Sunday, December 25, 2011

Just a Little Story

Isaiah 9:2-7; Matthew 1:18-25
Christmas Morning: December 25, 2011

Christmas falls on a Sunday about every six years.  And it usually leaves the pastor in kind of a quandary.  Everyone has already heard the Christmas story on Christmas eve…we’ve got it already.  No need to come back the next day and hear it all over again, right?  Clearly, that idea is not lost on many people J.

So, this every six year thing got me to wondering whether there might be an opportunity in all this.  And in thinking about it – in thinking about the problem of hearing the same story read in church within 12 hours, I remembered that in fact we have two stories…two Christmas stories, and most years, when Christmas doesn’t fall on a Sunday, we only hear one.  So on those blessed years when Christmas does fall on Sunday, we have the opportunity to hear both stories…and that’s a really good thing.

You see, usually we only hear the story from the gospel of Luke.  You all know it – probably by heart:  In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus, it begins.  Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem to be registered, and while they were there, the time comes for her to deliver.  She gives birth to her firstborn son and wraps him in bands of cloth and lays him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. 

Then it goes on that in that region there were shepherds – and the angel came and told them of this baby born in Bethlehem.  All the angels in the heavenly host sing glorious songs of great joy, and when they leave, the shepherds head to Bethlehem and find Mary, Joseph, and the little baby Jesus lying in the manger wrapped in bands of cloths. 

It is this story that our Christmas pageants tell.  It’s this story we sing in carols every year.  You can’t find hardly one Christmas hymn in our hymnal that doesn’t reference Luke’s version.  Charlie Brown read from the gospel of Luke in his famous Christmas special.  If we didn’t read this version of the Christmas story at least once every year, most of us would feel like we didn’t hear the story of Christmas at all.

But there is another version of the story.  The gospel of Matthew also has a birth story – a Christmas story.  The gospel of Matthew tells of Jesus’ birth to Mary and Joseph.  But it is not the story that comes to our minds eye when December 25th rolls around every year.

Why?  Well because, frankly, Luke’s story is better.  In Matthew, we do get an angel, but he comes to Joseph in a dream, not Mary in real life.  The angel tells Joseph that Mary’s pregnant, tells him not to leave her, and tells him to name the baby Jesus.  Then, we’re told he wakes up, and, quoting now, “he took Mary as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had born a son; and he named him Jesus.”  This does not make for a good Christmas pageant.  First of all, how do you act out in Christmas pageant form that Mary and Joseph had no marital relations.  Second of all, the birth part is told as almost an aside – “until she had born a son.”  There’s no idyllic scene, no countryside, no shepherds or choirs of angels, no swaddling clothes.  It’s such a little story.

In fact, it raises the question, do we need Matthew’s version at all.  I mean, why do we need this little story that is basically the Luke story in a boring nutshell.  Does Matthew add anything or have anything to say to us at Christmas time?

The message of Luke’s birth story is a message for the whole world.  It’s a message for the outsiders.  Luke wrote to gentiles and Greeks.  Luke saw the birth of Jesus as a sign that God is with the poor, the broken, the vulnerable, the non-righteous, the outcast.  As the angel says to the shepherds, this is good news of great joy for all the people! 

Matthew on the other hand writes a story for the insiders.  Matthew writes to the Jews – the religious ones.  Matthew writes to the people who come together every week and read the Torah, listen to the rabbi, pray, chant, recall the stories their peoples have been telling for thousands of years.  Matthew writes to the people who call Yahweh their God, who claim the ten commandments as their starting place, who see the Exodus as emblematic of what God wants for the people and who hear in the voices of the prophets the hope for all the world. 

In other words, Matthew writes to us.  We are the modern day insiders.  We are the religious folks…the ones who read our bible every week, come to church to learn the scriptures and listen for the word of God.  We know the stories, we have names and images for God, we have an idea of who we think God is in our lives and how God moves in this world.  We are the intended audience of Matthew – the insiders.  Every year we hear the story of Jesus’ birth that’s meant for everyone else.  And that’s great – because it’s great to be reminded that this story is not just for some people.  But this morning we hear the birth story that’s meant for us.

