joyful Anticipation – sermon on December 14, 2014
1 Thessolonians 5: 16-24 Always be joyful. Always keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. Do not smother the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at those who prophesy, but test everything that is said to be sure it is true, and if it is, then accept it. Keep away from every kind of evil. May the God of peace make you entirely pure and devoted to God; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept strong and blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again. God, who called you to become God’s own child, will do all this for you, just as promised.
John 1: 6-8, 19-28 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’” Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Sermon: Joyful Anticipation by Rev. Doreen Oughton
I so love the lectionary readings this Advent. I’ve come to expect harsher ones – passages that urge us to repent, that talk about separating wheat from chaff, chopping down trees, the sun darkened and the time of judgment coming. Advent is about waiting – waiting and preparation, and I love the type of preparation advocated in these readings. They seem, to me, to call us not to prepare for judgment by repenting, but to prepare for the return of the One who loved us to death and beyond. And the way to prepare for that, says Paul to the Thessalonians, is to practice joy and gratitude. In addition to Paul’s letter, and the Psalm which was the responsive reading, there is also the Isaiah passage which served as our call to worship. This ancient prophesy declares that we, the people of God, have been anointed to do God’s work with and for each other – to provide the comfort, liberty and hope – and when we don’t have it to provide, to look to our community to provide it. Whether we are providing or seeking, it is two sides of the same coin, and keeps these Godly gifts real in our world. We can be grateful and rejoicing either way, when we have enough to share, and when we are desperate enough to seek.
In recovery programs they talk about the gift of desperation. Desperation is a gift because it brings you places you never would have chosen to go if you were not desperate. And those places offer blessings you could not have imagined. Now I’ll grant you that is hard to be grateful for desperation while you are in it, though in hindsight you see what a gift it was. I love how Paul’s letter talks about not smothering the Holy Spirit, but to let it work, even if we don’t understand how it is working.
The reading from John, about John the Baptist, seems only loosely tied to these themes of joyful waiting, and the practice of gratitude. As the religious leaders question John about who he is, I think of Paul’s words about the Holy Spirit. John is fairly inarticulate in the face of the questioning, and I think he is not sure what to say. He falls back on his scripture, quoting Isaiah, “I am the one crying out in the wilderness.” He knows God’s promises will be fulfilled, and he knows through whom they will be fulfilled, but can’t really say how. I am so amazed by the Baptist, that even in his uncertainty, he is so clear about his identity and his purpose. Was it tempting to say “yes,” or even “maybe” to the questions about whether he was the Messiah, or a great Prophet? How many people who had crowds of disciples, who had a sense that God was calling them to important work would have been so clear that the call was to point to another.
I tell you it is hard for me sometimes. I want people to come to MY church to see what I’M doing, or what WE are doing. We take seriously Isaiah’s words that it IS our call to bind up the broken hearted, offer comfort, etc. But maybe all we are supposed to be doing is to point out what Jesus has done here, is doing here, will do here, whether we understand it or not.
It is interesting to me that at this point of John’s work, he doesn’t say what Jesus will do, doesn’t talk about his teachings or qualities. He only says something about where Jesus is – here among you, in the crowd. No one you’ve met before, whether in person or in scripture. Jesus is doing a new thing.
Has there ever been a time when someone pointed Jesus out to you, or you to someone else? Now we don’t have the blessing of a current incarnation – as far as I know, but can we see Jesus among us? I heard something this week about where Jesus is. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran minister, said that whenever she draws a line separating herself from others, Jesus is on the other side of that line. That rings true to me, because, though I believe Jesus was political in a certain sense, relationships were more important than beliefs or positions. Remember that this is the one who asked for forgiveness for those who killed him. I think Jesus is on the other side of the line I draw, but he is inviting me over, or inviting me to erase it. Maybe he is inviting the people on his side to march right over that line and see me as sister, to erase it for me when I insist on re-drawing it.
Our Monday adult ed group has been watching a video series that asks the question about who and what Jesus was from a historical perspective, and it has been very interesting and thought provoking. But I wonder if the question more relevant to our faith, to our gratitude, to our repentance and to our joyful anticipation is where is Jesus? I don’t know what he will do, but I believe he is at work among us, and I am not fit to untie his shoe. But I know I want to look for him, point him out to others when I can, and stand beside him. I’m hoping you will join me, because I sure need the help. May it be so.
