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Second Sunday of
Advent, Year C
The Rev. Vicki K.
Hesse,
Director of the
Whitaker Institute,
Episcopal Diocese of
Michigan
St. John’s Episcopal
Church, Westland, MI
Sermon Preached on December 9, 2018
Good
morning. My name is Rev. Vicki Hesse.
I was
last here mid-July,
when the
weather was, ahem, a little sunnier!
As you
may know, I serve the Diocese as the Director of the Whitaker Institute.
The
Whitaker Institute is the educational arm of the Diocese.
Ask: Who here has taken a class from the Whitaker
Institute?
Our overall purpose is (slowly)
to form disciples to carry on the ministry of Jesus Christ.
(that’s a big mission, but we have a big God!)
We do this through about a dozen Dio-wide programs.
Three programs you may know include:
Safe Church courses (new curriculum, new policies),
“Academy for Vocational Leadership,”
a local school for ministry and
“Exploring Your Spiritual Journey,” aka EYSJ,
a program for anyone (lay or called to ordination)
to learn
how God is calling.
So, thank
you, St. John’s for your warm welcome today
Now we
gather our minds and hearts
and
breathe into this space
as we
reflect on our gospel message today.
O Lord, take my lips and speak through them;
take our minds and think through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.
Amen.
A few
years ago, I read this book called
“Eats, Shoots
and Leaves” ---anyone?
This 2003
book is a funny read about punctuation.
The summary
reads,
“Anxious
about the apostrophe? Confused by the comma? Stumped by the semicolon? …Join
Lynne Truss
on a
hilarious tour through the rules of punctuation
that is
sure to sort the dashes from the hyphens.”[1]
The
author bemoans our society’s current “grammatical” state.
(any
teachers here?)
She uses
examples from literature, history & signage
showing
how meaning is very much shaped
by commas
and apostrophes.
We’ve all
seen signs like this one on a storefront:
“Come
inside for CD’s, VIDEO’s, DVD’s and BOOK’s!”
(with
possessive apostrophes before each “s”). (pause)
Or the
newspaper byline that read,
“Fan’s
Fury at Stadium Inquiry”
– with
the apostrophe before the s in Fan’s.
“Fan’s
Fury at Stadium Inquiry”
The story
sounded
“quite
interesting until you look inside the paper
and
discover it’s about a large mob of fans, actually,
not just
the lone, hopping-mad fan
so
promisingly indicated at the byline.” (p.2)
When I
read the book, it made me laugh out loud
and
sharpened my attention to punctuation.
See, as a
proclaimer of Word(s),
I believe
that words matter.
And
punctuation matters.
Stay with
me, now, this does connect to the Gospel!
After
reading today’s Gospel text,
I found
myself reading that text from Isaiah,
which
explains *why* John the Baptist was there
“as it is
written in the book
of the
words of the prophet Isaiah”
Gospel
author Luke uses the OT
to
establish one of the main themes “reversal.”
Luke’s
story prophesied a new world,
a new age,
a new way of being,
to be
fulfilled in the coming of Jesus,
through
the voice one crying out in the wilderness: COLON
The
images of reversal are many:
paths
straightened, valleys filled, mountains flattened,
rough
places smoothed – comma, comma, comma – then
AND All
flesh shall see the salvation of God. Period.
But wait
a minute, what is that colon doing there?
Isaiah 40
reads, “A voice cries out: (COLON)
‘In the
wilderness prepare the way of the Lord…”
Luke
reads, “A voice cries out in the wilderness: (COLON)
Prepare
the way of the Lord….”
Words
matter. Punctuation matters.
Let’s set
the context for the reversal story…
Imagine
the story in a movie set –
starting
in Rome.
The
camera zooms in, slowly, but not where we expect!
The
images pan through the known world
from
imperial to regional and religious authorities
in a
stark comparison of who God chooses.
The lens
of the camera passes by
Emperor
Tiberius – to Pontius Pilate –
to Herod
– to Philip – to Lysanias
passing
Annas and Caiaphas,
the
religious authorities in collusion with the government, – comma, comma, comma,
until the
focus rests on who and where God chooses:
John. In
the wilderness.
Wait,
what?
This
opening scene –
the true
prologue of the whole gospel of reversal -
foreshadows
what is to come.
From the
surprising wilderness.
(TT)
See, in
those days, trouble was pervasive.
Life was very
hard for nearly everyone.
The
culture, laws and geo-political rules
existed
to serve those in power.
These
“principalities” normalized
oppression
of the “little guy” for control.
This kind
of oppression was familiar to the Jewish people.
So
familiar that the gospel writer hearkened back to Isaiah,
when the
Jewish people were exiled to Babylon.
