Isaiah 40:1-11 • 2 Peter 3:8-15a • Mark 1:1-8
Last Sunday we lit a candle for hope, and we talked about the hope we have in Jesus that is expressed through our “God-sized dream.” This dream is an expression of our identity and an expectation about what it means to live in the kin-dom – the household and family of God – which is both present and yet to be.
Today, our hope bears the fruit of peace. Amid busyness and conflict – amid wars and rumors of wars – we proclaim peace. I might even take it a step further to say that we wage peace. We are actively engaging in things that make for peace!
While that might mean creating safe spaces without conflict, I like the way Todd Parr defines it. He wrote a book for children called, The Peace Book, and it says things like, “Peace is everyone having socks to wear” and “Peace is everyone having a home” and “Peace is being who you are!”
I think we can all agree that these are things we are working on. Now, before I get too carried away with self-congratulation, I should say that I am speaking about the character of our congregation; our shared ideals; our faithful attempts to put belief into action together.
Pobody’s nerfect, sorry, nobody’s perfect, but we are always better together. I must say that the 99th annual Waffle Shop, and the Loaves and Fish meal that it supports all year long, are excellent examples. Not only was it a herculean effort by the congregation, but it engaged volunteers and staff from the Contributor – just as we do every Saturday.
Bear with me for a minute because I need to unpack that a little for anyone who is visiting or worshiping online, and I think it’s also good to say these things out loud to remind us how central they are to our identity as a people of God.
Every Saturday morning we offer a meal to those who are hungry (which we have to prepare for on Friday). Our guests are generally assumed to be people without housing. Some of them are vendors for the Contributor, which is a publication sold by those in poverty that assists them with life skills and, when possible, housing.
The Waffle Shop supported all of this, but it was also an expression of who we are as we engage the community. Most of our guests were there because they believe in the work we do, and some came into the sanctuary for their first breathtaking view of our sacred space. I want you to know that when I greeted them I told them something that one of you taught me during my first week about the most amazing feature of this sanctuary.
It isn’t the stained glass, the artistry, or the architecture. It isn’t the organ or the amazing Organist and Music Director. It certainly isn’t the brand-new preacher. It is you. It is the way God moves in and through you [and I’ll add this part] as you prepare to wage peace in the world.
Now, how do we do that? As people of the Reformed faith we start with scripture, and while we could spend all day exploring these readings; I believe that they could be summed up with a phrase from Julian of Norwich, a 15th-century mystic who had some fantastic visions in a near-death experience. She was never canonized as a saint, but many have regarded her as a wise and faithful guide through her words.
Most famously and succinctly, she wrote, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well..." As I see it, this phrase speaks of hope and expectation and a movement toward peaceful resignation. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well..."
One of my favorite examples of this phrase in action is from a scene from the movie Men In Black (1997). A giant alien cockroach has just grabbed the female lead and jumped up into a window that is a good 20 feet off the ground. Will Smith’s character holds up a gun and tries to sound authoritative while saying, “Don’t worry - everything’s OK!” She responds, “What part of this is OK?!” He readjusts, “It’s gunna be OK!”
How many of us have looked up from a miserable situation and wanted to slug someone for telling us that everything will work out alright when we know it won't? It kind of reminds me of a friend who had served as a Navy Chaplain and told me some time ago what it was like to be seasick. He said, “At first you ask God to keep you alive, and then you become afraid that God will.”
I think this is how many of us feel when confronted with the world we live in, and yet we have this message of hope bearing the fruit of peace that says, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well...”
Mark’s Gospel gives it to us straight. Here is where the good news begins. It begins with the herald of the Messiah. It begins with an unorthodox itinerant Rabbi baptizing people in public, outside of the city, outside of Holy places - but in the river that Elijah parted with his robe before being swept into heaven by a chariot of fire (2Kings 1:8)!
First-century readers of Mark’s Gospel were clearly expected to see John as Elijah, the prophet who was supposed to return and announce the Messiah – God’s anointed One; the One who would save them from the bondage and oppression of the Romans. Surely this is the one spoken of by Malachi.
"Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6)
And so, "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Mark 1:4)
Repentance. Wait a minute. I thought this was Advent. Don’t we repent in Lent? Yes, but how else are we to prepare for the coming of the Lord than to repent? Taken literally, it means to turn around, or turn away, from sin. That is the beginning of the Gospel. Our hope begins in our ability to turn away from sin, and the peace we wage is rooted in the forgiveness we have already received. So, the saying is true, “You better be good for goodness sake,” right?
Yes, but here’s the thing about that. Sin isn’t just about vice. It’s not just about doing bad things. Sin is an orientation toward the self and away from God and others. Usually that results in doing bad things, but the core – the deeper issue – is the direction of our hearts.
The purpose of the prophet’s witness is to turn parent's hearts to their children and children’s to their parents – to prepare us for the coming of God. The purpose of the prophet’s witness is to announce that something better is on the way, and we need to stop a minute and look inwardly or we just might miss it!
It makes me wonder, what preparations are you making for Christmas? Have you decorated? Have you put up a tree? Is that what it’s all about? Maybe preparing for Christmas has nothing to do with boxes and bags or presents and tags. Maybe it is not limited to rituals and songs that pull our heartstrings – although those are certainly an important part!
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some lessons and carols, but I think the real work of preparing for Christmas is about examining our lives and deciding what is in the way of knowing and experiencing God.
What is like a mountain between you and God that needs to be brought down? What is like a valley that needs to be raised up? This is the work we do as we prepare to wage peace in a world that prefers conflict.
Of course, that assumes that we have some control over all that assails us, but what about when we don’t? When difficulties are thrust upon us – illnesses, job loss, friendships and relationships that are filled with tension and pain, the memories of times shared with a loved one – how can these be connected to repentance?
For this, I will turn once more to Julian of Norwich, who is said to have believed that sin was not so much about being wretched creatures as it was a product of being finite, limited beings. For her, sin was part of the process by which we learn of God’s love and providence.
Suffering, then, is simply a means to understand that God was with us in the suffering of Jesus. Suffering is simply an indicator that things are not yet what they will be.
"And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well..."
Now I’ll admit that 2 Peter’s version of “all shall be well” is a little more intimidating, and you could say the same about Isaiah’s attempt to comfort in which he says, “All people are like grass.” I would probably say it another way.
What I think they are getting at is this: there are only two permanent things; change and love. Everything changes except the love of God. Even our understanding of God’s love changes, but God’s love remains the same. The goal of God’s love is for us to live in such a way that “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.” (Psalm 85:10). The important thing is not to get caught up in fear, but instead to be consumed by the hope of a new state of being where righteousness will be at home.
And so we wait...
While we wait we wage peace, and we start with ourselves. We turn from selfishness toward the priorities of God. These priorities include us, so we start with the knowledge that we are beloved and forgiven and cherished – which means they are too, whoever they are.
While I think we do a pretty good job of this together, I want to tell you about a 12-year-old boy named Preston Wells. You might have heard about him on social media from the WIVK radio station. Preston responded to a call for Christmas cards for military personnel who are away from family by writing 136 cards. Before that, though, he wrote over 200 cards to inmates who didn’t have families supporting them. His message was “Keep your head up, and Merry Christmas.” Preston is fighting a potentially terminal cancer, but his faith is holding him and motivating him. His message is that “when you have pain inside, try to help someone else and you’ll feel better.”
This is how we wage peace, my friends: we hold fast to the love that was already holding us, and we look for opportunities to be kind to ourselves and to others because we know that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well..."
May it be so with you. May it be so with me. And to God be the glory, now and forever. Amen.
Comments