 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| SERMON 2nd Sunday of Advent December 6, 2009 The Rev. Charles W. Messer |
| 667 Mount Road, Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 |
| Small Parish - Big Heart The little church you've been looking for! All are welcome! |
| Our Mission: To worship the Lord To serve the community To grow the church |
Baruch 5:1-9 or Malachi 3:1-4 Canticle 4 or 16 Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6 |
To contact us: Calvary Episcopal Church 667 Mount Road Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 OFFICE The Rev. Charles Messer, Rector Fr. Chuck: frmesser@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org Website: mail@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org Office: calvaryoffice1@verizon.net |
to Winter Haven. We’d go out to eat, visit the mall. Winter Haven was about 20 miles
north of Lake Wales, a short drive back then on a two lane stretch of highway. It
took us past orange groves, barbed wired cow pastures, few lakes. About half way,
there was a sharp curve in the road that swerved around a swampy pond. My
mother used to tell us about an accident that happened on that curve to a class
mate of hers while she was in High School. I remember feeling of dread before
going around that corner, especially after dark.
One night on our way home from Winter Haven, I could see in the distance flashing
lights: police, fire truck, an ambulance. As we got closer I could see an over turned
car half way in the water. I could smell gas, burnt rubber. I could hear the winch
pulling the car out of the water.
As we moved past the wreck on the highway, when I could no longer see the
flashing lights, I thought of a call coming in the middle of the night to a sleepy eyed
mother or dad, a wife or a husband. I remember thinking, if it weren’t for that curve,
that if someone would just straighten out that bend in the road there wouldn’t be
anymore wrecks here.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley filled, every
mountain made low, the crooked made straight, the rough made smooth; and all
will see the salvation of God.
On this second Sunday of Advent, the wild man of the desert comes bursting in,
into our neatly decorated Christmas parties; knocking eggnog onto
the carpet, smashing the plastic Santa out in the yard. Like a car alarm going off in
the middle of the night, the unsettling refrain “Repent! Prepare the way of the
Lord,” barks through the pretty holiday music. “Change,” John the Baptist cries, “it’
s time for regime change, for revolution. Get ready, God’s coming. Look busy! Turn
yourself around and prepare to receive God.”
Luke goes to great lengths to put us in context. In the 15th year of the reign of
Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate ruled over Judea, when Herod ruled Galilee, when his
brother Phillip ruled those places I can’t pronounce, when Anna and Caiaphas
ruled as high priests… the word of God came to John. I used to glance over these
details as irrelevant, like the genealogies: Adam begat Cain. Cain begat somebody
the someone else begat. It seems natural to gloss over these seemingly
insignificant details; why would we need to know that sort of stuff. (do you feel a
rhetorical question coming?)
The reason why Luke goes into such detail of world leaders of that particular time
in history, I believe, is for us. I wonder if he thought, that a couple of thousand
years later, that we’d have the tendency to ‘stain glass’ the times of Jesus and
John the Baptist as something other than the world that ‘real people’ live in. Luke
says to us that the world that John the Baptist moved in, the world that Jesus was
on earth is the same as the one we inhabit: a complicated world where things are
seldom black and white, where wanting to do the right thing means doing some
‘not so right’ in order to do right; a world that runs as straight as a corkscrew. The
wild man of the desert doesn’t just appear on the scene out of a vacuum; he
appears at a time when the people were hard pressed, when the rattling of the war
machine rumbles as the divide between the rich and poor grow further and further
apart. The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in a time when things were
just as challenging and difficult and scary and hopeful just as ours is.
So, imagine with me: In the second year of presidency of Barak Obama – as an
additional 30,000 troops are added to the fight in Afganistan, when Ban Ki Moon
was leader of the United Nations, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ruled Iran and Kim
Jong-Il ruled North Korea, when Benedict was bishop of Rome and Rowan was
archbishop of Cantebury, the word of God came to the congregation of Calvary
Church in the wilds of southeastern Pa. They heard, as it is written in the book of
the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.’
