Ordinary people, extraordinary expectations

Advent is a time of the unexpected.  For one thing we have God’s choice of partners in the procreation of his own son.  Jesus could have been set down fully grown anywhere in the world.  But God knew that in order to understand people and to reach out to them, Jesus needed to grow up among them and to really be one of them.  God could have chosen royalty, or a wealthy family to bear and raise his son, one where he would never want or struggle.  God could have chosen a palace and an important city for the dwelling place of his son.

But God chose Nazareth – a small out-of-the-way place – unimportant – a place where Jesus could grow unencumbered by the wealth and attention he might receive in other places.  God chose a place where Jesus could live among the common folk and learn about them first hand; a place where he could touch, feel and understand the trials and struggles of everyday people.  In this area of Galilee, there was a large gentile population nearby so he would grow up knowing not only the Jewish people, but also how they interacted with people of other faiths and nationalities.

This is a perfect example of how God works within the context of ordinary life and through ordinary people.    Mary was not any kind of super hero  -  (no Angelina Jolie, no Queen Elizabeth – not even a Mother Theresa) – just a simple village girl who had recently come of age.  Mary lived an ordinary life in the small village of Nazareth.  She helped her mother take care of the house and younger children.  She made a daily trip down to the well, to draw water for use at the house.  She cooked and cleaned just like any Jewish girl.  I  picture her singing as she goes about her work, a sweet disposition and spirit about her.

She dreamed of one day having a home of her own to take care of.  She was betrothed to Joseph, a local carpenter – a tradesman.  The life that laid before them was a simple life – one of love and shared experiences – of small children running around and growing up, much as they had.  Most often, when a young couple became betrothed, the husband began work on a place to live – often a room added onto his father’s house.  When that was completed, then he came to collect his bride and everyone was invited to the celebration.

This was the plan – this was what they expected.  But before Joseph came to collect his bride, she had a visitor - an angel from God - and Mary was found to be with child front the Holy Spirit.  This left Joseph in a difficult position.  He loved Mary, but tradition and law said that he should divorce her and even have her stoned.  But as he pondered what to do in this situation, an angel appeared to him in a dream encouraging him to take Mary as his wife.

Joseph was a righteous man and he believed the angel and took Mary to be his wife.  He pledged himself to take care of Mary and her child as if the child were his own.  He would protect the mother and child until the child was old enough to take his place in society.

And so, like Mary and Joseph, we wait.  We wait in expectation – in anticipation – of what God will do in our midst – how he will work out his promises – using the ordinary to do extraordinary things.   If we just have the kind of faith exhibited by a young peasant girl and her faithful craftsman husband in a backwater town 2000 years ago – we too may see miracles and experience the great love of our God in new and wonderful ways.

Amen
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Questions and Expectations

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Did you hear about the little old lady that would go out on her porch everyday and lift her voice up to heaven and thank God for everything he gave her?  There was an old man who lived next door and everyday he'd yell back, "Shut up, old lady.  There's no such thing as God."  When times were hard, she'd go out and pray for food or other needs for herself.  One day when she had been praying for food, a bag of food appeared on her front porch.  She began to pray loudly, "Thank you, Lord, for the food I needed so badly."  The old man yelled back, "Ha!  God didn't get you that food, I did.  There is no God."  She lifted up her voice, "Hallelujah! The Lord provided me with food and made the devil pay for it."  The woman's expectation of God was fulfilled.

Today's lessons, especially the gospel, seem to be full of questions, and doubts and unfulfilled expectations.  John questions, "Are you the one to come, or should we look for another?  And Jesus asks, "What did you go out in the desert to see?"

John had spent a lot of time preaching in the wilderness.  People had flocked out to hear him and to be baptized by him.  He filled them with hope, "The kingdom of God is at hand.  Prepare the way."  And John did - he prepared the way, filled with hope and expectation...  "One is coming with power and glory, whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."  His vision of power and glory might be the expectation, but the reality was not so vivid, and so he asks Jesus, "Are you the one to come?"

John is saying: “Jesus, if you are the one to come, why am I here in prison.  Why haven't you freed me?  Where is the power and the glory?  Where is the army of believers who will follow you into victory?  This can't be the kingdom of God because it doesn't meet my expectations.”

John's expectation does not coincide with the reality.  Jesus has gained followers, he has appointed 12 generals, but they are not gathering for war, and they are not building an army and they are not overturning the Romans.  What kind of Messiah, was this anyway?