Captive,
oppressed, away from home,
they
yearned for freedom to return to Jerusalem.
The
people longed for their old lives back,
for freedom
from oppression,
for a
chance to make something of their lives
without
the pressure from “powers and principalities.”
pause
(TW)
The other
day, watching TV, I noticed
how our
consumer culture had become
oppressive
and pervasive with holiday advertising.
Gifts we
“should” be buying,
fashion
we need to make us “attractive.”
This
consumer break was punctuated by
news
stories about addiction and the opioid epidemic.
You hear
the news, like I do, of the
ongoing
political divisiveness rousing in us
an
inability to stomach it or respond.
We hear
about how lives are hard for many ppl.
Stories
of refugees from several countries
arriving
at new country borders
only to
be further terrorized
for not
living in their own terrorizing country of origin.
These
people long for their old lives back,
for
freedom from oppression and danger
for a
chance to make something of their lives
without
the pressure from “powers and principalities.”
“Those
days” are like “these days.”
The
problem is that we don’t see
the
surprising and hidden power of the wilderness.
We
don’t recognize that grace often arrives
off
the beaten path of power and control and oversight.
It’s
like staring at the light of a bonfire and
when
you look away, it blinds you.
The
presence of too much power outside
blinds
us to the surprising power of God’s hope.
In
the hidden power of wilderness
we
can find true inspiration and creativity
and
can see the possibilities for new life and grace.
For
the word of God came to John. Period.
And
he cried out. Colon.
In the wilderness,
prepare the way…
(GT)
See, the word of God transformed the wilderness.
God’s
word, through John,
affected
everyone, even up to the emperor.
The
word of God reversed everyone’s world order.
John
challenged the people to see the wilderness
not
as a place of desolation but of hope.
God
called ppl, like the Babylonian exiles,
to
leave their captors behind
and head home
through the wilderness.
God
called them, like the people of Egypt,
to join the
exodus out of slavery
into God’s
promised fresh start.[2]
John’s
baptism of repentance
led to release
from sins
–
it unbound the people from that weight
Through
the purification right
–
and their hearts were opened
To
God’s way, grounded in Love.
To
the forgiveness that set free
those
trapped in darkness and death’s shadow.
The
light of this ritual
revealed
a new path, in the wilderness.
From
the wilderness.
Born
of the wilderness.
(GW)
Today’s good news is that
God’s
transformation comes in those places of wilderness.
And
in the wilderness, especially, God calls us to repent.
Author
and Theologian Marcus Borg
offers
fresh perspective on repentance:
“The
biblical meaning is
to
return to God,
return
from your exile,
reconnect
to God.[3]
In
the Greek NT, ‘repent’ means
to
“go beyond the mind that you have,”
“go
beyond the mind you have been given
by
our environment and by our culture
and
to allow Christ to shape” you a new mind and a new heart.
Both
personally and socially.
A
seminary classmate holds a weekly bible study with
people
living with
homelessness,
poverty, and food insecurity.[4]
One
participant, Willie, said that for him,
wilderness
is loneliness –
when
you can’t connect with others
and
you don’t know how.
Ty
agrees, adding that
“you
can have a place (a home) and still be lost (and lonely).
Or
you cannot have a place but have community.”
Eugene
added that
yes,
when he had the most stuff was when he was the loneliest.
But
now that he has this community,
even
though he doesn’t have much stuff, he feels at home.
These
people have gone beyond their mind’s orientation,
Both
personally and socially: the way of salvation.
What
is your wilderness?
Maybe
your wilderness is loneliness,
and
like these people,
repenting
(reconnecting to God and others),
you
can find a way home.
Maybe
your wilderness is the daily stress
of
too much to do with seemingly not enough time.
By
repenting, reconnecting with God,
we
can find ourselves in God’s time
and
there is enough time there for important things.
In
the wilderness of
our
vulnerabilities, our challenges, our foibles,
our
grief, our mistakes, our faults, comma, comma, comma
–
yes, in the wilderness, God’s grace surprises us.
So,
this day, in preparation for Advent,
I
pray that you know your wilderness
is
filled through and through with grace,
for
God loves you and forgives you
–
even, or especially, in your wilderness.
I
pray that God prepares you to notice your wilderness
and
that God transforms you and your community.
And
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Exclamation
point.
Amen.
[1] Cited at https://www.lynnetruss.com/books/eats-shoots-leaves/ and https://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shoots-Leaves-Tolerance-Punctuation/dp/1592402038 on December 7, 2018
[2] Judith Jones, cited https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2702 on December 4, 2018
[3]
Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity,
p. 180
