Advent 3, Year B, 12/14/08

Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11; 1 Thess. 5:16-24; John 1:6-8,19-28

I wanted to write a really nice, funny Advent sermon for today.

Something witty but with just the right touch of wisdom.

Warning to you all…its not happening.

Because my radar screens got all filled up with pain and struggle and loneliness and guilt this week.

I was just getting ready to sit down at my computer to write this and the phone rings.

The 20 year old granddaughter of a parishioner died in an auto accident.

I can’t imagine what Christmas will be like without her, she said.

She was such a sweet girl.

Tuesday I got a phone call.

A family member letting me know that my first husband’s mother has some brain thing and is in a sudden decline.

And my former sister-in-law, who I have known since I was 16 and is like a sister to me, is trying to figure out how to deal with tumors in her pancreas, liver, and lungs.

And then I read this email from my friend Merrill in Lesotho in the Peace Corps.

She’s having trouble with a goat herder who has already been accused of rape in her village.

She may have to leave that village and not be able to follow through with the AIDS/HIV education program that 20 chiefs have finally agreed to.

One of her last lines was…maybe someday there won’t be so many funerals.

There’s more stuff like the 53 year old who had a serious stroke… but I’ll spare you.

Because I know that you have stuff like that filling up your radar screens.

Is it that more crummy stuff happens this time of year?

Or does it seem that way because we have this Norman Rockwell ideal of how Christmas time should be?

Family all well and getting along.

Lovely meals and gifts that say loud and clear I knew just what you wanted.

We try.

We shop and clean the house and plan meals and parties and outings to create just that right, magical feeling.

Are you feeling it?

Are you telling yourself you feel it?

Because you’re not alone if you don’t.

I know we talk about how hard the holidays can be for people.

How stressful it can be to try to get it all just right.

We talk about the reality of unresolved family issues that get glossed over for the day.

And this year we have the added bonus of the state and federal and global economies threatening to come to a halt.

And people are nervous, nervous about the economy even if they still have the same job and don’t think their job is going away.

But we mostly say we’re fine or great if asked How are you?

Because we are pretty committed to being fine on the outside no matter how miserable or confused we are on the inside.

And we seem to think that everyone else is actually fine except us.

That we’re alone in our struggle.

Plus who would dare to say they’re not fine with us saying all the time how rich and spoiled we are compared to the rest of the world.

So we can feel guilty about feeling not fine inside even though we have running water and indoor plumbing and heat and lots of food.

We can feel guilty that we want more stuff, a better cell phone, a bigger TV, new shoes.

But we still want the stuff.

We want to have more free time, more down time.

But we can’t seem to make that happen.

There’s all this stuff that we HAVE to do.

None of it seems optional.

It all feels like have-to-do stuff.

So we end up with less time and energy for the people and things that we say are the most important things in our lives.

We don’t see a way out and then we feel guilty about that.

Pain, struggle, loneliness, and guilt.

How can Advent fix any of that?

Because being a better Christian might be on your list of things that add to your guilt feelings.

I should pray or read the Bible or get into a class or go to church more or make a pledge.

But I’m overwhelmed as it is with life.

With all of this stuff I have to do, God understands, right?

God understands how busy we are.

How many people are counting on us…kids, spouses, parents, family.

How many things we just cannot say no to because they are so important.

God understands.

I’m sure God does understand.

But why do we imagine that God is OK with our choices just because we can’t get beyond our own urgency?

Are you feeling peace, joy, contentment, a sense of Godly purpose in your life?

Are your choices working for you?

Or do you feel pulled in 20 directions, overbooked, overcommitted, not so OK, and alone?

It’s a given that tragedy and pain will cross our paths.

It’s a given that time consuming and money consuming activities will seem important to you, your kids, your spouse.

So how do we chose when it seems to us that we are already making the best choices that we can and peace, joy, contentment, and purpose still elude us…

What can we do differently?

And how can we escape feeling guilty?

And I don’t mean just pretending that you’re fine.

I mean where can we turn to find a way to feel different?

Maybe you’ve prayed that God will help you find a way to be different, to feel different.

And then what…did you act different?

Do you really believe that you belong not to yourself but to God?

In our Gospel lesson today we heard about John the Baptist.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

This young man, a relative of Jesus, was confronted by the religious bigwigs.

Who are you, they asked John.

John isn’t confused about his role.

He is not the Messiah, or Elijah the prophet.

John is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.

Are you thinking so what?

John is this super spiritual guy who gave his whole life over to testifying that the messiah had come and that Jesus was the messiah.

He wandered around the wilderness and ate locusts and honey.

Sure he’s a great Bible character guy but how on earth does that apply to us?

It’s easy to think that he’s just a kooky, one of a kind guy.

God isn’t expecting us to be super religious followers of Jesus who give our whole lives over?

Yes, I think God is expecting just that.

In fact, God is so crazy that this coming to earth in human form thing got past the drawing board.

God is so moved by our constant struggles to be good enough...That God comes to us as one of us.

A fragile, sweet human baby who is the very incarnation of the hugeness of God’s love and mercy.

That’s just crazy.

But that is the very thing that John the Baptist cried out in the wilderness.

And that is the very thing that will make our lives different, will make us feel different, if we let it, if we work at it.

Jesus is being born into our human history to change everything forever.

Jesus is born into human history because we can never be good enough.

None of us can be good enough, no matter how nice you are.

Part of us knows that.

But we struggle with that because we’re broken and we want to be self-sufficient.

We want to be OK even when we know it’s not true.

Jesus is coming into the world as one of us because of God’s great love that has no end.

John the Baptist did the very thing that God so wants from each of us.

John surrendered his life.

And he spent his days being a witness to the good news of Jesus.

Sure he seems a little over the top.

He picked locusts from his teeth and he got beheaded.

But why do we imagine that God wants something different from us now?

Do we imagine that God changed his mind about wanting love and mercy and salvation to be out there in the world for everyone to hear?

Do we imagine that God understands that life is so different now that we don’t have to surrender our lives anymore to Jesus?

Do we actually think that God understands that our comfort and security and pleasure are more important than surrendering our lives to Jesus?

If peace and joy and contentment and a sense of Godly purpose are eluding us might we turn our eyes inward?

We are not fine.

We are struggling and overwhelmed by our lives and our busyness and we don’t see a realistic way out.

I’m not suggesting that the answers are easy or quick.

But it is possible to feel differently about our lives.

We have to pray to be willing to change.

Maybe you have or think you have prayed for change.

But we all know that change is hard and surrendering our lives to Jesus is really, really hard.

When you pray, then you actually have to do something different.

God is not going to work your strings like a puppet and make you be different.

But God will give us strength and courage and vision to be different when we keep trying.

You might get lucky and have some kind of a 2 by 4 alongside the head experience…You might.

But until then here’s some suggestions.

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.

Little things to practice each day.

Hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil.

Isn’t that good advice?

Is this sounding familiar?

Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonika that we heard from today.

Do not quench the Spirit. Listen to the prophets. Test everything.

Rejoice, pray, give thanks.

Can we practice doing that?

Can we start each morning asking God to help us see how we can surrender our lives to Jesus today?

Can we listen to the nudgings and whispers of the Spirit and start to see how it is actually possible to make different choices about our time, our lives?

God called John to testify to the light that has come into the world.

God is calling us to testify to the light that has come into the world.

Surrender your life.

The hard things in life won’t go away.

Your choices won’t feel easy.

But it will be good.

God is good and God has made a way for us…surrender your life.