Comments for Jim Other sermons.                 

Enter John the Baptist. In all the Gospels we read that John’s message was basically “God is coming. Get ready.” John’s message like John himself was tough. Luke, the writer of today’s Gospel, says that John reminds him of another tough prophet – Isaiah. And he quotes him.                  

            Isaiah presents repentance with a series of startling images. Repentance is preparation for the Lord, and this is how you do it: make his paths straight, fill every valley, flatten every mountain and hill, straighten everything crooked, and make everything smooth that is rough. Then you will be ready to see God. What is this all about? To better understand, we need to look at the central theme of the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s message is: God is really big. Think of the Call of Isaiah and that wondrous scene of God high, exalted, and lifted up on a throne. God is bigger than we can conceive. For God you better think on a different scale. So just flatten everything out. You think the Himalayas are so terrific? Bulldoze them down. You’re impressed with the Grand Canyon? Fill it up. Make everything flat. And as for those roads that cut back and forth up the mountain sides so crookedly, flatten the mountains and straighten out the roads. Make it a grand, wide boulevard for God’s arrival. And Isaiah says that this is not just about nature. It’s about all the pride we take in our human accomplishments. Fill up the Suez Canal, knock down the Seagram’s Tower. And, suggest Isaiah and John, it is about our own personal accomplishments. Take out your professional profile and have a look at it. All those achievements, all those awards, all those diplomas and certificates of appreciation hanging on your walls or in cardboard boxes in your attic. Throw them out. Compared to God, they don’t mean anything. And don’t think you measure up in any moral or ethical way. John was ferocious with the moral pride and arrogance of his generation. For him the demand to make crooked things straight did not simply apply to geography. It applied also to human behavior. Have you been following the growing scandal regarding Boeing and the special leasing deal with the Pentagon? Corrupt and crooked people at work – in business, in the military, and in government. Amos says that God’s word is like a plumb line dropped into our midst. Malachi says that the word of God is like a refiner’s fire. Isaiah and John say that God’s justice is like a big hand that just goes “swoosh” across the table, wiping it clean. Isaiah and John, like every other prophet before and after warn that the coming of God may not be the picnic you’re thinking it to be. It’s a clearing of the decks in every way. It is back to square one. It is a return to the wilderness. The one place you can be sure you are ready for God is the wilderness. It is the letting go of attachment. It is the letting go of what you think makes you special.

            Last summer I spent a weekend at a Buddhist meditation retreat in Western Massachusetts, led by a quite lovely and gentle couple. The first day there were some dozen of us seated in a circle. And one of the leaders began by saying, “I would like us now to go around the circle and introduce ourselves and share a bit about ourselves. But please keep it brief. I am not asking to hear your personal story, as interesting as it probably is, because the fact is, everybody’s story is exactly the same.” I was frankly stunned and disappointed to hear that. I’ve gotten quite good at telling my story. I find it very moving. And I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. Yes, I am unique. I am special. But how will people know that and fully appreciate me, if I don’t tell them!” So I thought some more. I am unique in the eyes of God. Every person is. “You are precious in my sight,” God says. But I realized that what makes me special is that God created me, loves me, called me, and sustains me. What makes me special has nothing at all to do with whatever talents, deficits, accomplishments, gains or losses constitute my personal history. We become attached to who we think we are, for better or worse. We become attached to our story. And if our story becomes the chronology of what we’ve achieved or overcome, what we’ve created or cleaned up, or even the failures that make us distinctive – then, well, it’s back to square one. It is not about walking tall. It is about bending low. Back to the wilderness.

            I find this a bracing Christmas message. What is truly wonderful about the Christmas story is not what is distinctive, but what is humble. In antiquity, the idea of a virgin birth is not even noteworthy and can be easily dismissed as legend. I think the virgin birth is more about Mary’s humility. The nativity is really about how God comes into the world through the lives of two downtrodden people. Mary and Joseph suffer along with thousands of other dislocated Hebrews.  Call them refugees, call them homeless, or call them undocumented. They were among the vast numbers in our world then, as today, who have simply fallen of the radar screen of human history. Did Caesar want to register them because he really cared about them? Of course not. They didn’t matter to him at all. I may think I am somebody because I have a birth certificate and a driver’s license and a Social Security Card and a U. S. Passport and a Blockbuster Video card. But take those away from me and plop me down in the middle of a country whose language I don’t know, and who am I?  Nobody.  Nothing. Talk about back to square one.

            God chose to come into the lives of a couple of nobodies who had been stripped of pretty much all their identity. Joseph was no doubt proud of his royal ancestry. But, word of this virgin birth not only abused his male ego, but that ancestral pride as well. His pedigree didn’t get them a hotel room. Yet it was through Mary and Joseph and their situation that God chose to come. I came across a little poem about Christmas.

     THE STABLE
The winds were scornful,
Passing by;
And gathering Angels
Wondered why
A burdened Mother
Did not mind
That only animals
Were kind.
For who in all the world
Could guess
That God would search out
Loneliness.

  Of all the words we associate with Mary, loneliness is not one that readily comes to mind. But of course that’s right. How could she not be lonely? At some level, of course, she is focused and confident and she carries on bravely. But God chose to come in and through the lives of a lonely woman and her lonely husband, in a very lonely place. Of course, they were joined by shepherds and kings, but weren’t they all pretty lonely, too. They had to have been when you think about it. Their loneliness is the one thing they all, king and peasant alike, had in common. But into all their lives, the light shone.

            What makes us special and what is truly wonderful is that God comes into our lonely lives, too. We each spend a lot of time and energy trying to impress others, and ourselves, and God, with how special we are. That we are somebody. That our stories are unique. Why do we do that? In order to hide from others and ourselves and God how terribly lonely we really are. How emotionally destitute and isolated we feel. How misunderstood and unappreciated. And how unwilling we are to really face how bad we feel. But the amazing thing is that when we allow ourselves to touch some of that pain, to feel some of that loneliness, God says, “Good! At last! Now you are prepared. Now I can be born - in you.”

            I began by talking about John’s message of the necessity of repentance. Repentance is really the acknowledgement that the only thing that makes me special is that God is with me. With that knowledge I can let go of all the rest, because now I truly have everything I need. AMEN.

Return to CCC Home Page