And where Matthew’s birth story is short on plot, it is long on symbolism and theology.  The story of Jesus’ birth in Matthew is meant to connect Jesus to the Jewish story and faith.  Matthew is the gospel that starts out with a long genealogy: painstakingly proving that Jesus is a descendent of David.  Every part of the story of Jesus’ birth shows him as a fulfillment of scripture.  Through the whole gospel, Matthew goes to great lengths to show that Jesus is not something new – Jesus is a fulfillment of the entire Jewish faith.  He’s the new Moses.  He is the embodiment of religion.

In Matthew, Jesus is not a leader of a new religion – he’s a leader for the already religious…and as such, Jesus calls the people back to their roots – back to the Torah and the prophets.  The message of Jesus’ birth is a message for the religious community that when God comes in human form, God comes as the law in human form.  “Emmanuel,” or God-with-us, means God’s law and prophets among us in the person of Jesus. 

As insiders, the message of Jesus’ birth is:  We are called to a higher way of life – a life of righteousness and justice.  And it’s a hard message.  We tend to like the Luke message better.  In Luke, you get the idea that Jesus is a corrective to religion.  In Matthew, you get the idea that Jesus is a religious corrective to a community that had lost its way.  Both messages, in my humble opinion, have their place…their very important place in our world today.  There are times and places when we need religion completely shattered – we need a message for the non-religious that doesn’t drip with self-righteousness.  But there are times we, the religious, need to be reminded of what good religion is.  We need to be reminded that our tradition – at its best – is our backbone.  Because our religious tradition is about how to be a people of God – set apart from the world.

Matthew is the only gospel to use the word, “church.”  And the word in Greek is “ekklesia,” which literally translated means, “called out.”  The church is called out from the world. We are called to be a community that organizes itself based on God’s law as made known in the prophets and Jesus…which is a community that cares for the least, a community that stands outside of the culture in which it is situated, that worships only one God, and not a nation or ideology, or political party, or material goods. 

When we lose our distinctiveness, our separateness, we lose our ability to be an alternative for the rest of the world.  We lose our ability to show a way to live that brings life to all, not just to some. 

We often shy away from a religious message that focuses on our separateness from the world – because it feels elitist and snobby.  And that’s a good instinct, probably.  But in shying away from that, we dilute the message of the gospel of Matthew…which is there is a different way to live than what the world might have us think – and that’s good news.  It’s good news that there is an alternative:  good news for us, and especially good news for those who get crushed by the world on a regular basis. 

Matthew tells his birth story in a way that takes the emphasis off the characters and puts it squarely back on scripture, history, Israel, the Torah, the commandments.  It’s a little story with a big message:  you are a people called to be different in this world, God says, and here is my very own self in human form to show you what that looks like.  My words, my prophets, have not been enough – so I’m sending my very own being to live as a human being among you that you might see with your own two eyes what it means to live by the Torah so that you can be the community I want you to be.

It’s good we have all the gospels.  Because the message of Jesus is not just for the insiders – it’s not just for the outsiders – it’s not just for the saved – it’s not just for the lost.  The message is for all of us.  No matter who we are or where we find ourselves at any given point in life, there is a message of salvation – of hope – for us in our scriptures.

This morning – this Christmas morning as we gather in this sanctuary while so many are still suffering in our world, Matthew reminds us…the church…the insiders…that what saves us is a life that sets us apart from the world.  Or rather, what provides the possibility of salvation for the whole world is when we live a life that is set apart from the world – when we offer an alternative.  We don’t just come to church to figure out how to live as individuals – we come to church to enact every week a different kind of community, a new kind of world. 

And so, this morning, we pause for an hour – we take a step out of the world of presents and sweets, of Christmas trees and stockings – and remind ourselves of the fact that the world needs us: a religious community centered on a life of love, of serving others, of caring for the least and the last, of healing the brokenhearted, of offering peace in response to hatred, of loving enemies.  I’m not saying Christmas is about getting everyone to believe what we believe and behave as we think they should behave.  I’m saying Christmas is, for us – at least in part – about reminding ourselves that the world does need an alternative…and our scriptures – embodied in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – are what we have chosen to guide us in what that alternative looks like.

