“Where
It’s Happening”
Luke
3:1-6
First
Presbyterian Church
The
Reverend Donald E. Ray
December
6. 2009
Advent
2
You had to have drawn the short straw on the
liturgist roster to get today’s Gospel reading.
“I-tu-rae’-a and Trach-o-ni’-tis”—“Ly-sa’-ni-as—Ab-i-le’-ne.”
I typed these names with accent marks to have any chance at pronouncing
them.
Since Luke begins his Gospel claiming to offer an
orderly account of events, it has been common in Biblical scholarship to use
this dating in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar to validate the life of
Jesus in history. Luke’s Gospel
was written late in the first century, but not that far removed from the life of
Jesus to need historic markers to give credence to the Gospel story. I
don’t believe the writer or the early church that selected this Gospel for
reading was concerned about proving its authenticity.
In October when Ross Mackenzie preached here, he
told us about visiting his older brother Andrew in
The action, Luke says, echoing the words of the
prophet Isaiah, is the voice in the wilderness crying out, “Prepare the way of
the Lord.” It had been quite some
time since I had read the writings of Isaiah. Intrigued
by Luke’s identification of both John the Baptist and Jesus with the prophet,
I read the Old Testament book. Isaiah
prophesied at the time Assyria had invaded
All four Gospels record John’s call to a baptism
of repentance and his quote from Isaiah, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make
his path straight.” In Luke, John
further offers the support of the lyrical lines of Isaiah’s joyous prophecy:
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.
(Luke
3:4-6)
Not to be missed is Luke’s
juxtaposition of
“Power
tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great
men are almost always bad men.”
It is not that we elevate bad persons to authority,
though we do some of that too. It’s
that authority is infected with ego and the perils of power. For
Luke, John’s call to repentance is not only to turn from evil ways, but to
turn from surrendering the resolution of need to the powers that be to make our
mark in leveling the metaphorical mountains and valleys, preparing the way of
the Lord. Where it’s happening is
not in the seats of power.
Eugene Peterson writes that he once told a group of
seminarians that the thing he likes most about being a pastor is the mess. He
writes: “I do not mean I like messes as such, but I like that sense of being
in a mess, held there by hope, knowing how God’s creativity works, slowly,
slowly, slowly but always with surprise. Creation,
creative work, never ends up the way we thought it would. It
is always a surprise. ‘Creative’
is by definition something new.” (1)
The Genesis creation says that it was out of void,
a mess, God created. Moses was a
prince of
George H. W. Bush during his presidency made it his
goal to recognize a thousand Points of Light. He
called attention to individuals who in the spirit of volunteerism made an impact
in addressing needs. His intent was
to further encourage more to catch that spirit and be a part of uplifting those
in need.
Luke identifies, it’s a mess in
The
voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
Prepare
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Aside Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, John was
only the son of an aged woman and a lower echelon priest, but out in the
wilderness he becomes part of a great story of God’s way in the world. Aside
Washington and Albany and City Hall, we cannot discount what happens in the
wilderness of upstate New York Jamestown; we cannot discount being a downtown
congregation, part of a declining main stream denomination. In
Advent, a voice is crying out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
Friday evening, I walked with the Rotary Club float
in
Shari Erickson, in her Epistle page, identified
just from reading the bulletin before worship, the voices in the wilderness
preparing the way not the Lord with blankets and greens and prayer-knitted
shawls, and, and. . .
The text is ancient, the punctuation is not clear. Is
it “a voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord?” Or
is it “a voice of one crying, (comma) in the wilderness prepare the way of the
Lord.” Either way, it is a voice
of “one” crying. . .prepare the way of the Lord. In
our wilderness where the mountains may be foreboding, the precipices
challenging, but we each have a shovel, we each have resources, we each are
moved by the love that would move in and through us to touch others; we each
have the touch that can free those trapped in loneliness and despair. Our
name may not be “John” but each is the “one.”
I cannot leave this without, at the risk of
repeating myself, saying this is our wilderness. We
are in it at this very moment. The
majesty of columns and vaulted ceiling, the glorious beauty of stained glass,
the ringing tones of organ and choir and congregation in song, children affirmed
and loved, the ministry of word and sacrament, a morsel of bread and a thimble
size cup, a caring, supporting community in faith. Here,
like in the awesome splendor of unmarred wilderness, we in faith identify the
creativity of God more inspiring than the handiwork of artist and craftsman
alone. Here where in faith, we turn
to the way of the Lord evened and smoothed, we are touched in love, that we may
live and touch in love that evens and straightens and uplifts.
‘Tis Advent, the season to, in the wilderness,
prepare the way of the Lord.
Amen.
(1)
Living the Message by
Eugene Peterson; p.328