A Sermon Preached by Lee Cheek, Lay Preacher @ St. James & St. George Episcopal Churches @ Crissey Farm, Great Barrington, MA
Advent 2B, December 4, 2011
I have to say that I am refreshed, sobered, and braced by the monumentality of the proclamations from Isaiah and Mark today. Living deeply with them during the past few weeks, I have come to appreciate their beauty, boldness, and confidence about how humankind has slowly been brought into being: how we humans have been led, guided, and ever so patiently and lovingly pulled into a future not completely disclosed to us, yet assuredly will be for us—each one of us without exception.
It is a future difficult to imagine but the signs of it are already here in the shining moments of grace and reconciliation, glimpsed by us in those moments when we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
I hesitate to even name this Living and Acting Presence—the “Who” that has been with us and for us since before the beginning of time. I could use Isaiah’s “Yahweh” which suggests an activeness, or “I AM” which conveys a sense of something we cannot know everything about.
It is easier to say “God”, though to most people these days “God” often means something more like “Top God”—a god who apparently has needed squads of proud cheerleaders over the ages to shout his name loudly and often and to do some pretty unholy things to prove his power. This mostly ends up having people rightfully reject such a false thing in their lives.
Second or “Deutero” Isaiah, the author of chapters 40-55 of the book of Isaiah, wrote during the 50 odd years following the destruction of Jerusalem by the forces of the Assyrian empire in 597 BC. Leaving a helpless remnant of the tribes of Judah behind in the dust and stones of the flattened city and its wrecked, former home of Yahweh, Isaiah and about 4600 others were deported to Babylon (present day Iraq) into a dazzlingly opulent society with grand temples of their more powerful god Marduk. Into a shiny city complete with hanging gardens.
A few days ago, I was trying to imagine the disorientation and the amazement the deportees might have felt on their arrival in their new surroundings. I happened to see a picture on NPR’s website of the world’s largest casino proposed for construction on Biscayne Bay in Miami at a cost of $3 billion.[1] Apparently Babylon is coming to us!
King Nebuchadnezzar thought that he had gotten rid of Yahweh and thus, put his people in despair and humiliation, stripped of their identity as the sons and daughters of Yahweh-Who-Brought-Them-into-Being-from-Nothing.
To be sure, they were well aware of their part in their defeat, having ignored their prophets’ warnings about being unfaithful to Yahweh’s covenant with them which required living up to the imperatives of a just and merciful society: seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.[2]
But before they were brought too low as new consumers of the Assyrian profit-at-any-cost society, Yahweh as lover and gatherer of the weak speaks the word of radical forgiveness to them:
“Comfort ye, comfort ye, for I still believe in you. I am not in my temple because I am here with you in the wilderness of your suffering and shame, ready to gently lead you to our new home together. Position and power mean nothing to me. It’s my Word to you that will carry you through and remain with you forever.”
We hear echoes of these words in the bracing opening of Mark’s testament some 400 years since the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. As a result of the Roman control of Palestine in 63 BC, an uneasy peace has been brokered—but at the price of heavy taxes, control and corruption of the temple priesthood, and puppet rulers whose appetites for wealth and staying in power corrupt and harm everyone down the food chain.
You could hear their cries: "Where is Yahweh when we need him! Send us a divine leader to deliver us! Your people are desperate! Restore your Promised Land to us!"
Several groups have given up on the corrupt priests of the temple and have scorned their rituals. Holiness renewal movements emerge and Mark introduces us to John the Baptist who is administering a ritual cleansing of sins to anyone who will come to the wilderness—that is, far away from the sacral structures of the temple.
You could hear their hopes: "Yes, if we clean our hearts, Yahweh will answer us, avenge his honor, save us from our enemies, release us from our humiliation at the hands of the Romans and restore our land to us!"
In Matthew’s testimony, we learn what happens to the Baptizer. John enters into a rivalry with the puppet ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, and outs him as a major sinner for marrying his brother’s wife. This lands him in prison and when he hears that Jesus has begun his ministry, he poignantly sends a message to him:
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Jesus answered him: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
Ah! So beautiful! So of the Living and Acting Presence, who patiently and lovingly pulls anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see into an unimagined future, into something new.
I wonder if John’s heart was able to receive this message and let himself be undone by it, letting the plug be pulled out of his story that it is our actions which command God’s response, rather than God’s actions which result in our response?
All of this is to say that the Good News that Mark announced to the world with the authority of an imperial decree is from the future that John did not yet know.
You see, Mark wrote his announcement of this Good News from the perspective of someone who had encountered in his crucified and risen brother The One Who Has Always Been For Us, The One Always Coming Toward Us who cannot be destroyed by anything we humans can do.
But I get ahead of the season at hand. What might these texts be saying to us right now, we anxious and desperate humans who want to do something—to ourselves, to others—so God will arrive and save us from the destructive consequences of our personal and societal addictions to the power and patronage of Babylon?
Perhaps something like this:
Beloved! Be not ignorant of this one thing: that one day is with Me as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. There is time. Exhale. Be quiet and allow Me—your I AM—to act first. In ages past, it has ever happened that way.
So comfort ye! Comfort ye, for I still believe in you. I am not in my temple because I am here with you in the wilderness of your suffering and shame, ready to lead you gently to our new home together. Position and power mean nothing to me. It’s my Word to you that will carry you through and remain with you forever.
AMEN.
[2] Isaiah 1:17
In preparing this sermon, the preacher gratefully acknowledges being significantly influenced by the following sources: James Alison’s recorded talks at the 2010 John Main Seminar in Canterbury, UK, The Shape of God’s Affection, available at http://www.contemplative-life.org/ and Fleming Rutledge’s new collection of her Old Testament sermons, And God Spoke to Abraham (Eerdmans, 2011). Thank you, my friends!
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