Mary gave birth to a son, and Joseph named him Jesus:  And in Jesus is embodied the whole of our faith, the whole of who we can be as the church, the whole of the law and the prophets.  What a big message in a little story.  Merry Christmas.  Amen.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Advent Love


Psalm;  Luke
Fourth Sunday of Advent:  December 18, 2011

The angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her she will bear a son is one of those stories we all know as a part of the larger, beautiful story of the first Christmas.  Mary, the willing servant of God, becomes the mother of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  We love Mary: images of her in the stable, with the baby Jesus, make us feel warm and cozy and make us want to sing Silent Night. 

Given that, I realize that when I deconstruct a passage like this one, I risk taking some of the “magic” out of Christmas for folks.  I can tell you I don’t do so lightly; this is, in some ways, a very hard sermon to preach.  But I am going to take the risk for the sake of freeing this story from the past, so that it might inform our faith as we live as Christians in the world today.  That’s your fair warning – but if you hang in there with me, I promise we’ll get to the good stuff…because I do think this is a story full of gospel truth, and one that leads us beautifully into Christmas. 

There are two fundamental problems at work in this story of the annunciation, as it is called.  The first problem is with the author, and the second problem is with us…the readers. 

The problem with the author is that he was a human being – affected by his culture and setting – just as we all are.  This is not something he could fix, nor should we have an expectation that it could have been otherwise.  But he was human, and the images and metaphors used in this story were conceived at a time when views on women and what their role was were – well, let’s just say they were not exactly enlightened by our standards. 

Throughout the bible – written mostly by men – women, with scant few exceptions, are portrayed as being valuable solely for their ability to produce sons.  And worse, when we read these stories, we see that the men didn’t believe women had, or should have had, any say in their role in reproduction.  Most of the time, as these authors tell it, God comes in and announces to a woman she’s going to have a child, whether she likes it or not.

In the case of our passage today, not only does God, through the angel, announce that Mary will have a child, but the way in which she will conceive, and the images the author uses to describe this conception, is problematic for many women – specifically for some women who have experienced sexual abuse.  The images of the Holy Spirit overpowering Mary’s body in order to impregnate her are based in a culture that had little or no sensitivity to issues surrounding abused women.

I know this is not something we want to think about…but we don’t live in the same culture as the authors, and we do have a choice about whether to be sensitive to such things.  And knowing that at least 1 in 6 women have experienced such abuse, we would do well to choose sensitivity – at least in the form of rejecting this particular image as revelatory of the God of love who stands with the abused – not in power over them. 

We hear this story year after year, and I know for a fact it stirs up terrible feelings and memories for some women…so if we are going to read it here in this space – this sanctuary that is supposed to be safe and life-giving – we need to acknowledge this and say out loud that in this space we reject such images for God…we reject a God that would ever employ such tactics.

Does that mean we need to reject this story entirely?  I struggle with this.  There is much in the bible that is colored by biases, prejudices, and misconceptions based on the culture of the time.  But it’s anachronistic to blame the authors for this, and it’s also a mistake to assume they have nothing profound to say just because they were creatures of their culture.  These are inspired people of faith, and they are exceptional writers, human though they are. 

If we’re careful and if we do acknowledge those places where human frailty slips in, I think instead of rejecting the whole shebang, we are best off re-imagining these stories for today, rejecting the parts that are bound by that culture and embracing the truths these authors were trying to proclaim.  And of course we do so knowing we are bound by our culture and limitations and biases, and faithful people in the future will have to re-imagine the story for their day, shedding the images steeped in our cultural prejudices. 

But, the bottom line for me is there is something core in this story that can be meaningful for us if we reject the images some fine painful, and re-imagine something life-giving.

