Advent 2
December 7, 2008
Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
What brought you to church this morning? What do you suppose brought great numbers of people into the desert to be baptized by John the Baptist and to hear him preach? Could it have been the same thing which brought those many people together after Jesus’ resurrection to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? And how about the crowds of people who came to mountains and rivers, to cities and towns, to farms and villages to hear Jesus preach and to be healed by him? What do you suppose brought them to such places? Before we try to answer these questions, I want you to notice one word I used in asking them. The word is “brought.” I did not ask, why did you come to church this morning? Or what made you come to church this morning? The question I asked is what brought you here?
It seems to me that our coming to church has to be about something more than our own self-will, or desire, or curiosity or even force of habit. I can’t imagine anyone willingly or habitually taking a Sunday morning to attend church. But here we are. There are so many other choices we have and other decisions we might make about how we will spend our Sunday morning, but something keeps bringing us back to this place. By the same token, I can’t imagine why large numbers of wealthy and sophisticated Jews would choose to leave the comforts and conveniences of their life in Jerusalem to spend time with a wild-eyed prophet in the desert. But they came, and they were baptized, and they repented of their sins. Nor can I imagine what would bring great numbers of intelligent strangers together on that day of Pentecost without knowing exactly why, to anticipate an event they could never have imagined. But they came, and their experience of Pentecost united them to go into the world to establish the Church. And as I read the stories of Jesus life and ministry I certainly can’t imagine why people would choose to deny themselves food and shelter and other necessities, and take a lengthy journey besides, to be instructed in the ways of God by a relatively unknown and little regarded itinerant teacher named Jesus. It seems to me that it has to take more than will, or desire, or curiosity or habit to bring people like us to places like these, to be in the company of people we would not even necessarily choose to spend our time with.
So what is it that brings us to church? What has brought people together throughout our religious history to worship and to learn and to serve their God? I believe the answer is inherent in the question. We don’t bring ourselves to church at all, and anyone who believes people choose to come to church each Sunday of their own volition is seriously mistaken. Truth be told, humankind does not willingly make such choices. Our self-will and selfish-desire and self-interested curiosity cause us to make different choices for our life, choices given to us by our world which satisfy our material wants and needs in the moment. So there must be a deeper truth and a much bigger reality going on in us when we find ourselves being brought and led to places like these. Something more than ourselves; something larger than this life; something greater than our own will, or desire, or curiosity. Something so powerful it can break human habits which have been formed over time and open up new possibilities for living our life.
We all know who this power is. And our experience of God in scripture and in our life helps us know where this power comes from. What brings people like us to places like this is not about what we do. What brings us here is about what God does. We are here today because of a response we made to our God who calls to us with a voice from outside us and leads us by his Spirit from within us. And our response cancels all the other choices we might consider out of our own self-will, our own selfish-desire, our own self-interested curiosity and out of habit.
Speaking for myself, I know what brought me to church today, and it wasn’t a paycheck. If I had listened to the voices of this world a few years ago I would still be teaching and making a lot more money which would buy me many more things the world has to offer. But I am here this morning. And what brought me to church today as your priest has brought me to church throughout the many decades of my life. Even when I wanted to stay in bed on a Sunday morning, even when I entertained the thought that I might miss a meeting or an event for something more interesting or entertaining. Even when I was simply exhausted from a long day of teaching and coaching. Even in those times I call the desert places of my life when I felt that God was far from me. What brought me to church and continues to bring me to church is the compelling voice of God who calls me from without, and the compelling hand of his Spirit which leads me and guides me from within, right through the many other choices this world offers, to the place where God chooses for me to be.
This is why you and I came to church this morning. God brought us here. And while most of us can identify that first person in our life who brought us here, we can be certain that God was acting through that person as well. But what kept us coming back. What keeps us coming back until we form a holy habit is a voice more authentic than the voice of a relative or a friend, something more enduring than the voices of this world, something more powerful than the voice of our own self-will. It was, and continues to be, God. For those of us who are hearing the voice of God in our scriptures in this season of Advent, they seem to carry a message which the world desperate wants to hear. A message which address so directly our present crises in our world and our fearful and inadequate responses to them.
Our lesson from Isaiah speaks to us at a time when the people of Israel are returning to their homeland after decades of exile. God speaks through Isaiah to tell his people that they are to comfort each other as they deal with the destruction of their once beautiful city and with the desolation in their hearts. As God’s Spirit guides them from within, they hear his voice from without. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord…lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem…Do not fear…Here is your God.” And so God meets Israel’s hope and expectations. He brings his people home. But it is not their own self-will, it is not their own effort, it is not their own choices which bring them the prosperity they enjoy in rebuilding their lives. It is the voice of God who speaks through his prophet, and it is the hand of God which gathers them like a shepherd, and provides for their need, and leads them gently home to places of peace and prosperity in their heart and in their world.
