Sermon: December 6, 2009

In the church, as we light the second candle on the Advent Wreath, we are usually focusing on our journey toward the manger with Mary and Joseph, where the ordinary is transformed into the extraordinary of God. But this year, before we could even think about traveling to Bethlehem we have been thinking instead about Pasadena. Roses have sold faster than poinsettias and the colors of the season have been green and yellow instead of green and red. Duck flags instead of Christmas trees have topped our cars and travel agents are booking trips to the Rose Bowl instead of trips to visit grandparents. But now that the Ducks have made it to the big game and Chip Kelly’s birthday will be declared an official holiday in the city of Eugene, it’s time to turn our attention back to Bethlehem!

I think we know the story of the journey to Bethlehem by heart. With scripture and carols as our reference, there is little need for a map or a GPS to guide our way. But this year, like every other year, as we make our way to the manger, we hit a bump in the road and that bump is named John the Baptist!

By now, many of us are familiar with John the Baptist. He spent enough years living out in the desert that he was more than a little rough around the edges. He was dressed in smelly camel’s hair and wild locust and honey dripped off his beard. And if his appearance wasn’t offensive enough, his message sure was! He showed up thundering in the desert, shouting out at those who came to be baptized, “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin!”

We are never ready for John’s message, especially during Advent. I think my job would be on the line if I followed his lead in preaching! If I started this morning by calling you snakes, you would quietly start eyeing the nearest exit. If I continued on in John the Baptist style, I’d raise my voice louder, calling to you as you got up to leave… “Stop! I’m talking about you! Don’t be saying to yourselves ‘I’m close with the Bishop’ or ‘the District Superintendent is my best friend.’ It’s not going to help you to say that ‘my family has been in this church for generations!’” But if I were a preacher like John the Baptist, I would keep right on going. I wouldn’t be worried about job security or my approval ratings. I’d just keep yelling as you walked out the door, “You better get your dirty little self cleaned, and washed or you will burn in hell! I tell you, you better turn yourself around. You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout, and I’m telling you why!” And before I finished, you would be in your car and half way home, never to set foot in this church again!

Why would anybody have listened to John the Baptist? And why do all of the Gospels demand that we listen to him before we can hear Jesus?

We don’t like John the Baptist. Christmas is just a few weeks away and we want to hear about sweet, pure, innocent Mary or honorable, upstanding, do-the-right-thing Joseph. We don’t want to hear from some wild man who eats bugs for lunch and challenges our sensibilities!

We preacher-types don’t like John the Baptist either. We know that most of you don’t come to church to be judged or to be criticized or to be made to feel uncomfortable, so we play it safe with messages like “God loves you just the way you are!” and “you’re doing just fine… don’t change a thing about your life.” We preacher-types would rather stay as far away from John the Baptist as possible!

I read recently about a televangelist who preaches to far more people each and every Sunday morning than I will in my lifetime. 16,000 people were in the sanctuary that morning – so who am I that I should question his message – when he began with the words, “You are good! You mean well. You want to have a happy life, but these negative naysayers keep dragging you down.” (Imagine John the Baptist as a negative naysayer!) The TV preacher made no mention of God but he did advise the listeners to get up each morning, look in the mirror, and say, “I will have a good day! I do believe in me!”

Nobody’s going to walk out the door because of those words. But hasn’t the Gospel been compromised?

Walter Bruggemann, a professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, reflecting on this passage from Luke’s Gospel in this month’s issue of Sojourners Magazine writes, “…the church in our culture has been compromised… the loss of critical edge, a softening of gospel identity, an excessive accommodation to consumerism, a tacit embrace of U.S. military imperialism, a cynical acceptance of social violence, a casual indifference to the suffering of the poor altogether have led to a dulled faith that cannot well receive the Christmas gift of newness.” Brueggeman offers that “John… is a wake-up call to Christians to get back to basics in faith….” And we begin to squirm in our seats, looking around for the nearest exit!

You see, John the Baptist calls us to repentance but repentance isn’t popular. To repent means to think again. John the Baptist pleads with us to think again… think again about our assumptions, about our priorities, about what is most important in life… think again about how we have been living and what we have be doing and where our lives are headed.

John the Baptist has the audacity to stand up and tell us contented, self-satisfied religious folks that we need to change. But more than just telling us that we need to change, he tells us that we can change. And maybe that is why we don’t walk out the door even when we are uncomfortable.

Maybe there is something deep within each one of us that knows that this is the message we need to hear. In our better moments… our most-honest-with-ourselves moments… we know that we are not completely right with God. John the Baptist’s voice sneaks through our defensiveness and reminds us of things we’d rather not know about ourselves… that we have fallen far short of who God has created us to be and what God wants of us and needs of us. It is John the Baptist’s voice crying out in the wilderness that helps us know that we and our world are headed in a different direction than what God wants. But that same voice gives us courage to repent… to think again.

I believe that God is longing for us to think again about our lives and our world as we prepare our hearts to receive the Christmas gift of newness. I believe that God is longing for us to think again about our priorities. Why is it that any person in our community is hungry this morning or slept on the streets last night when we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on one football game? If there is enough money to pay our coaches huge bonuses and our athletic departments huge commissions for playing in bowl games, we can afford to feed and cloth and shelter all of God’s children. As citizens of God’s community, we must think again about witnessing and working for a world beyond war even when we are afraid for our own security. As caretakers of God’s creation, we must think again about the importance of the decisions that must be made at the international climate conference in Copenhagen rather than just our own comfort. As children of God together, we must think again about the status quo that continues to judge humanity by who we know or who we love or how we look or what we believe as we hold tight to our own prejudices. As followers of Christ, we must think again about how we have allowed Christmas to become more about Santa Claus than about the birth of a baby, born to transform the world.

Why do all of the Gospels demand that we listen to John the Baptist before we can hear Jesus? Because John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus. So either head for the nearest exit right now or get yourself ready because we are about to hear “the most difficult, demanding bad news that has ever been called good. We are about to have our world rocked and the tables of our complacency overturned.” The baby whose birth we are about to celebrate will challenge our thinking again and again and again!

I am grateful to Bishop William Willimon, Professor Walter Brueggemann, and David Barnhart for their inspiring ideas and words.