Which leads us to our second problem:  us.  The author was trying to describe an experience and understanding of God, and to do so he used metaphor.  As I have said before, sometimes only metaphor will do when speaking of the divine, because we are trying to point to something that transcends us, transcends our language and experiences – and that is a job for metaphor.  Think of all the metaphors the authors of our scriptures use to try to describe who Jesus was relative to God:  Lamb of God; Word of God.  Obviously, the author didn’t think Jesus was a barn animal with four legs.  These are metaphors.  And “Son of God” is one more metaphor meant to say something about Jesus, but doesn’t literally mean he is God’s biological child.  And the virgin birth is a metaphor meant to point to a truth about our relationship with God, not to make a declaration about a biological fact.

We make the mistake of trying to read this story as if the author meant it literally or as an historical account.  And so we get caught up in the virgin birth, whether such a thing happened, whether such a thing is a miracle.  We get caught up in thinking of Mary as Jesus’ mother and God as Jesus’ father as if they form a nuclear family of sorts.  And then we try to figure out who Joseph is in all that.

This literalizing of the story creates all kinds of problems.  For some it’s been emblematic of why they reject the faith altogether, knowing a virgin birth is not literally possible and so they can’t participate in a religion that would claim otherwise.  For others it has led to a faith in a magical God that points a finger and makes miraculous things happen, which creates problems in thinking about how God moves and acts in our world today.

In addition, I think to understand this story literally confines the truth of it in people who lived 2000 years ago, and so we miss entirely what it might say for us today.  We make Mary into an idol – the one and only chosen for this miraculous act…unique because she was able to conceive a child without ever having sex.  We make the birth of Jesus into an extraordinary, supernatural event that happened 2000 years ago – something that has never happened since.  In doing so, we forget that, in part, these characters are stand-ins, symbols, for other things – they transcend their time, and the symbols point to universal truths, not just particular events.

So if we let go of culturally limited metaphors and a literal reading of this story, we’re prepared to look for its core meaning or message.  This is where it gets good. J  This is where we see it’s not just about an extraordinary event in the past, but about extraordinary possibilities today.

Let’s begin with what the angel says to Mary.  The first thing the angel says is “Greetings favored one – Yahweh is with you.”  Mary, we’re told, pondered what sort of greeting this might be because she was perplexed – so I decided to ponder it a bit myself.

I spent some time this week with this word – the word “favored.”  As I looked at the Greek, it seemed clear to me that this does not mean that Mary was more special than everyone around her, and that is why God “chose” her.  A better, if more awkward, translation would be to say, “Greetings one whom God has made grace-filled, lovely, and blessed.”  In other words, God has made Mary beloved.  And we know, from looking at all of scriptures, this is something God has done for all of human kind.  Our baptism in Christ clothes us with the character and nature of Christ, the one about whom God said, “This is my child, my beloved.”  This greeting to Mary is God’s greeting to us – all of us, even the most lowly, poor, broken, and lost.

This event begins – is entirely rooted in – love: the love between God and human kind.  And when we start with this love, our passage tells us, miraculous things are born.  This is why the author had to make God the partner of Mary in all this.  This is divine-human love, not just the love between two human beings.  This is a story about connection with something in the universe that by its very nature moves toward goodness, justice, and peace.  And that connection, initiated by God and embraced by us, is the beginning of the story of our faith.

When we begin with this love…when we connect with the divine, something is born among us that is pure, unbridled, possibility.  This is what we see in Jesus.  Jesus, the product of divine-human love, was both pure possibility and the model of how humans can make this possibility a reality.  Through love, something emerges in our world that is the seed of the Realm of God…and if we nurture the seed, tend to the possibilities, participate in its growth, this Realm will become real all around us.  Today. 

So how do we connect with that love?  This is where we need new images and metaphors.  And they don’t come easy when talking about something that is just beyond our imagination.  And we’re as susceptible to limitation and cultural constraint as the gospel writer was.  But if we can re-imagine that Holy Spirit not as the divine one overpowering us – overshadowing us – but as inviting us, I think we have a good start.  We do, like Mary, have to consent to participating in God’s love…we have to respond in faith; we say with Mary, “Here I am.”  But we are compelled to do this not by the force of the spirit, but rather by the allure of love…pure love, which is gentle, kind, forgiving, transforming, hopeful, and just…and inviting. 

