December 9, 2001
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
Matthew 3:1-12
You perhaps recall the old cartoon which shows a street preacher with a sign around his neck that reads, “The world is not coming to an end. Therefore, you must suffer along and learn to cope.”
I suppose that is one way to view the future. Here’s another. Before Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Archbishop Desmond Tutu stood in front of the South African Embassy in Washington DC one afternoon and said, “Those of you inside, are you listening? Do you hear me? You have already been defeated. Do you understand that? You have already lost and we on the outside have won. Out here, we know how this struggle for black freedom and liberation will turn out, for God is on the side of the oppressed. It’s not, ‘We shall win.’ Oh no! We have already won! Only you on the inside have not realized it. We outsiders have. We know the future. We are the future!”
And the amazing thing is . .. he was right. And he didn’t need a crystal ball to predict the change that was coming. All he needed was the Biblical word and its promise of a new world, a new world being born among us in the most unlikely of circumstances, a new world spinning toward us carried in the arms of God’s chosen one.
I was saying to our Wednesday Bible study last week that I often wish I didn’t have to deal with John the Baptist each and every Advent - that wild-eyed prophet of the wilderness. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come . . . I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me . . . His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Everybody loves to play John the Baptist in the Christmas pageant. Great opportunity for overacting there.
Here we are lighting Advent candles, decorating our homes, playing Christmas music, and suddenly John is standing in our living rooms, smelling like God knows what, looking like something from another planet, and warning us of unquenchable fire. He makes Christmas with our in-laws suddenly look pretty good! Why do we have to deal with John? Can’t we just go straight to Bethlehem and that cuddly baby?
Maybe we need to spend some quality time with John because he understood what Bishop Tutu clearly understood. Maybe we need to spend some quality time with John because he knew that Christmas is more than simply a birth in a manger, as monumental as that is. Maybe we need to spend some quality time with John because he was proclaiming, not just the arrival of a new Messiah, but, in fact, the arrival of a new world. Barbara Brown Taylor says it like this: “It was a world that would be built out of new materials, not the rearranged stones of the old religion. The Holy Spirit had gotten all but covered up in Jerusalem, with pretend piety and temple taxes and priestly hocus-pocus. The flame was all but snuffed out . . . so God moved it out into the wilderness, where the air was sharp and clean, out under the stars where it was fanned by the most socially unacceptable character anyone could imagine. Dressed in animal hair, his breath heavy with locusts and wild honey, John proclaimed that someone was coming, someone so spectacular that it was not enough simply to hang around waiting for him to arrive. It was time to get ready, to prepare the way, so that when he came he could walk right to their doors . . . John called the people to wake up, to turn around (the literal meaning of the word, “repent”) so that they would not miss the new things that God was doing right before their eyes.” Something’s coming, people, something important. Get ready, prepare yourselves, there’s work to be done!
Do you recall the film, Groundhog Day? On the surface, an engaging lighthearted romance. And yet, look again, just a little deeper. In the film Bill Murray plays a rude, self-centered weatherman named Phil, who wakes up one morning to find himself in a time warp, reliving over and over the same day of his life - Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA. Each day as he awakens, he hears the same idle chatter on the radio, encounters exactly the same assortment of small-town characters, and pursues the exact same round of inconsequential activities with his cameraman Larry and producer Rita.
The experience of time that is headed nowhere, each day exactly the same as the one before, is at first excruciating. Phil responds to this prison of time with acts of contempt, frivolity and despair. You may recall his numerous efforts to kill himself, only to find himself waking up in the same bed to the same stupid radio show the next day. He even kidnaps the groundhog, also named Phil, and drives both of them over a cliff. Big crash, both of them dead; next day wakes up, same bed, same stupid radio show.
But eventually he begins to see the time he has been given as a time filled with possibility. He even comes to regard time as an opportunity for preparation - a chance to become a different kind of person. He learns to play the piano, begins helping others, at one point even saves the mayor’s life. In the process he is transformed from a self-centered egotist to someone who is known throughout the town for his selflessness and giving spirit. The transformation and consummation of Punxsutawney time is reached on the day Phil becomes the kind of person who can win Rita’s affections.
I’m not sure what the director intended. I suspect he may not even know the meaning of the word, Advent, but as seen through my eyes, Groundhog Day emerges as a wonderful Advent film. For isn’t what Phil discovers really what Advent is all about? Namely this . . . what might seem like a meaningless extension of time, what might seem like the ceaseless round of the same old, same old, is really a time of preparation, a time that has meaning and value. Advent proclaims that time is not a prison but a path, a path that leads to the fulfillment of God’s purposes - to what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. And it is going to happen. John the Baptist was absolutely right. It is going to happen. Indeed, as Bishop Tutu clearly recognized, it is happening already. And it isn’t going to wait for us. So if we want to be a part of it, our task is to live in such a way that we are preparing the way each and every day.
Ann Weems has written a reflection titled, The Cross in the Manger, which I believe gets to the heart of our Advent preparation and indeed, to what John the Baptist was talking about.
If there is no cross in the manger, there is no Christmas.
If there is no commitment in us,
there are no wise men searching,
If we offer no cup of cold water,
there is no gold, no frankincense, no myrrh.
If there is no praising God’s name,
there are no singing angels.
If there is no spirit of wonder,
there are no shepherds watching.
If there is no room in our inn,
then our wishes of Merry Christmas mock the
Christ Child, the holy family is just a holiday card
and God will loathe our feasts and festivals.
If Christmas is not now, if Christ is not born into
the everyday present, then what is all our noise
and celebration about?
Wonder, worship, justice, caring, bringing Christ and his Gospel into the here and now - that is our Advent preparation. When John speaks of making paths straight, he is not talking about trail maintenance in Ragle Park. He is talking about people and culture maintenance. He is talking about the creation of a world of righteousness, safety, justice and compassion, the kind of world dreamed about by poets and promised by prophets, a world where the curves of injustice, immorality and inhumanity are changed into smooth paths so that everyone can see God's salvation. This is God's plan, friends, and it is not wishful thinking to proclaim it. For ultimately it is not our work, it is God's work. But, at the same time, it is our responsibility to join that work. This is our Advent vocation, often forgotten amid holiday busyness and planning.
We are not preparing for a baby. How easily we get lost in sentiment and silliness this time of year if we talk only about a baby. We are preparing for a ministry. For a change is coming - a change that will be the sternest challenge we have ever faced - a challenge to our apathy, our self-satisfaction, our values, our wisdom, our way of relating to each other, our way of doing business as usual. A change is coming. A new way is opening before us. A whole new life is beckoning to us - to those of us with ears to hear and hearts willing to go wherever that way and life may lead. And the time for preparation is no