University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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Anna Pinckney Straight

for University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill

December 6, 2009

“Turn”[1]

Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"  (NRSV)

I don’t think that anyone here will be surprised to hear me say, it’s time to get ready.  It’s December 6. It’s time to go.

Newsflash!  

There’s lots to do before the 25^th arrives.    Shopping.  Wrapping. Shipping.  Baking.  Addressing.  Mailing. Writing.  Examining.  Calling.  Celebrating.  Gathering.  Singing.

If the list-making is exhausting, what does that say about energy it will to take to tackle the list itself?

And it seems like this year is like every year, despite all of my attempts to get things done before December hits, the days are crammed full.

And.   As if we didn’t have enough to do, here comes John the Baptizer, adding to our list.

“He [John the Baptist] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Repent.  Turn.  Change.  Re-invent yourselves. 

Turn, John said.  Turn away, John said.  Stopping looking to the politicians and priests to solve your problems ~ all the names Luke lists in the first verses of today’s reading ~ they aren’t the ones who are going to change things, around here John and Luke are telling them.  Telling us.

Turn away from that.  Turn towards God, John said, because coming from the other direction is the one who is going to actually make things happen.  From the low will come the high.  And the high will become the low.

“Prepare,” says John,  Repent.  Turn.   And suddenly, when I think about the work required to do the things John wants me to do, my long list of things to do to prepare for family and feast seems manageable in comparison.

Which would you rather do?  A spiritual inventory, or go shopping?

And maybe that’s why we, we specifically, and Americans in general, choose spending and listing over the challenging work of discipleship, year after year.  The proof is in the pudding.

Relying on data from the US Department of Commerce, Gallup, and Living Water International (among others) the Advent Conspiracy ~ a website well worth checking out ~ According to the Advent Conspiracy website, Americans continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on Christmas, knowing that  it would take somewhere between 10 - 20 billion to provide clean drinking water systems to the world.  The entire world[2]

When it comes to what John wants us to do--  repent, turn, change-- we look for alternative routes.  It’s hard, emotional, work.  And when faced with it, we continue to choose, year after year, the myth that the right present, item, meal, will bring harmony and happiness.  The right friends or parties will make us forget our grief, and the struggle so many have with feeling sad in a season dictating happiness.

“It’s for the children,” we say.  I’ve said.  But what do children need more, a battery-powered hamster, or a world in which they can grow up without fear of violence or hunger?

John is here to say that we’re fooling ourselves, and not very convincingly.  Only God can fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts and lives.

John’s not so much adding something to our list throwing our lists out the window.

To get ready for Jesus we must turn our lives around.  Turn our hearts inside out.  Rethink it all.

Advent isn’t an accident in the church calendar.  it’s created exactly because that’s what we, human children of God, tend to do.  When faced with the limits of our own ability to turn the consumerism train around, we ignore it.  Deny.  Deflect.   And so we are given this season.  Not mini-Christmas, but a time of preparation.  Purple.  Confession.  Contemplation.  Prayer.  Reconciliation.  Time apart from all of the things we find to distract us from the vision God has placed before us.

It’s what they were doing in the time of John the Baptist and Jesus, and what we are still doing, today.

They were looking for a savior, but they thought he would come with military might and force and whip up on those who had been horribly oppressive.  A Warrior who could out-bully the Romans.

And instead, God sent Jesus.  As far away from a bully as the east is from the west.

John the Baptist is telling people to get ready. To prepare.

I know.  I’m unprepared.  Woefully.  Incredibly.  Unprepared.

Maybe the list I should make, instead of the list of things I need to get and do, is the list of things I need to release.

How about you?

Are you ready?

John calls it like it is.  He doesn’t care how pretty or rich or poor or worried we are, he tells us that we need Jesus. 

The good news?

Jesus is on the way.

The baby Jesus whose birth we will remember in a few weeks, and the Jesus who has promised to come again.

The Good News is that God does not wait until we are ready. God comes anyway. 

In the words of the poet Rumi,

“You and I have spoken all these words, but as for the way we have to go, words are no preparation. There is no getting ready, other than grace.”[3]

The truth is, thinking that we can get ready for Jesus, that we can repent, turn our lives around by ourselves, through individual self-discipline and perseverance, is part of the myth we plaster on the walls of our hearts.

Jesus is coming to peel the layers of that myth away, and teach us a new story.  One born of community and compassion, God and generosity. 

We can’t do it without one another.    We cannot do it without God.

We’re not ready, but Jesus is coming anyway.  As Madeleine L'Engle writes[4]:

God did not wait till the world was ready,
till...the nations were at peace.
God came when the heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.
God did not wait for the perfect time.
God came when the need was deep and great.
God dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. God did not wait
Till hearts were pure. In joy God came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours of anguished shame
God came, and God's light would not go out.
God came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait til the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

I am not ready.  I am not prepared.  God will come anyway.  Jesus will come again.  In spite of this, and precisely because of this.  The Love of God is not based on deservedness, it is based on need.

We are not ready, we are not prepared.  God will come anyway.  Jesus will come again.  Will we receive him?

We have not earned an invitation to communion, but we are invited anyway.  Because God desires to be in communion with us.  Will we accept God’s invitation?

Because there is grief.  Because peace is not prevalent.   Because there are families this holiday season who are anticipating death.  Because there are people who are cold.  Jesus comes.

Because we are hungry, and desperate for a new way of living.  Wholeness that has nothing to do with perfection.  God welcomes us.

We are not ready.  Let’s go to Bethlehem anyway.