The holy spirit – divine love – invites us to participate in the movement of the spirit.  And when we do, possibilities are born.  More is waiting to be born.  That’s the message of Advent.  And in this coming week, when we celebrate and remember Jesus’ birth – let’s remember where it began:  In divine-human connection and love.  May Christmas this year be an invitation to you to participate in that love that Christ might be born again and again in our midst.  Amen.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Advent Joy



Isaiah 61:1-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22
Third Sunday of Advent:  December 11, 2011

God speaks through the prophet Isaiah:  “Everlasting joy shall be theirs.”  Whose?  Everlasting joy will be whose?  When we talk about joy in advent what kind of joy are we talking about – and for who?  Is this the joy we feel when we see a long lost friend?  The joy our kids feel on Christmas morning when they see the big gift from Santa?  The joy people feel when they’re on a great vacation?  I don’t think so.  All of that joy is great – it’s all important and to be relished. 

But that’s not the advent joy. That’s not the joy Isaiah is writing about when he says on God’s behalf, “everlasting joy will be theirs.”  That’s not the joy Paul is asking the Thessalonians to have when he writes, “rejoice always.”  That’s not the joy the Psalmist means when he says, “those who go out weeping shall come home in joy.”  Advent joy is a fairly particular thing – and it is certainly far more than happiness, and far more than our own personal highs.

“Everlasting joy will be theirs,” is the start of a longer sentence.  It goes on, “For I, Yahweh, love justice.”  The joy of which Isaiah writes is the joy people who suffer injustice feel when God’s justice is realized in our midst.  This is joy for the ones to whom the prophet has come to preach:  the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the imprisoned, the captives.  “The spirit of God is upon me,” Isaiah writes.  “God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to prisoners.”  Everlasting joy will be theirs.  Biblical joy is tied to God’s justice.  And the joy of Advent – the joy of Christmas is no different.

These words of Isaiah should ring very familiar to all of us.  The Prince of Peace, the bringer of all joy, the one who we celebrate at Christmas, announced his ministry in the same way…in fact, according to the gospel of Luke, chapter 4, he uses Isaiah’s words and makes them his own:  “The spirit of Yahweh is upon me,” Jesus proclaims.  “God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, heal the brokenhearted, deliver the captives…”  There is no doubt that joy is a core part of the Christian faith – but it is a very particular kind of joy, and when we’re honest with ourselves, we realize it’s joy for very particular kinds of people:  the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the oppressed. 

This joy is not the same as happiness – the same as a temporary moment on a good day.  This is not joy that comes with a $20 gas voucher and a food box from Mica.  This joy comes from a world turned completely around.  This joy comes when wrongs are set right and imbalances are balanced.  Both Isaiah and Jesus, in announcing their ministries, go on to say they have come to proclaim the “year of Yahweh’s favor.”  This is language that would have struck a chord with the people at the time, but might escape us if we haven’t read our Leviticus lately.  “The year of Yahweh’s favor,” is not the equivalent of “A particularly good year in history.”  It means the year of Jubilee. 

The year of Jubilee was to be built into the cycles and rhythms of the lives of the Hebrew community.  In the year of Jubilee, all debts were forgiven.  During the Jubilee property and people held as payment for debt were returned to the families to which they originally belonged. The use of the Leviticus language in Isaiah 61 is an indication that the joy proclaimed will be felt when there is a permanent, new social and economic system within the community.

Jubilee was to set things right again.  To undo all the disparities that inevitably arise in human society.  Jubilee frees people – both those responsible for their own situation and those not.  There are no qualifications.  The year of Yahweh’s favor is the great new beginning!  And for the losers in the world, that beginning could not be better news.