The Baptist says to us, as he said to those on the banks of the Jordan, that the
world is royally jacked up, it is broken; in fact, he is saying that the world has
rotted from the inside out and there aint a dang thing we can do about it. We better
get ready, change is coming. Either we’re prepared for it or we aint but it’s coming.
God himself is on the way and if we don’t stop; if we don’t stop making the poor
poorer, if we continue to destroy the planet with our greed, if we just ignore the
violence that ravages our cities and numb ourselves with celebrities and the NFL, if
we let one more year of war go by we only have ourselves to blame.
What do we need to change? How can we change? Can the world change by some
new social program, governmental initiative, by the power of positive thinking? Is it
within us to change ourselves? What can we do that we haven’t already tried?
We’d like to think that we can manage things ok by ourselves. We lead pretty good
lives. We throw spare change into the red bucket coming out of Giant, we give out
food and Christmas presents to needy families. We’re here, at church, today. That
counts for something.
Oh, we may lament how pagan our society has become by outlawing displays of
the Nativity at city hall or “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas at Wal Mart,
and yet somehow we fail to recognize our own need for God to re-create in our
lives. Our hearts may go out to the millions in Africa suffering with AIDS or watch
TV in shock over the mounting violence in the Middle East but do we realize we
need something bigger than ourselves, something outside of ourselves, something
wholly other to save us from ruin? Do we need to repent? Do we need forgiveness?
The answer is yes. We can’t do it ourselves. We can’t will it, we can force it, and all
we can do is wait, wait for God to do it for us. All we can do is let God transform our
lives so that the transformation of the world can take place. We celebrate Christmas
because it is the beginning of God’s help coming to us. The baptism of repentance
John preaches to us this morning washes away our need for self-determination
and autonomy as an agent of change.
Prepare God’s arrival. Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch filled. Every
bump smoothed. Detours straightened. Ruts paved over. Every Sunday we come
to get ourselves smoothed over and straightened out. If we think we’re the high
and mighty, confession tells us we’re no better than the rest. If our sins make us
think we have no value, the absolution – God’s forgiveness, tells us God loves us
in spite of our sin. Baptism is our submission to God’s work in our lives. God’s
change in our lives is in readiness for change in the world. Change of the world
means transformation, liberation, freedom, and salvation. Our celebration of
Christmas is God’s reminder that all people will see the parade of God’s act of
drawing all people in.
Amen.
north of Lake Wales, a short drive back then on a two lane stretch of highway. It
took us past orange groves, barbed wired cow pastures, few lakes. About half way,
there was a sharp curve in the road that swerved around a swampy pond. My
mother used to tell us about an accident that happened on that curve to a class
mate of hers while she was in High School. I remember feeling of dread before
going around that corner, especially after dark.
One night on our way home from Winter Haven, I could see in the distance flashing
lights: police, fire truck, an ambulance. As we got closer I could see an over turned
car half way in the water. I could smell gas, burnt rubber. I could hear the winch
pulling the car out of the water.
As we moved past the wreck on the highway, when I could no longer see the
flashing lights, I thought of a call coming in the middle of the night to a sleepy eyed
mother or dad, a wife or a husband. I remember thinking, if it weren’t for that curve,
that if someone would just straighten out that bend in the road there wouldn’t be
anymore wrecks here.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley filled, every
mountain made low, the crooked made straight, the rough made smooth; and all
will see the salvation of God.
On this second Sunday of Advent, the wild man of the desert comes bursting in,
into our neatly decorated Christmas parties; knocking eggnog onto
the carpet, smashing the plastic Santa out in the yard. Like a car alarm going off in
the middle of the night, the unsettling refrain “Repent! Prepare the way of the
Lord,” barks through the pretty holiday music. “Change,” John the Baptist cries, “it’
s time for regime change, for revolution. Get ready, God’s coming. Look busy! Turn
yourself around and prepare to receive God.”
