Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel at Eagle Harbor Church, UCC.
December 6, 2009
Luke 1:68-79 and Luke 3:1-6
Prepare the Way
Before we hauled out our Christmas decorations at our house this year, we put a bunch of things away. Otherwise our Christmas tree would be blocking traffic in the entryway, and our Advent wreath on a towering stack of papers. We had to move a plant, pack away the Halloween stuff and some birthday decorations that were still hanging around. I put away the picture books in the living room and replaced them with Christmas picture books. I still need to clear off a spot for our nativity. We couldn't just add Christmas to what was already there -- with toys and half-finished craft projects lurking around, our living room is chaotic enough. We had to prepare the way, so to speak, for the time of Advent waiting.
It can be a good thing to interrupt our surroundings with reminders of why we wait and for what we are preparing. Because although the ornaments are hung and the music is playing, it is not Christmas yet. First we journey through Advent, when we anticipate a time when all sorrow and suffering is over, a time when Christ returns to us in a new way. We interrupt the usual flow of worship by the choir processing and a family lighting the Advent candles, by bringing out the nativity figures, and singing different songs from the rest of the year. It is a time of repentance, of reflection, and waiting.
John the Baptist emerged from his desert solitude and interrupted the usual flow. Now interruptions are often inappropriate, one person impatiently trying to get their two cents in. It's annoying, right? But Interruption can also be a positive communication skill, when used to break a negative pattern. One may intentionally interrupt a conversation or experience that is quickly swirling down into a dark place, using words that one wouldn't expect, sometimes coming out of what seems like nowhere. The pattern of two friends gossiping about a third is interrupted when that friend walks in the door. The pattern of a person getting stress-induced headaches is interrupted by the beginning of a new meditation practice. John the Baptist emerged and cried out: Hold up! What are you all doing? You need to start treating each other better, you need to take care of the ones among you who have the least, you need to share, to love, to change your bad habits. In telling them to change their minds and hearts, the meaning of repent, he was paving the way for Christ's arrival -- for peace.
We often hear that we humans are creatures of habit. Our usual patterns and routines may need major interruption when change is needed. One of my habits has been to constantly move my things from purse to purse and bag to bag. So every day I would wonder where is my phone, my wallet, the paperwork I needed to get in the mail. Did I use the brown briefcase the day prior, or the pink purse and the green tote? I realized and voiced that I needed a purse intervention. I couldn't find anything. They were in my way - they were in everybody's way in my house, they literally blocked the path. My bad habit was interrupted by my husband, whose question, when are you going to go through all these bags finally penetrated my soul and I reached out for professional help. I took that person's suggestion to only keep only three or four. I spread out the bags and it was such a different experience to ask not what shall I give up, but what shall I keep? I wasn't getting rid of stuff I didn't like, I wanted to keep almost everything. But I kept what worked best, and bagged up the rest. I brought them to church today for Don and Madelyn who kindly offered to deliver them to Mary's Place. I feel like hauling that bag of bags right to the altar. Maybe it sounds funny to say that giving up bags helped clear the path for God in my life, but it truly did. Those bags had nothing to do with style or appearance. I bought bags because I was trying to find the one I could squeeze my whole life into -- something to contain the complexity of my life -- some peace! and finally admitted that my habit was not getting me any closer, but farther from the peace I was looking for. Now maybe that is a closer look into my psyche than you wanted -- but I share it because I know I know that I am not alone.
Cleaving to material clutter isn't the only thing that can trip us up in our encounter with God. We struggle with emotional clutter. Recession worry, the clutter of living beyond our means, the burdens upon our backs, these become on the fore-front of our minds and God gets put on the back burner. Clutter comes in the form of withholding forgiveness, fear, mistrust, jealousy, resentment. It is trying to fill a void by using shopping, alcohol, drugs, inappropriate relationships, over-eating, surfing the net for hours and hours on end. People try to get filled, get meaning by junking up the path to the only real possibility for true wholeness.
We all have habits that clutter up the path, the way of God. What will it take for us to change our habits? I think it takes an intervention, or at the very least, an interruption. Interruptions can take many forms. It may be wise words from a loved one or even a stranger. It can be reading just the right thing at just the right moment. It can be a flash of insight, a song, a sunset. Sometimes interruptions are easy to ignore, and we need to hear them more than once before we act, such as finally getting why we are having a certain recurring dream. Other interruptions are huge: childbirth, divorce, losing a job, getting a job, falling in love, grieving a death, falling ill.
Zechariah prophesied about his son John, "And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
And John, when grown, appeared to the people and said, Get ready! Don't go another step before examining your life. Jesus is coming! Be sure to not be distracted, you won't want to miss this encounter. He knew the prophesy of Isaiah, that "all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Salvation for all is a key theme in the Gospel of Luke. The word Salvation shares the same root as salve - what we put on wounds in order for healing to take place. Olive oil was commonly used as a salve on wounds for people in the time of Jesus. During Communion you will have the opportunity to put olive oil on your hands as a symbol of new life and healing.
What way, what path is God making in our lives, in our community, and in our world? We are on the journey with God, co-creators with God who can hastily shove things that litter the path into a closet, or truly turn over to God all that threatens to block the way. We can add a few shakes of spirituality to our over-crowded lives, or we can admit that we cannot do everything on our own, that we need to open ourselves and be willing to make some changes. It is in this openness that we receive the grace of God as flowing waters on a scorching hot day, the forgiveness of God as healing, restoring oil.
At our women's retreat this past October, our presenter Diane Walker told us how when she was growing up, her parents told her that no matter how messy her room became, she had to keep a path clear for them to come in and kiss her good-night. She suggested for us, amidst the often messy, complicated, chaotic lives we live, we need to keep a path clear for God to come and kiss us good-night.
In his book Common Grace, Tony Robinson wrote that Luke's telling of the birth of Jesus emphasizes that there was no vacancy. The Gospel says, "The world would not receive him." He wrote, "There was no room . . .We are, you see, too full, too full of ourselves. If you want to welcome him, empty and hungry is how you have to be" (p. 74).
The way of God is the way of peace, of love, of justice. To go in that way, the way of Christ, we must turn around, begin again, all of the time. It is a way that seeks not simply to get a life, but to get a way of life. A life of meaning, integrity, and purpose. How does your way of life make a way for God? Seeing Christ in others, practicing Sabbath, embodying hospitality, those can be some ways. We can make ourselves open to interruptions that break habits, change our course, or gets rid of whatever clutter makes it harder to see God.
Zechariah prophesied, "By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Our relationship with God and one another is nourished when we are open to the light, when we are hungry, when we stop and listen for guidance. Yet even when we do not stop, even when we run ourselves ragged or ignore the interruptions; even when we have said, maybe subconsciously, there is simply no room for God, no room for putting Jesus' difficult teachings into practice. Even then, God will be waiting, knocking on the doors of our hearts. God finds a home amidst the stench of the animals' stable. God dwells with us despite our less than glorious habits, loves us unconditionally even though we repeat the same old sins like a scratched CD. Tony Robinson wrote, "God is not deterred by our "No Vacancy" signs. God decides to come anyway . . . God finds a way when there is no way" (p. 74). That is what the interruption from John the Baptist is all about. It is grace. May we receive it.