Sermon: Preparing the Way
Second Sunday of Advent, 2006
Community Church of Wilmette
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
I want to know what preparing the way looks like.
This passage of scripture is always a puzzle for me. It is such an unusual story, if you think about it.
For our call to worship, we prayed together the Song of Zechariah. Zechariah, for those of you who do not recall, was the father of John the Baptist. Scripture tells us that he was a priest in the Temple. And when it was his turn to go into the Holy of Holies, he met the angel Gabriel. Gabriel informed Zechariah that he was to be the father of a great prophet who would announce the coming of the Messiah.
Zechariah was an old man. And like any one of us might do when visited by Gabriel, he froze in fear…and said the first thing that came to mind…which happened to be a little foolish. He simply suggested to the angel that he might be too old to be fathering a child…and that his wife too, was, well, “getting along in years.” Gabriel’s response was to strike Zechariah dumb. This, I am told, is why to this day we do not speak of a woman’s age to this very day.
Zechariah did not speak again until the day of his son’s briss. And when he did, according to scripture, the words that came from his mouth were the prophetic words that we prayed together just minutes ago.
“And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways…” (Luke 1:76)
John was to take no wine or strong drink…”The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.” (Luke 1:80)
And what an appearance!
Locusts and honey.
Camel’s hair.
And a call to salvation through repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!” Isaiah’s words ushering out of the mouth of the son of a once-mute priest. What a fabulous story!
And I stand before you this morning puzzling still over those words delivered thousands of years ago…
…I want to know what preparing the way looks like.
Perhaps it looks like the twelve steps from Alcoholics Anonymous.
1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
7. Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs
Indeed, something like this could be a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. I know that when I first encountered these steps I did not think it was possible. I still balk when I read them all together. I still wonder how to manage such a work.
But with the help of a sponsor who said simply: Do one step a year. Just focus on one step a year. So, for one year I kept repeating: I am powerless. This is unmanageable.
(I am approaching my sixth anniversary. So, according to the schedule, I am going to ask God to remove my defects of character. If there is anything that you would like to add to this list, feel free to approach me.)
I had to learn two lessons those first months. One was humility. The other was hospitality. The first is pretty obvious. Humility has to come with any spiritual discipline. And the twelve steps are no exception. That does not make it any easier, but at least it is a guidepost set firmly at the head of the trail. Humility. I am powerless. I cannot manage my life. That is one heck of a prayer…a declaration to make to ourselves and to God.
Hospitality is the other thing I learned. I learned it from the example of my sponsor.
He approached me.
He offered himself to me.
He offered to lead me through one of the darkest times in my life. He offered to show me light if I were willing to seek it. And he never once looked upon me with anything but compassion and friendliness.
I was welcomed in. I was offered a seat at the table, a cup of coffee…and an opportunity to speak, to tell my own stories. Really, is there a greater gift? One day I asked my sponsor about this. Why? Why such treatment? And he said, “Because doing so reminds me of the journey. Helping you helps me.”
As I understand it, we are never alone in this process…this seeking and discovering of God’s work in our lives. We guide and are guided. We are hospitable…and humble.
I want to know what preparing the way looks like.
Locusts and honey, the proclamation of God’s presence in the midst of turmoil and tribulation.
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler…”
John speaks as a citizen of an occupied country. His life was in turmoil as were the lives of his fellow citizens. He speaks out of tribulation. And, as history will reveal to us, the tribulation would not end with the coming of Christ.
The Gospel is not the absence of tribulation, but the presence of the very people of God in the midst of such times pointing the way to God, shedding light in the darkness.
And John stands in the midst of the wilderness. John stands in the darkness, in the desert, in the empty places.
And, surprise, there are people there. I sometimes still find myself there in the wilderness. Perhaps sometimes you do as well. Wandering. Listening after a voice. Seeking a little guidance.
Perhaps preparing the way looks like the twelve steps with its system of admission of powerlessness and accountability for wrongs committed…Much of the gospel would suggest so. “A baptism of repentance…” The twelve steps are about repentance and forgiveness…but first, repentance.
Perhaps.
Perhaps it is simply the act of lending a hand, of being hospitable to one another, to the strangers who enter into our lives. The day that I learned to receive help, I learned to be hospitable to Christ in my life. I learned to welcome others into my life. I learned to give as I learned to receive. I never knew how to properly give until I learned that lesson. And that is the slow learning of being Christ in the life of another.
This is what the twelve steps have taught me about being Christian.
If we want to take the Twelve Steps seriously in what they may say to us as Church, then we cannot confuse hospitality with Evangelism. A friend of mine reminded me that Evangelism is advanced Christianity. It is the twelfth step of twelve. We are all called to it from the beginning, but it is more than issuing an invitation…hospitality is in it, but it is only a part of it. We must first find our own salvation…repentance and forgiveness of sins…before we can offer it to another. But offer it we must.
It is Advent…a time of hospitality.
This is a time when we invite one another
The stranger
The outcast
The burdened mother
The infant
in as Christ in our lives.
We prepare to receive God into our lives…we invite God in.
A voice cries out in the wilderness. Can we join him?
Can we grasp the hand of John the Baptist and stand at his side preparing the way?
Brothers and sisters, this is our call…our vocation as Church…to seek the hand of God and to offer it to all the world.
Advent is upon us.
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Posted by tripp at December 10, 2006 08:15 AM