Advent 2, Year B - Sunday, December 4, 2011
Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
An Advent Wilderness
It is a real joy for me to be with you today; to join you in worship and to share in this holy season of Advent. Honestly, St. John’s feels like my second spiritual home. I know so many of you from the Monastery, from the Education for Ministry program, and your work and ministry with Angel Food. And now you’ve welcomed me to your pulpit, you’ve welcomed me to share my journey in Contemplative Prayer, you’ve welcomed me like family. It is a spiritual bond that I truly treasure.
It is as if we are working backwards through Advent this year. Last Sunday our Lectionary pointed us to apocalyptic events and Christ second coming. Today we have the opening prologue to Mark’s gospel and there are no birth stories to linger at.We meet not one but two prophets speaking to us from the wilderness. This backward movement through the days of Advent may strike us as odd but it will ultimately point us toward the coming of the Christ child. It does point us toward the manger where we will get our first glimpses of light, life and love. It does point us toward new hope, peace, and joy.
But before we arrive at the foot of the manger we must first go through the travail of the wilderness. The wilderness, which can seduce us with its beauty and its majesty, has many faces. In one part of the country it is dense with forest and lush vegetation which delight all of our senses. In another part of the country it is stark and barren and seems to purge us of any affectation. All the while it holds a grandeur that takes our breath away. If you have ever visited some of our great National Parks out west, especially those in southern Utah, you know of the grandeur of which I speak. The wilderness is a place of wonder and exploration. It is also a place of respite and rejuvenation. Unless, of course, we become lost in it. Then it is transformed into a place of dread and terror. A place where all hope can be lost. The wilderness is a place that supports life only if we possess the survival skills necessary to navigate its mysteries. Without those survival skills we are at the mercy of a disinterested, even hostile, environment.
On this second Sunday of Advent the calm of our lives is startled awake by voices from the wilderness. With Isaiah we hear one crying out for the construction of a passable route through the desert; then from an entirely different time, even a different desert, we hear the voice of John the Baptist, our wild and wooly prophet, giving us an unsettling call to repentance. In fact, any honest look at all three of our scripture readings this morning bring us face to face with the issue of repentance.
Trust me, no guest preacher wants to go into a parish his first time and preach on repentance. Any homiletical professor will tell you there is no surer way to loose you audience. Mere mention of the word cause most people to roll their eyes back, shut down their hearing, or brace themselves for an olde time religion that is as worn out as its name. Apparently our attitudes and feelings about repentance are about as popular as they were in the time of John the Baptist and Isaiah: they only preached about it when they were out in the middle of nowhere.
What does this have to do with Advent? Everything! While our calendars may suggest that Advent is the season of preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, the Advent readings broaden our view and insist that we are really preparing for the coming of the reign of God in our lives. This backward march that begins with the second coming of Christ and ends on Christmas Day at the manger points us to the mystery of Advent. A mystery that links the historical coming of the promised Messiah with the coming of Christ into our own hearts and the coming of Christ again at the end of all time. A mystery that will ask us to pause and look into our hearts, our real and honest selves.
We are being called to prepare for a time when kindness and truth will meet, when justice and peace will kiss, when truth will spring out of the earth, and justice will look down from heaven. Now these are phrases that normally make us think of when the world “out there” will finally be set right by God. But I am talking about the world “in here”. I am talking about when kindness and truth will meet “in here”. When justice and peace will kiss “in here”. No I’m not talking about when the wars of distant lands will cease, I’m talking about the wars that rage within our own thoughts will cease. The conflicts, the wounds, the troubles, the hurts, the disappointments, the fears, the self loathing, the self hate—because this is the wilderness that most of us find ourselves lost in today. This is the wilderness where the good news of Christ cries out to touch and change our lives.
Advent is a time serious road construction—and we all know the joy that brings. Isaiah is not describing minor repairs, such as filling in potholes or repairing curbs. He is calling for major reconfiguration of the terrain: filling in valleys and leveling mountains; smoothing rugged land and rough country. He is calling for serious transformation of the landscape of our lives. It is a call to go in a new direction. Or as Fr. Thomas Keating so lovingly tells us it is a call to change the direction from where you are looking for happiness. That is how he defines repentance. It is when we get to that place where we say “this isn’t working anymore” and we turn around and go a new way.
One day I was on my way to Woodstock and came upon road construction and was detoured onto unfamiliar roads. Now I know this must be a guy thing but for some reason I thought I could figure out a better route than where the detour was sending me. After about 45 minutes of going in circles and ending up where I began, still blocked by road construction, I decided I would follow the detour signs. You know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. How many times in our lives have we been trapped by this? It is not really the definition of insanity but it defines the human condition we find ourselves captive in.
This past week I found myself captive of an unexpected wilderness. It was by no means how I had envisioned I would spend my first week of this blessed time of Advent. A season I regular refer to as my favorite time of year. My wilderness sent me off to jury duty. And by wilderness I really don’t mean the interruption that jury duty brings. Changing plans, rearranging schedules, not having time to use it as I want to. I’m not even referring to the drudgery we all feel by the need to perform our civic duty, that task of doing something we “should” when we honestly would rather not.
The wilderness I’m speaking of is when you are called to step out of your own life and into the lives and events that belong to another world. A world where tragic things happened and a series of events have transpired all culminating in bringing a roomful of strangers together in a courtroom. So my first week of Advent was not filled with times of Contemplative Prayer, saying my Rosary, joining my monastic community in our daily celebration of the eucharist, not even joining in the daily office to chant the Psalms. My first week of Advent did not give time for the spiritual reading I had planned or the practice of spiritual disciplines that I look forward to in this blessed season. By Friday I was dry, parched, empty. Mentally exhausted, spiritually drained I said God “why?”. Friday evening I walked out of the court house in uptown Kingston and found myself standing right in front of a monument to Sojourner Truth. That great abolutionist who marched up the very steps of that court house and won the right to a trial which resulted in the return of her son from a slave owner that had hauled her son all the way to Alabama. She got custody of her son back and spent the rest of her life to bring an end to slavery and injustice. The inscription on the monument quotes Sojourner Truth speaking from her own wilderness: “I talk with God and He talks with me”.
“I talk with God and He talks with me”. That is a divine relationship at its very purest. That is the conviction of one who has turned around and walked in a new direction to find her happiness. That is one who went through the wilderness with the only survival skill that will bring you through it: clutching God’s hand. That is one who made a new path and toppled mountains of injustice, even the injustice she found within herself and found the light, life and love within the manger of her own heart.
“I talk with God and He talks with me”.
Have a blessed Advent. Amen.
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