The hard truth in that is that for the “winners” in the world – the ones who are owed money, the ones who own the land, the ones who profit from the labor of others, the ones whose bottom line grows as the lives of others become more desperate – well, this whole jubilee thing may not have been such great news.  It may not have caused them joy.  In fact, there is no evidence to support that it ever actually happened.  Which is probably because the ones who were charged with declaring that year of jubilee, for enforcing the ethic, were the pretty much the winners.

Isaiah’s words, “Everlasting joy will be theirs,” were spoken to the winners and losers alike: and I’m sure reactions were as varied then as they would be today, because it meant very different things to different people depending on their station in life.  Once again, as we read from the book of Isaiah, we need to remind ourselves of the backdrop for our passage.  The book of Isaiah is split into three parts:  The first part takes place immediately before the Babylonians come to Jerusalem, devastate the temple, conquer the land and the people, and force all of the Jewish leaders into exile.  The second part was written during the long years of exile when the people were separated from their homeland and most felt separated from the God they knew and trusted.  And the third part – which is where our passage is situated – was written after the Jews were returned to Jerusalem. 

This was supposed to be an amazing time!  The people thought they should be rejoicing because all their problems had been solved.  God had heard their cries, brought them out of oppression, and back to the promised land.  But joy was elusive, and the prophet gives them a hint as to why that is.  There are still oppressed people, he says.  There are people with broken hearts, there are people captive in all sorts of ways.  The community was back in the promised land, but they were far from the nation God called them to be.  The sadness the prophet is addressing rises out of frustration and humiliation over the failure to rebuild the city and the temple to match its former glory, and the failure to reconcile the economic disparities within the city.

But the prophet assures the people that this sadness is not a permanent state.  Joy will be theirs.  But how does this joy come?  Well, Isaiah said he came to bring it.  Jesus said he came to bring it.  But neither stopped there.  Not even remotely.  You shall be called priests,” Isaiah says. You shall be called ministers of God.”  Isaiah is speaking to people who have been brought back from Babylon to Jerusalem by the God of justice, and they are being reminded that they are brought there for a reason.  And as soon as Jesus announces his ministry, we know he goes out and calls the first disciples, then walks them around Israel showing them the places in need of ministering.  Everything is in ruins, and God is calling on them to build up the very city of God – the city of justice and righteousness like has never been seen before.

For those who were to be the ministers and disciples, such a call would require of them a lot.  This required a time of jubilee – a reversal.  This required a departure from the old way of life, and it would require sacrifice, creativity, compassion, and work.  And I’m sure that was hard for some to hear.  As much as the losers would have welcomed such a message and ministry, some undoubtedly found it challenging.  We know from Jesus’ life, some even found it threatening and they resisted it to the point of putting Jesus to death.

Maybe we find it daunting too.

But in advent, we ask God to come again.  In advent, when we read Isaiah, we ritually cry out for God to send a prophet to proclaim the year of God’s favor so that everlasting joy will be theirs.  As we do, we must heed Paul’s words to the Thessalonians to not despise the words of the prophets; to not allow the words of the prophets to go in one ear and out the other…even when we find them daunting and challenging. 

And we must heed the words of Isaiah.  We are the ministers of God.  We must build up the city of God out of the ruins of injustice.  We have been anointed to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.  And perhaps scariest of all – perhaps most provocatively – we are called to proclaim…to usher in…the year of God’s favor – the jubilee – and all the radical economic policy and upheaval that implies….both for our own lives, and for the systems of the world. 

When we do…when we heed the prophet’s words, when we sign up as Jesus’ disciples, when we usher in the year of jubilee…everlasting joy will be theirs; those who go out weeping will come home in joy.  In fact…when such a time of jubilee comes, we can all rejoice together.  Amen.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Advent Peace



Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85; Mark 1:1-8
Second Sunday of Advent:  December 4, 2011


There is something so familiar about this time of year.  People counting down the shopping days until Christmas, trying to get presents for everyone on their list.  The decorations in the stores look pretty much the same from year to year.  Santa appears in the same malls, kids on their laps, elves at their side. 

And the decorations and shopping mania are not the only parts of our lives that seem the same.  The political discussions, the ongoing wars, the continued gap between the rich and the poor – sometimes it feelings like nothing changes. 

