Readings: Bar. 5:1-9; Phil. 1:1-11; Lk. 3:1-6 Advent 2B
December 10, 2000
The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt
(The beginning of this sermon is by The Rev. Karen Siegfriedt,
the ending story is a personal witness by The Rev. Mary Blessing, Associate
Rector.)
St. Jude the Apostle Church, Cupertino CA
"Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight." So says the prophet, John the Baptist, in today's reading from the gospel of Luke.
. It is often said that a prophet's job is to "comfort the afflicted and to afflict those who are comfortable". It is no wonder that most prophets do not have a pension plan! During the season of Advent, which is the four Sunday's preceding Christmas, the Scriptures that are read during the Sunday services usually contain the voice of the prophets. A prophet is one who speaks the truth about God's desire for humanity. Prophets tend to have a strong "crap detector." Sometimes, prophets speak a message of comfort, of hope, of promise, of joy. Sometimes the message is one of affliction, one of wrath, one of punishing the wicked. In fact, most of the prophets in the Bible fluctuate between preaching words of solace and comfort, while at other times, preaching words of anger and punishment. But in both instances, prophets are trying to communicate to God's people the importance of living a life where God is at the center.
. This is the purpose of Advent. To make a place in the human heart where God is at the center. If our hearts are full of envy, judgement, anger, and selfishness, there is no place for love and growth. Then the celebration of Christmas simply becomes an exercise in consumerism & merry making. This week, the line up of prophets read from the Scriptures is Baruch, Paul the Apostle, and John the Baptist. Baruch offers words of comfort, John the Baptist offers words of warning, and Paul is somewhere in between. The problem with prophets is, that not too many folks listen to what they have to say. People are turned off by the "heavy" tone of the prophets' message. How many of you turn the radio station off when a preacher starts talking about the difficult words of the prophets Amos or Isaiah?
Prophets tend to be unpopular because they do not to side with the culture. Instead, they point out the misgivings of the culture and how culture has been unfaithful. Sometimes prophets point to the unethical behavior of the society, such as how we cheat the poor, mistreat those on the margins, and ignore the mental and physically ill. Sometimes prophets give society some religious "tips" on how we can be more faithful. Prophets point to self-sacrifice, repentance, and righteousness. However today, like in ancient biblical times, few people listen, and it is easy for prophets to become pessimistic, isolated, and depressed. This often happens to parish priests who become too prophetic.
According to the Thomas Bandy in his book Kicking Habits, personal transformation must precede social change. This means that people need to experience a personal transformation of the heart before they are willing to hear and respond to the harsh but realistic views of the prophets. Let me give you an example.
Last Monday, I read an article in the Mercury News which spoke about chronic diseases in Russia. Chronic diseases such as lung and liver problems due to smoking and drinking are so severe that the population in this part of the world is actually decreasing, along with the span of life. The people in Russia have already been given enough information that explains how smoking and drinking and drugs are destructive to their health. They also know that medical care for chronic diseases is limited in their country. A woman with chronic liver involvement was interviewed about her drinking habits and the connection between her drinking and subsequent chronic health problems. She replied, "I just don't care." No one can force anyone to care.
What are we to do? Should we stop prophesying? Should we change the readings in Advent to those nice, warm, and fuzzy statements about love, love, love? I don't think it is either/or proposition. As long as there are people suffering in the world, as long as there is injustice in the world, we need to speak up and we need to listen to those who bear prophetic witness. But if it is true that lasting social change will not happen until people undergo personal transformation, then we have a lot of work to do to make sure our hearts are transformed and ready to embrace a new creation.
The Church puts aside some time every year for people to work on personal transformation. This is the reason for the season of Advent. It is a "time out" in our march towards wholeness where we do some pretty serious contemplation about why we are Christians.
And now, a story of personal transformation, by The Rev. Mary B. Blessing. Some of you may have heard this story. Today I ask you to hear this story in terms of the prophetic witness it offers us in Advent, as we prepare our hearts for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When I was a teenager, 30 years ago, my family experienced a horrible tragedy. My brother died suddenly, unexpectedly, two weeks after Christmas. I was graduating from high school that year, and was planning to spend a year in Europe between high school and college. I thought with this terrible loss, and the grief my family was experiencing, my parents would cancel the trip. But my father thought, no, it would be good to go, my brother would have wanted me to have this experience. So off I went in Autumn.