I think we sometimes have the same problem that John has here.  Like John the Baptizer, we are often in doubt about Jesus because we do not always see the difference he in making in our lives or in the world around us.  We look around and we wonder, "If God is in control, then why are things in such a mess?"  We want to say, God if you are really in control - why don't you make it obvious; why is there war, why is there pain and suffering, why is there illness and dis-ease?  Why is there such unrest in the world and in our nation?

Sometimes doubt is a good thing, sometimes it keeps us out of trouble by making us think twice before acting.  We don't always have the right answer in this life - and believe me that's hard for most ministers.  Most of us would love to have all the definitive answers - to be able to reassure and explain what is going on, and what is the best action to take in any given situation.  But more often than not, all we really have is more questions.

Several years back there was a TV show called Joan of Arcadia.  It had a lot of good things to say, about life, about the nature of God, and about our relationship with God...  One episode called, "The book of questions."  made the point on several different levels that it was not about the answers, it's about asking the right questions.  If you ask the wrong question, then the answer you get probably won't make much sense.

Jesus asks, "what did you go out into the desert to see?"  You don't look for learned, sophisticated, cultured people out in the wilderness.  The people had unanswered questions so they went into the wilderness to ask the questions that burned in their hearts.  The people went out to see a prophet, one they hoped had answers.  His answer was that there was another to come - John's claim was from Isaiah, "the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord'."  All four gospels report this.  After preaching hope to the masses, now John is in prison and his own hope is wavering - "Could I be wrong?  Could I have misunderstood what God was telling me?"

John didn't misunderstand that Jesus was "the one to come."  What John misunderstood was what that meant.  What it meant to be "Messiah."  John may have been called by God, but he was also a product of his time - he thought the Messiah was going to be a military victor - drive out the oppressor - set up the new Israel.  John really hasn't asked the right question.  The right question for the time was, "What does it mean to be Messiah?"  That is the question Jesus answered.

John defined himself in terms of Isaiah, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness..."  So Jesus also defines himself in terms of Isaiah.  "Go and tell John what you hear and see.  The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear good news."

One of the worse arguments I had with a really good friend came about because of a different understanding of a single word.  We were using the same term, but we had defined it differently.  It took a couple of days for us to sort that out.  That's the same problem Jesus and John where having.  They were both talking about the term "Messiah" - they had just defined it differently.  John's expectation, dependent on his definition, was not being met in Jesus.  John's expectation included death and destruction to the enemy.  Jesus' reality was health and life and hope for all people.

It makes us think about our own expectations of Jesus - of God.  What is it we expect from God, from Jesus?  Jesus tells us, "Look around you, what do you see?  What is the Lord doing in your midst?"

Advent is all about the coming of Christmas - and the story that is told.  The story is about a baby, born in a stable in a backwater town in an obscure area of the world.  Even here he overturns our expectations.  Not a rich, powerful ruler in a palace of gold, but a kind and gentle teacher in a dusty stable along a dusty road.

This beginning alone should give us a clue into the nature of Jesus and thereby into the nature of God.  We can't begin to understand God or to know his mind.  God is spirit and beyond knowing.  That is why the coming of Jesus is so important.  It is through Jesus that we begin to get a glimpse into the nature of God.  Put in human terms it is an incomplete picture to be sure - but still it is more than we had before.  Jesus doesn't come as a victor.  Jesus doesn't come as a warrior.  He comes as a little baby - to overturn our expectations.

Jesus is about the unmerited love of a God who cares enough about his creation that he enters into it. It is about having a personal relationship with the one who created us.  Jesus is also about transformation - transforming ourselves and the world - forming ourselves after Christ and reaching out to the world around us just as Jesus did.  Christ did not turn people away - he accepted them wherever they were in their journey - and if they didn't want to follow him, he let them go. You are free to believe what you want to believe.

Our tendency is to ask, "Why is there so much suffering in the world?"  Maybe that's not the right question. Maybe we should be asking, "Why is there so much good in the world."

From people who serve in soup kitchens, to a little boy who wanted to give a socks to homeless, to the girls who are auctioning off their hatchimals to raise money for fire victims.  There are many people out there emulating Jesus, his compassion out there in the world today.  As scary as our news often sounds today, there are those little tidbits of wonder tucked between all the violence and hatred.  It is those small things that people do to help others that reflect Jesus in today's world.

Look around at what God is doing in your life, and in the world around you.  And if you find that God isn't meeting your expectations, take a look at the questions you are asking.  Are you asking the right questions?  And are you listening to the answers that God gives?

Prepare the way for Jesus

We are in the season of Advent – a season when we are called to prepare the way for the Lord.  We are called to make a straight path for the Lord.

