Advent 2, Year C, 12/6/09
Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 4; Phil. 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6
Aren’t you glad you didn’t
have to read the Gospel lesson this week?
The names…
It did make me stop and ask
what the deal was with naming all the people and the places.
Why would Luke do that?
My tendency is to gloss over
lists of the names of people and places when I’m reading..
But here Luke is making a
point.
He’s setting the backdrop for
this new prophet…John the Baptist.
Luke names the political and
religious leaders and names the regions, the area that John is from.
And then like a good Old
Testament story, he has this prophet appearing out of the wilderness, the
desert.
The place where God has made
some pretty major covenants.
Luke is showing us that
John’s appearance and John’s message aren’t just interesting.
John the Baptist is a part of
God’s plan in history for humanity.
Right here in this short
passage, Luke tells us John’s call is to prepare the way of the Lord.
Luke tells us that all flesh
will see God’s salvation.
All flesh…not just this group
over here or that group over there.
This is a new thing and Luke
wants to make sure that we’re paying attention.
God calls John out of the
wilderness as a rag tag kind of guy eating locusts and wearing funky clothes.
Like we sang earlier…because
God has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
Not a king or an emperor or a
high priest.
A guy with a calling to start
breaking the news to people everywhere that the Savior has come into the world
for us.
A regular guy like you and
me.
Last week Leslie shared with us about
As a community of Jesus
followers we are taking on the
Relationships have been built
with clergy, Franciso and the bishop, and with people who live and serve in
People from this church,
ordinary people, have captured a vision of what we could do to make life safer,
more healthy, more self-sustaining in one village.
Ordinary people partnering
with ordinary people to reach out with love to help each other.
In reality that village in
Anyone who has gone there
will tell you that they came away with so much more love and transformation
than they ever felt like they offered.
We are preparing the way of
the Lord.
The people of the
During Advent we’re sharing
with you about two projects that we’re taking on: the Honduran village and
United Outreach programs to serve the homeless in
United Outreach is a
non-profit organization started by a group of Jesus followers less than 5 years
ago.
Ordinary people…a retired
non-profit director, a retired aerospace engineer, a local pastor, a couple of
dedicated church volunteers.
They had a vision of reaching
out to love and shelter the homeless.
They started up
They ran into insurmountable
road blocks and had to stop that program.
And they started down a long
road of trying to find a location for a shelter, trying to find grant monies
that didn’t have impossible strings attached.
They persevered.
Today United Outreach has a
long term lease from the County, a miracle in itself, for a 3.5 acre piece of
property off Missouri Flat road.
SHOW SLIDES and refer to
FLYER
That property has 3 houses on
it already but is zoned residential, limiting the number of people to 6 that
can live in the one house that is actually habitable.
But it’s a beginning.
And it compliments the small
grant funded program that United Outreach has to house the homeless using motel
and food vouchers.
Both programs have a
volunteer component…our coaches.
Ordinary people who felt a
tug to do something and then found themselves with an opportunity to coach
homeless families in identifying problems, and brainstorming solutions and
resources.
The coaches are helping the
homeless families to see themselves as strong, resourceful, people who can find
a new way to be in their lives.
Talk to any of the ordinary
people who have volunteered with UO…whether for coaching, or researching
resources, or coordinating food, diapers, supplies…and they will tell you that
they have been transformed by the people they are serving.
As a congregation we’re
looking outward…we’re praying and discerning as a community what God might want
us to do…for
Now you might be wondering
what any of this has to do with Advent.
Advent is supposed to be more
warm and fuzzy, right.
Waiting for the baby Jesus
and all?
Of course, that waiting for
Jesus to come again to judge the living and the dead part isn’t all that warm
and fuzzy.
Me standing here telling you
all that you need to look beyond your own lives to what God is calling you to
do for others, for your neighbor, isn’t a guilt trip.
Oh, I know, it can feel that
way.
Every Sunday when I look at
the Best Buy ad in the paper and drool over a Samsung 46 inch LED backlit flat
screen TV…
I totally feel guilty.
I actually feel sinful.
If I was a really good
Christian I wouldn’t still be struggling with lusting after that TV, right?
Then I think about John the
Baptist.
Sin is the seeking of our own
will instead of God’s which distorts how we relate to people and things and
God.
BCP Catechism page 848.
The problem with sin is that
we think that choosing our own will is true freedom.
But in reality sin hogties
our freedom.
True freedom is not getting
our own way.
True freedom is living in the
power of God’s grace filled redemption.
And redemption is God’s
action that sets us free from the power of evil, sin, and death.
It is the call of the prophet
to tell of God’s love, to help people see the need for God.
The prophet is called to
announce that the Messiah is come…that God has made a way for all people to
find freedom from evil, sin, and death.
John the Baptist is that guy,
that prophet.
The one who is coming out of
the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord.
But you know what?
The people who have gone to
The people who have prayed
for
The people who have given
graciously of their money for
The people who have coached
homeless families.
The people who helped clean
or furnish the new
Or given coats or sleeping
bags or socks or hats.
The people who have given graciously
of their money and resources.
All those ordinary people are
prophets, too.
They are preparing the way of
the Lord and living out the love of Jesus for all people.
They are proclaiming the
goodness of the Lord.
Don’t like to, or don’t want
to think of yourself as a prophet?
Not thinking you’re in the
John the Baptist category?
Well, I disagree…not
surprising.
The call of God on all our
lives is the same.
And that is to live our lives
for the glory of God and the service of others.
And in doing that we proclaim
with our lives what we believe in, what we experience from God…
What God is offering to all
people.
Redemption, freedom,
forgiveness, mercy, grace.
And love.
We serve our neighbors not
because we’re sinners and we need to make up for it.
Not out of feelings of guilt
or fear.
We serve our neighbors
because of love.
Because we are beloved…we are
each cherished by God.
That is what I always come
back to.
God has come to us in the
form of a human baby, sacrificing the right to stay neat and tidy up in heaven
somewhere…
Far way from our messiness.
Like it says in the book of
Romans: while we were yet weak, while we were yet sinners, Jesus the Messiah
came to be among us and to offer his life for our redemption.
God does not want to be far
away from us.
God is here with us.
God loves us so boldly and so
tenderly that it changes the whole world and changes what is possible.
No matter where you serve or
who you serve.
In
We are the prophets called
out of the wilderness to proclaim the way of the Lord.
I know you probably don’t
think of yourself that way.
But we are.
The way we live our everyday
lives at home, at work, at school, at church, at the grocery store, the other
ways that we serve our neighbors
…all of that proclaims to the
world what we believe in and how God’s love is transforming us.
This Advent season I pray
that we will each turn our hearts and minds toward God’s great love for us…
remembering and being filled
with the good news that the baby Jesus is coming…
And I pray that we will each
be the prophet we are called to be.
Wherever we are, who ever we
are with, let the love of God in Jesus be the thing that fills us and guides
us.
Prepare the way of the Lord…and all flesh shall see
the salvation of God.