And the church is not immune to this never-ending cycle that brings the same old thing.  We too are back where we started as we move yet again through another season of Advent.  Year after year we come to the same seasons, same sounding lectionary texts, same sermons, same colors, same candles. 

We’re supposed to see Advent as a season of hope and expectation, but one might wonder how we can say anything about hope.  Hope at its simplest is the idea of difference, a disjuncture, a break into the constant repetition.  In other words, if we find ourselves back at the same place every year and things seem pretty much the same, what kind of conversation can we have about hope.

This week our Advent word is peace, and there may be no better example of this problem of same old same old than the issue of peace.  We might hope for peace – but how foolish is that, really?  When has there ever been peace on earth?  Isn’t it incredibly naïve to say, “let there be peace in Israel and Palestine?” Aren’t there always going to be wars…won’t there always be people who don’t get along and use violence to settle their differences?  What does it mean in Advent, the season of hope and expectation, to talk about peace?

Truthfully, when we read the bible, we encounter a similar problem.  We have numerous examples of God promising to make things right, and then the people ending up – yet again – living under the oppressive rule of some foreign nation, writing – yet again – about hoping God will come and set things right.  Look at our passages this morning:

Remember that the book of Isaiah is divided into three parts – each part taking place at a different time in history.  Chapter 40 – where we find our passage – is the beginning of the 2nd part of the book.  When the prophet speaks the word of God to the people, they have been living with 150 years of silence from their God.  They have been living in exile under the thumbs of the Babylonians.  “Peace,” has not been their reality for generations.  And the first words they hear from God are words of peace – Comfort, comfort my people.  God says they have suffered enough – their sins have been forgiven, and now God is going to lead them back to the promised land.  Peace at last.  It is a VERY hopeful passage.

Then, we fast forward 500 years, and lo and behold, things are again not good.  While they are no longer living in exile, the Jewish people are living under Roman occupation – and there is certainly no peace.  They have staged an uprising, and the Romans responded with shock, awe, and destruction of the people and the temple.  Isaiah may have promised peace – but if it ever happened, it certainly didn’t last.  It’s just the same old story:  Here comes Mark with his word of hope – his promise of good news and peace, but, we’ve heard that tune before.

In fact, in what can seem almost like resignation, the author of Mark repeats the words from Isaiah that promise God’s coming, as if nothing had happened since Isaiah spoke them 500 years ago.  No, really, NOW, prepare the way.  God really, truly, is coming to set things right – to bring peace to earth. 
Same old, same old.

Now, fast forward 2000 years, and here we are in Advent – and as we do every year, we once again say “Something huge is about to happen.  When God takes on human form, peace comes to earth.” Then, Christmas comes and goes, and with the exception of a new trinket or two, there is nothing new in our lives – nothing new in our world.  How many times can we say God is coming, and peace is coming, and good news is coming, without looking like foolish idiots as the world continues in poverty, hunger, and wars?  When, exactly, is that great thing going to happen?

Well, when we look back at our scriptures, we realize Isaiah and the author of Mark aren’t just saying something great is about to happen that will set everything right again.  Both remind us that for this great thing to happen, preparation is necessary.  The people get to hear the words of comfort because God is going to lead them out of Babylon and give them a new, peace-filled kingdom; but then they are told in no uncertain terms:  “Prepare the way of Yahweh!”  Yahweh’s coming, but there is work to do to make it possible. 

Last week we said that when we skip advent and go right to Christmas, we miss the hope because Advent is in part about acknowledging that all is not well in this world, and God’s word is still desperately needed and hope is only real when this is acknowledged.  This week, we see that when we skip advent, we will miss out on peace because Advent is in part about the preparation that is necessary for peace to come.

And just as it is hard to acknowledge and feel that all is not well in the world, it is hard to prepare for peace – at least if we trust our scriptures.  It’s hard for three reasons:  First, preparation must take place in the wilderness.  Second, it involves moving heaven and earth.  And third, it’s deeply humbling.