John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness – to the southeast of Jerusalem – near the region of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  There is a high probability that John was a member of the Essenes – another religious sect of Judaism.  From the description in the Bible, I want to say that he was a crusty old character – but he wasn’t old – he was the same age as Jesus.  Since they were cousins, they may have spent time together as children.  We know he had spent time in the desert because the Bible tells us that he appeared in the wilderness and he wore animal skins and survived on locust and wild honey.

Now think about today – if you heard about someone outside of town who wore strange clothes and was yelling and carrying on about the wrath of God, would you feel compelled to go see this strange phenomenon?  We’d probably be more prone to say, that’s just a crazy out there – a moon-struck lunatic – maybe a Jesus freak.  Sure, he might get press on the TV or maybe a short article in the Chronicle – most definitely a number of you-tube videos, fifteen minutes of fame and then he’s gone.  If you actually went out to see him, it was probably out of curiosity.

But this people – these Jews who were waiting for a promised messiah – they needed hope, and they went out to the wilderness seeking hope.  John fit the description of Elijah – and he said things that rang true to their Jewish ears.  They wondered if he might be the promised messiah.

“Prepare the way of the Lord – make straight his paths.”  This means to go out and make the road smooth; get rid of the potholes and the rocks.  Straighten out the curves.  This is what you did when you knew the king was coming.

How do you get ready for a visitor?  If they are coming for dinner, then you might spend the day cooking and baking for the meal, polishing the silver and setting the table.  If they are overnight guests then you might clean out the spare bedroom and make room for extra people to sleep.  John is calling us to prepare for the coming of Jesus.

John is using this phrase "Prepare the way" metaphorically – the path that the Lord wants cleared is the road to your heart.  The ministry of John was a bridge that gap between the Old Testament prophetic word and Jesus, the incarnate Word.  The Word of God, once uttered by prophets, now lived in human form.  John’s call to repentance precedes Jesus’ call to new life.  It’s about getting rid of those things in our life that separate us – that draw us away from God.

Think about what it is like after a hurricane or flood, a fire or even destruction like the twin towers -  piles of debris in driveways and roadways – tree branches, parts of houses, lawn furniture, scattered over the ground.  That is quite often what the road to our heart looks like – littered with the debris of our life.

That debris might be the stings and arrows that have assaulted us – abandonment and betrayal are two of the big ones – being so hurt that it affects our whole life.  And then there are the rocks and potholes that have caused us to stumble and fall – the addictions and temptations we have given in to.  The human condition – self-centeredness – is being so involved in ourselves and our own problems that we fail to reach out or even to notice the struggles of those around us.    

Look at the last verse of our Gospel lesson today.  Where John speaks of Jesus saying, “His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear the threshing floor and will gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  Too many people have a simplistic view of this and see judgment, either you are wheat (good) and get into heaven, or you are chaff (bad) and you burn in hell.  But I don’t think this is at all what John is alluding to.  If you look at the elements of this story you will find evidence that John means something different.

It starts by understanding that wheat and chaff are both part of the same plant.  Wheat refers to the small grain, the fruit of the plant, and the chaff is the light covering that covers the grain.  The chaff is stripped off the grain by beating it or tramping on it, leaving both lying together on the threshing floor – most often the open ground.  This winnowing fork has been translated by various versions of the Bible as a fork, or a shovel, or a fan.  It is an instrument used to toss the mixture of grain and chaff into the air allowing the wind (or a fan) to blow away the light chaff leaving the heavier grain to be gathered for storing until it is used for making bread.

The Message is a modern day translation of the Bible and it says of Jesus, ”He's going to clean house — make a clean sweep of your lives. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he'll put out with the trash to be burned."

Now all of a sudden this makes perfect sense.  If the chaff and the wheat are part of the same plant then they represent two parts that make up every person.  The wheat represents that which is good, that part of us that is holy and godly, that connects us to God.  And the chaff represents that which is less than holy, that which separates us from God.  It is that debris in our life that needs to be purged from the pathway to our hearts.

That which is not of God cannot exist in the presence of God – There is something good in every person – but in all people, that good exists alongside that which is not of God.  Jesus has come to ignite a fire within us that will help us cast off that part of us that cannot exist in the presence of God.  It will be blown away like chaff from the wheat.  Removing the chaff from our life is necessary for us to be able to stand before God.

We are in the season of Advent – it is a season when we are preparing our hearts to receive Jesus.  So I ask you to consider today, “What are the things that God wants to purge from your life?”  What are the things that you need to let go of, in order for your heart to be ready to receive Jesus when he comes?