During Advent that year, I found myself on a Eurail pass, traveling from one grand city to another, visiting beautiful, historic cathedrals with gorgeous stained glass windows, depicting images of Jesus, Madonna and child. Everywhere I went, even most of the museums, I saw image after image of Christ, in paintings, sculptures, and windows.
Preparing for Christ that Advent, I found myself wavering in anticipation, wavering between doubt and faith, knowing this would be the first Christmas without my brother. I wavered between self-pity-'How sad and lonely I am, and no one could possibly understand the pain I feel, my loss is so great'. My soul wavering with a feeling of unexpected anticipation, these holy places, these cathedrals witnessing a great and wondrous truth, Christ is born, Christ is with us. I knew I could make a choice, a choice for self-pity, or a choice for faith. .
As Christmas approached, my parents encouraged me from afar to spend the holidays with a family in England I didn't know, but a priest from back home had said I should visit Edinburgh, Scotland while in Europe. I decided to take the trip to Edinburgh two days before Christmas.
On Christmas Eve I asked the youth hostel host family where the nearest Anglican church was-I wanted to attend midnight mass. (We always went up to Grace Cathedral for midnight mass in San Francisco, so that's what I expected to do.) My hosts stared at me oddly, saying, I don't think they have a midnight mass, but St. Mary's Church is just up the street a few blocks. I went on anyway, to see what I could find to celebrate Christmas Eve.
When I arrived at the church, there was no one there. No mass. No one with whom to share the Christmas story. But I carefully opened the church doors, and entered the empty, dark, cathedral-like church. I went in and sat in the back pews, remembering the Christmas story: Mary, Joseph, the donkey-and that new born baby, Jesus.
Then I decided to get down on my knees and pray. I wanted to pray the prayer that weighed heavily on my heart. It was a simple prayer, the prayer of a girl whose brother had died. But I had to have the answer.
"God, please, I want to know-where is my brother?" I prayed with an open heart as I had never prayed before. And I waited. And I listened. And after some amount of time I received a "knowing", a complete and indisputable "knowing", and I believe it was Jesus answering my prayer "I am with you, and I am with your brother. In me there is no separation between the living and the dead." With this answer came a peace, a calm, a warmth of truth filling my heart, my mind, my soul so completely, with such comfort, I wanted to stay in that moment forever. I never wanted to leave.
After some amount of time, it may have been moments, it may have been an hour, I don't know-I then felt something that was like someone placing their hand under my elbow, lifting me up out of the pew, as if to let me know "now that you fully understand that I am with you, and I am with your brother, you must go-you must go and tell others. You must go and tell all the world."
And so I rose, and almost leapt to my feet, out the church doors and in school girl fashion practically skipped all the way back to the youth hostel, where I told my hosts, "You were right, there was no midnight mass, but I found something even better." And then I went to the phones as soon as I could and called my parents in California, who just waking up to Christmas morning, and told them what I had experienced. I assured them that my brother was well, that he was not alone, and neither were we.
Then I called the priest back home and said, "You were right, Edinburgh IS special-thank you for encouraging me to visit." And then I told him what had happened, and he was delighted in the truth I shared.
Profound moments of truth, encounters with God that reveal His presence at the center of our lives, are not moments for us alone. Yes, it is a good thing to be healed, to receive a moment of personal transformation which brings us individually closer to God, bringing Him into the center of our lives. But such moments are not for us alone.
God gives us such moments of truth-just as he gave such moments to the prophets--Baruch, St. Paul and John the Baptist-not for our individual glory, but so that we may witness God's truth to the world. Yes, we will experience personal transformation in these moments, but they are not for us alone-our personal transformation is made so that we might effect change upon God's creation, to bring all the world into the realization of God's unbounded love for all.
My invitation to you this Advent Season, is that you choose to prepare your hearts to receive the truth that Christ was born to reveal God's love- that you encounter this truth in your life, so that you, too, may be a prophet of God.
AMEN
| Updated 12/23/00 |
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