In both Isaiah and Mark, the preparation happens in the wilderness.  And that’s no accident, of course.  It is in the wilderness that peace is needed.  We are called to the margins – to be in the midst of those places of chaos and violence – offering God’s word of Comfort and promise of peace.  If not physically, at least emotionally.  And when we go to the margins, head into the wilderness, and make such a claim, like John the Baptist with his hairy jacket and scary diet, we’ll likely look crazy at first.  But it’s necessary, because people need to believe in the possibility. 

More than that – when we look at John the Baptist – we see that he proclaims the possibility, but tells them it’s time to turn from the old ways and look for something new.  Repentance – it means “turn around.”  Look for a new way, because the old way isn’t working. 

So we’re out in the wilderness, proclaiming the possibility of peace, and calling people to turn from the old and look to the new, and that’s a hard place to be: and now, we have to move heaven and earth.  We have to prepare a highway for God – it’s up to us.  And Isaiah tells us what this entails:  We have to lift up the valleys and bring the mountains low.  We have to smooth out any rough land we find.  When we think about what this means in real life, it really does feel like moving heaven and earth. 

This is the leveling that brings justice to our world.  This leveling does away with disparities in wealth.  This leveling makes the vulnerable less vulnerable and offers equal protection for all.  This is the work of changing laws, changing hearts, changing systems.  And so it’s hard.

After taking the risk to be with those in wilderness, after working to move heaven and earth, our reward is to be deeply humbled. This work is long, often thankless, and you don’t always get to see the end product.  The people are like grass, Isaiah reminds us.  We wither and fade and die.  It can feel like all of our work is for naught.  It can feel like nothing ever changes, no matter how hard we work.  Very few of us get to be heroes in the work for peace – in fact what we usually learn is that the work for peace is antithetical to hero-making.  It is about realizing we need each other.  Sometimes it is about becoming as vulnerable as our brothers and sisters in solidarity and compassion.  This is not work for those who need their egos stroked.

Preparation is hard:  It happens in the wilderness, it is like moving heaven and earth, and it is humbling.  But the reward of that hard work – the reward of Advent…of preparing…. is peace.  True peace – like the peace described by the psalmist.  Peace that embraces – that kisses – justice.  The Psalm is different from our other two passages.  This isn’t just another writer telling people hard times are about to be over and God is coming to set things right.  The Psalm is envisioning a realm of complete peace – but it’s based on what God has already done in the past. 

The Psalmist is reminding people of God’s peace…what it looks like, what it feels like.  O Yahweh, you were favorable to your land; you did forgive the people.  And so, once again, God will speak peace to the world.  And this peace is one that takes for granted the preparations:  it is a peace full of justice.  A peace that comes when the rough ways have been made smooth.  When the wealth disparities have been made level.  When the highway for God has been laid down and people have been led from bondage to freedom.  And we know it’s possible, because we know about the Exodus.  We know about the promised land.  We know God is ready to bring peace when we prepare the way.

And this is a peace that is not just a cease-fire.  It is one where Israelis and Palestinians have come to terms with one another as human beings.  It is a peace won through nonviolent means.  It is a peace that is not kept by a military, but by consistent justice. 

Advent is a time of preparation:  a time to prepare for such a peace.  And it is possible – God is speaking this peace into the world.  God speaks in places where people protest nonviolently.  Where people seek the welfare of the most vulnerable.  Where people try to understand each other.  Where people live and work together despite differences.  Where people do the work to make the uneven ground level and the rough places smooth. 

What will we do to prepare the way for Yahweh’s peace?  What will each of us do to make way in our hearts, our lives, our communities, and our world for a peace that kisses justice?  Will we work to end the wealth disparity in Grinnell?  Will we work to support nonviolent protestors in countries like Egypt?  We will work to make national and international laws more just and protective of the vulnerable?  Prepare the way of Yahweh.  In the wilderness, make a highway for our God.  That is our advent work – and that is what leads to the peace of Christmas: that is what prepares the way for the birth of the Prince of Peace among us.  Something big really can happen:  If we prepare for it.  Amen.