Luke goes to great lengths to put us in context. In the 15th year of the reign of
Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate ruled over Judea, when Herod ruled Galilee, when his
brother Phillip ruled those places I can’t pronounce, when Anna and Caiaphas
ruled as high priests… the word of God came to John. I used to glance over these
details as irrelevant, like the genealogies: Adam begat Cain. Cain begat somebody
the someone else begat. It seems natural to gloss over these seemingly
insignificant details; why would we need to know that sort of stuff. (do you feel a
rhetorical question coming?)
The reason why Luke goes into such detail of world leaders of that particular time
in history, I believe, is for us. I wonder if he thought, that a couple of thousand
years later, that we’d have the tendency to ‘stain glass’ the times of Jesus and
John the Baptist as something other than the world that ‘real people’ live in. Luke
says to us that the world that John the Baptist moved in, the world that Jesus was
on earth is the same as the one we inhabit: a complicated world where things are
seldom black and white, where wanting to do the right thing means doing some
‘not so right’ in order to do right; a world that runs as straight as a corkscrew. The
wild man of the desert doesn’t just appear on the scene out of a vacuum; he
appears at a time when the people were hard pressed, when the rattling of the war
machine rumbles as the divide between the rich and poor grow further and further
apart. The word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in a time when things were
just as challenging and difficult and scary and hopeful just as ours is.
So, imagine with me: In the second year of presidency of Barak Obama – as an
additional 30,000 troops are added to the fight in Afganistan, when Ban Ki Moon
was leader of the United Nations, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ruled Iran and Kim
Jong-Il ruled North Korea, when Benedict was bishop of Rome and Rowan was
archbishop of Cantebury, the word of God came to the congregation of Calvary
Church in the wilds of southeastern Pa. They heard, as it is written in the book of
the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.’
The Baptist says to us, as he said to those on the banks of the Jordan, that the
world is royally jacked up, it is broken; in fact, he is saying that the world has
rotted from the inside out and there aint a dang thing we can do about it. We better
get ready, change is coming. Either we’re prepared for it or we aint but it’s coming.
God himself is on the way and if we don’t stop; if we don’t stop making the poor
poorer, if we continue to destroy the planet with our greed, if we just ignore the
violence that ravages our cities and numb ourselves with celebrities and the NFL, if
we let one more year of war go by we only have ourselves to blame.
What do we need to change? How can we change? Can the world change by some
new social program, governmental initiative, by the power of positive thinking? Is it
within us to change ourselves? What can we do that we haven’t already tried?
We’d like to think that we can manage things ok by ourselves. We lead pretty good
lives. We throw spare change into the red bucket coming out of Giant, we give out
food and Christmas presents to needy families. We’re here, at church, today. That
counts for something.
Oh, we may lament how pagan our society has become by outlawing displays of
the Nativity at city hall or “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas at Wal Mart,
and yet somehow we fail to recognize our own need for God to re-create in our
lives. Our hearts may go out to the millions in Africa suffering with AIDS or watch
TV in shock over the mounting violence in the Middle East but do we realize we
need something bigger than ourselves, something outside of ourselves, something
wholly other to save us from ruin? Do we need to repent? Do we need forgiveness?
The answer is yes. We can’t do it ourselves. We can’t will it, we can force it, and all
we can do is wait, wait for God to do it for us. All we can do is let God transform our
lives so that the transformation of the world can take place. We celebrate Christmas
because it is the beginning of God’s help coming to us. The baptism of repentance
John preaches to us this morning washes away our need for self-determination
and autonomy as an agent of change.
Prepare God’s arrival. Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch filled. Every
bump smoothed. Detours straightened. Ruts paved over. Every Sunday we come
to get ourselves smoothed over and straightened out. If we think we’re the high
and mighty, confession tells us we’re no better than the rest. If our sins make us
think we have no value, the absolution – God’s forgiveness, tells us God loves us
in spite of our sin. Baptism is our submission to God’s work in our lives. God’s
change in our lives is in readiness for change in the world. Change of the world
means transformation, liberation, freedom, and salvation. Our celebration of
Christmas is God’s reminder that all people will see the parade of God’s act of
drawing all people in.
Amen.
