Sermon preached by The Rev'd Lizette Larson-Miller
On Sunday 10th December 2006
Baruch 5:1-9, Philippians 1:1-11; Luke 3:1-6, Psalm 126
"Prepare the way of the Lord, prepare!"
Almost two years ago I was in the Holy Land with a group of English clerics—a sort of double cultural immersion (and sometimes the British clerics were more of a culture shock!) that proved to be wonderful on all levels. On our pilgrimage we visited the Jordan River twice—first at the site in the North, which is run by the Israeli government and has expansive and quite commercial facilities for riverside liturgies and baptisms, and the other farther to the south, on the Jordanian side, which is recognized by the Orthodox churches and increasingly by others as having a much more legitimate claim as being near the place where John preached and baptized. Near the new parking lot, there is a pool—built much like a small hotel pool and filled with purified Jordan River water. There were no tourists or pilgrims there at that convenient spot. Instead, the small groups that were there were escorted at their request by the Jordanian police down a long path, through woods and high reeds, past an archeological site of 3 rd and 4 th century churches, past a beautiful new orthodox church still being built, to a opening by the river. As we walked, we could see an elaborate Israeli complex on the other side of the river, surrounded by barbed wire, but once we dropped down to the level of the river, there were no buildings visible. The river has changed course many times over the centuries, and is now estimated to be about a mile from where it was in the first century. It is a narrow river at this point—brown with mud and sand stirred up from the bottom, surrounded by trees and high grass, and extraordinarily peaceful. We prayed and sang “an appropriate hymn” as we did throughout our several weeks there, and lingered—imagining what had been and what was to come.
The region there, and around Ein Karem, the home of John the Baptist, are hilly and rugged, dotted with caves and isolated, even in the 21 st century. It magnified the sense of being no where central— central to the energy of commerce, of politics, of power, of influence. And yet there history changed forever: “The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness,” and he proclaimed the arrival of the prophecies long awaited “Prepare the way of the Lord—all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
On this second Sunday of Advent we turn from imagining the second coming of Christ to remembering the first coming of Christ—and always through the person of John the Baptist in the gospels. But all our readings today push us toward something new—even while we are pushed and pulled to look both backwards and forwards. The reading from Baruch has a beautiful prayer imbedded in it “Arise, O Jerusalem, stand up on the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.” The word of God is effective—gathering the people of God from west and east, just as the word of God went out to John and drew him into being the word—uttering the old words of God in a new place and time. This same prayer from Baruch reappears in various Christian liturgies throughout history as an expression of the Eucharist - the gathering of God’s people from east and west, rejoicing that their God remembers them just as they remember God.
All of these, pilgrimages, prayers, scriptures, are ways to enter into a relationship with God, but they also have their dangers. The danger in wonderful pilgrimages to the Holy Land—just as in reading stories of long ago and far away—is that they remain historical, remote, other, and separate. John the Baptist, inspired—filled with the spirit of the living God, spoke old words in a new context, and out of that came something very new. Baruch’s prayer—old words, were used in new ways in new liturgies—and took on new life and meaning in that exchange.
One of the books that I use frequently in courses I teach in sacramental theology and liturgical theology is by a Lutheran liturgical theologian, Gordon Lathrop, called Holy Things. In it, Gordon proposes a way to think about the essential elements of liturgy—what he calls the ordo. For him the essentials are the gathered community, the word, the bath and the table. But it is his insight into how this works as always constant and always new that makes the book so valuable. He states that it is this old word of God, heard by new ears, the old meal pattern, celebrated by contemporary people—the old and the new juxtaposed that always creates the living word, the living meal—the old word and our new hearing gives rise to the ongoing word of God, the old meal and the new participants create the life-giving meal. We hear the story of John the Baptist every Advent—but we hear it as a different community this year than last, the juxtaposition creates a new story.
In many ways this is the essence of Advent also, the juxtaposition of old and new—first coming and second coming, the beginning of the year, the dying of the year, the celebration of John the Baptist, the fading of John before the coming of Jesus, a season of preparing for an event that happened two thousand years ago, a season of remembering the stories about what will be, a liturgical season with its own integrity, and yet a season always pointing to its fulfillment elsewhere. It is a season when we put diverse things next to each other—penance and joy, waiting and fulfillment, purple and pink—a season that never settles into a single focus. We are often reminded to use Advent as a time of personal retreat and reflection in language similar to that of Lent— but this is really a very different season than Lent. We never settle on much for long—never even settling on whether we are focused on the second coming of Christ or the first coming of Christ. Because of this it seems less a time for quiet reflection and more a time to be willingly stirred up—which is very much a theme of traditional Advent liturgical texts—“rain down from heaven…stir up in us…keep us watchful and alert.”
These times of stirring up, of not settling into one pattern or another, however, are often the most fruitful times in our lives. We have learned to borrow some of the wisdom of anthropology and sociology in theological circles—the language and understanding of rites of passage. The middle and most fruitful time in a classic rite of passage from one stage to another is the liminal period—on the threshold, neither there nor here, but inbetween. Advent comes to us through the lectionary scripture readings as a liminal time, unsettled, full of opposites and juxtapositions—ready to push us out at the end as a new people, to meet Christmas in a different way, with different insights.
We stirred things up a bit this past Advent week in the diocese—many of us joined the bishop for a march from Grace Cathedral to the Federal Building, where we celebrated a mass on the plaza in remembrance of the hundreds of dead through the Iraqi war and where a number of people then laid down in front of the doors of the Federal Bldg as a protest against the war. The first twelve were arrested—including the bishop. If it went no further than that it would be an interesting and public statement, but the bishop very wisely pointed out that once we’d begun, it would oblige us to continue until real resolutions with regard to the war could be found. I think for many participants it was a one-time event—a liminal stepping out of the normal pattern of life on a Thursday afternoon, but others saw this as a truly Advent event, unsettling, stirring up, juxtaposing old and new with the result at the end as yet unknown. It seemed an embodiment of Paul’s letter to the Philippians today, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” And it is Paul’s letter that reminds us through the unsettledness of Advent (and life), through the liminal periods of fitting nowhere, there is a trajectory, a movement always toward God—the good work begun among us will come to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist heard the word of God that came to him, and became the word—who can imagine what we might do this Advent and in the future if we take in and are transformed by the word of God if we become the most recent utterances of the living God? Prepare the way of the Lord, prepare!