It is not difficult to recognize our need of such a voice in our world today. So many people in our nation are experiencing the same fear and uncertainty about our future in our own homeland as we face an economic crisis which affects everyone at every level of society. We are all listening desperately to the voices of our leaders in the hope that they will bring us out of this mess. They are voices which are desperate to put away our fears, and desperate to bring us the same comfort and hope and rekindle our expectation that this nation will repent of its ways and return to the high principles on which it was founded; principles which serve the common good of all her people. The problem, however, is this. Human voices alone will not bring us out of this mess, or any other crisis for that matter; nor can we be led by the guidance of human institutions which make imperfect laws and oversee them imperfectly. Experience has shown us that human voices which attempt to govern by human will and self-seeking, self-serving agendas are bound to fail. Only God’s voice can call us to repentance; only God’s hand can lead us and guide us in the way we must go to rebuild our human communities for our common good.
I imagine, and I would like to believe, that the severity of our economic crisis has brought many people to their knees lately; perhaps even into our churches. Because this is the only place they will hear the voice which can comfort us and instruct us; it is the only place where God’s Spirit can empower us to righteous action. Dealing with our crisis is certainly going to take much more than repentant CEO’s of the leading automobile industries to park their private jets parked to ride together in hybrid vehicles to senate meetings. But it’s a start. Meanwhile, we continue to depend on the only reliable indicator of hope and fear—the stock market. A frail reed, at best, which seeks its own self-serving agendas and the self-fulfilling prophecies of human greed by people who manipulate it for their own purpose.
Meanwhile, the messages we hear in our scriptures for Advent only reinforce our need of God at this time in our world and in our life. Who will comfort those who have lost their homes or their jobs or their retirement money or their pensions? How do we repent of the actions which are bringing us to ruin? What economic plan will redeem us in these places and give us hope that our nation will once again meet the high expectations God has of us? What voices do we listen to? Who can we trust to lead us and guide us back to a place of peace and prosperity? We know who we can count on for the answers to these questions. The question is who is listening.
Just as God gave voice to Isaiah to lead and guide Jewish exiles to rebuild Jerusalem, God gives voice to Peter in today’s Epistle lesson. Peter assures his congregation of believers that God will keep his promise of redemption. Redemption might take a long time in coming, says Peter. But we need to be patient; moreover, we need to live in the hope and expectation of that promise. In the meantime, while we wait patiently for God, we are to live lives holiness and godliness because this will make us ready to receive the redemption he promises. But Peter makes one thing clear: holiness and godliness can only come to those who are willing to repent of the unholy and ungodly things we do against God and against each other. Then there is John the Baptizer. God speaks through his voice in Mark’s gospel to call people repentance which so that they will be prepared to receive the One who will come after him, Jesus. Jesus who will not only speak to us in God’s voice, but who will lead us and guide us into righteousness by his own teaching and example.
It is no accident that Mark begins his gospel, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And it is no accident that Mark believes repentance is the first message he must send if we are to begin living in the promises of the good news of the Gospel. If we are not willing to turn away from our personal and collective sins of self-will and self-reliance as a people and a nation; if we are not willing to put away self-seeking and self-serving and turn our lives to serving God’s purposes for us, then we will not be ready or able to receive the good news of redemption.
This morning, God is speaking to us through the voices of Isaiah and Peter and John and we need to listen to them. We need to turn down the volume on all the other voices in us and around us so that we can hear God’s voice and the voices of those he speaks through. We need to go deeper than the devices and desires of our own heart to find what God desires for us; we need to let God’s Spirit lead us and guide us through the destruction and desolation of the bad choices and decisions we have made so that we can get to that place where the best and only choice we have is to follow where God’s voice calls us and go where God’s hand leads us. Only then can we serve God’s purpose for us in this world; only then can we become the people and the nation God yearns for us to be.
But there is good news for those of us who are gathered here today is this: It did not take a crisis to bring us to church. We have been coming here right along. But we need to remember why God brought us here, and why we keep coming back. Because this is where we can hear God’s voice above all others; this is where God’s Spirit empowers us to live the good news of the gospel. This church is Isaiah’s Jerusalem to his people in exile. This church is Peter’s holding place for those who wait and hope for God’s promised redemption. This church is John’s desert for those who come here for repentance and renewal. This church is Jesus’ mountaintop and the shoreline where he puts his boat out on the water; this church is the village he visits and the road he journeys on with us. This church is where we receive Jesus at his birth, where we suffer with Jesus at his death, and where we rise with Jesus to new life in resurrection.
It is impossible for me to think that people would willingly choose to come to a place like this. I can only believe that it is by an act of God and a surrender of self-will that we are here. And I know that God brought us here for a larger purpose than our own enjoyment of this church and its people. God is preparing us to be his voice and his hands and his heart in this world. Like Isaiah, God would have us be a voice of comfort and care for hurting people. Like Peter, God would have us be a voice of patience and hope for despairing people. And like John, God would have us leads others to the One who came after the Baptist; the One who will come to us once again at Christmas to remind us that God continues to redeem us, not FROM the messes we make in this world, not FROM the crises we create for ourselves; God continues to redeem us IN them.