Sermon 091206

Sermon 12/06/09
Luke 3:1-6

Peace

Something inside of me

has reached to the place

where the world is breathing.

-Kabir

John is one who speaks from the wilderness. He spoke to those who were willing to enter the wilderness to hear him and, perhaps, be baptized by him. These people were, for the most part, disenchanted with the powers that oppressed them. Foreign powers that occupied their land, appointed illegitimate leaders in their temple, increased the tax burden on the poor and enriched the coffers of the wealthy and powerful. Both John's message and actions were enough of a threat in the eyes of the authorities to warrant his eventual arrest and execution. He had been offering to those who came to him something the governing powers deemed subversive. This is often the prophet's task.

Decades after John's death, the author of the gospel of Luke finds in the scroll of Isaiah an ancient prophetic understanding of God's steadfast love for Israel. He uses this scripture to illuminate the meaning of John's life and message. It is, of course, prelude to Luke's understanding of Jesus' life and teaching. Luke quotes a passage from Isaiah, Isaiah 40:3-5. It is part of what scholars call Second Isaiah because it represents material that was spoken while the people of Israel were under Babylonian occupation and many of them had been sent into exile, far away from their homeland.

This morning let's take a look at that original text from Second Isaiah. It speaks to those who are in exile and offers them the promise of restoration and return.
Comfort, O comfort my people,

Says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

And cry for her [proclaim to her]

That she has served her term,

That her penalty is paid,

That she has received from God's hand

Double for all her sins.

You may hear throughout this text echoes of Handel's Messiah; I certainly did.

In much of the prophetic literature the people attempt to see God in everything that happened to them. This often meant that they viewed the tragedies that befell them as a form of divine punishment. That is not the only Biblical way to understand tragedy and suffering. It certainly is not the way I would understand it. The important point is that it was an attempt to see God in everything that happened.
A voice cries out:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of Yahweh,

Note the punctuation: it's different than Luke.

The wilderness was a dangerous place, far removed from the safety and conventions of civilization. In this particular context it represented the desert places that stood between the people in exile and their homeland. It was the area that needed to be crossed if they were to return home. The wilderness as metaphor refers to a place that one does not want to settle down in or live in for very long, but that needs to be entered and crossed in order to get to where you are meant to be. It is a place of growth.

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

The uneven ground shall become level,

And the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of God shall be revealed,

And all people shall see it together,

For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken."

"And all people shall see it together," is a universal revelation of God's glory; this is not merely a regional or tribal revelation.

A voice says, "Cry out!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?"

All people are grass,

Their constancy is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades,

When the breath of God blows upon it;

Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades;

But the word of our God will stand forever.

This reference to the fleeting, temporal nature of human life need not be cause for sadness or despair. It can be cause for cherishing the preciousness of life. Since all people, like grass, wither and face, let's love one another as much as we can, while we can!

In the midst of our fleeting lives there also lies something permanent and enduring: the Sacred; that which we call Divine; that which is always true.

Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good tidings;

Lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings

Lift it up, do not fear;

Say to the cities of Judah,

"Here is your God!"

A call to rejoice in the presence of God, even in the midst of exile!

See, Yahweh comes with might,

And God's arm rules;

This is not the arm of a tyrant! Divine power is an instrument of redemption, not an instrument of oppression.

Yahweh's reward comes

And God's recompense.

And God will feed the flock like a shepherd;

God will gather the lambs in her arms,

And carry them in his bosom,

And gently lead the mother sheep.

More than just a sweet pastoral image. By evoking the Davidic Kingdom it invokes an image of better times. Yet it also contains a more radical idea. Shepherds were peasant nomads who lived on the margins of society. They were not at all very highly regarded and were more likely to be viewed as outcasts who were "out there on the fringe."

Who has measured the waters in the

Hollow of their hand

And marked off the heavens

With a span,

Enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure,

And weighed the mountains in scales

And the hills in balance?

Who has directed the spirit of Yahweh

Or as counselor has instructed God?

Whom did Yahweh consult for enlightenment,

And who taught God the path of justice?

Who taught Yahweh knowledge,

And showed God the way of understanding?

Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

And are accounted as dust on the scales;

. . . .

The prophetic poem continues in a similar vein for several more strophes. It makes the case for an attitude of trust and humility before God culminating by asking the community, "How can you say that God doesn't care or that God won't act on your behalf?" The poem continues;

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

Yahweh is the everlasting God,

The creator of the ends of the earth.

Yahweh does not faint or grow weary;

God's understanding is unsearchable.

Yahweh gives power to the faint,

And strengthens the powerless.

The Divine reversal of human limitations that is so very Biblical! A promise of transformation.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

And the young will fall exhausted;

But those who wait for God

Shall renew their strength,

They shall mount up with wings like eagles;

They shall walk and not faint.

Here we end with the call to wait which is the meaning of Advent. The prophetic call is to an active waiting the lives out of a profound sense of hope, trust, rejoicing and renewal. It is part of the nature and the promise of God with us that even in the midst of exile we shall learn to fly.

This is the hope for and the promise of peace in the ancient Hebrew sense of the word Shalom: it is not just the cessation of violence, but it includes the well-being of the individual, the community and all creation; experiencing the blessing of God, the wholeness God intends for us and all creation.

A contemporary Saint, Mother Teresa, put it this way: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." The Shalom God brings is the universal peace and well-being when we remember that we belong to one another, to God, and to all creation.

Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, in the wilderness; and John went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Sovereign,

Make the paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

And every mountain and hill shall be brought low,

And the crooked shall be made straight,

And the rough places shall be make smooth;

And all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

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