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A reading from the Gospel of Mark 1:1-8 - New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) The Proclamation of John the Baptist 1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; 3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” 4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Advent Blessings! Advent is a time of reflection, a time of patient waiting which is counter-cultural. Advent is the beginning of the new church year so it is appropriate to reflect over the past year and consider our hopes for the New Year. God has been with us at the birth of a new child and at the death of a beloved friend. God has been with us in our shared celebrations in the park and at the peace and unity gathering. God is with us on Sunday morning and it is good to remember that God follows us home, to work and to school. God is with us today in this place. We know this, but sometimes it is good and proper to consciously remember that God is active in our lives here and now. Advent is an appropriate time to consider the amazing gift that God gave us in God’s son Jesus Christ. Can you believe that there is a God who loves his creation so much that he chose to come and live among us in the human condition where there is sorrow and joy, health and illness, violence and hate, love and forgiveness, life and death? Can you imagine sending your only son to be born of a woman, to grow from infancy to adulthood knowing that the ultimate sacrifice of death on the cross would be required of him? Down through the centuries people have found it difficult to believe in a God who allows suffering and who would be willing to die on a cross, but this is the God we believe in, a forgiving, gracious, merciful god who loves us even through death and we give Him thanks. We give thanks to the God who loves us and gave us life and not just life but abundant life. And so we reflect on the gift that God gave us that first Christmas so long ago. Advent is a time to reflect on the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven had come near, but we know it is not fully here because hate and violence continue to this day. We can dream of the world we would like to see and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. We can seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Jesus promised that just as he did miraculous things, we would be able to do even more amazing things. Advent is a time to give thanks for our Holy Scripture, The Bible, which has been given to us as a gift from God and those who have gone before. The Bible contains God’s story and the story of God’s interaction with God’s people. The author of the Gospel of Mark does not provide a nativity story or any stories from Jesus’ childhood, but immediately jumps to the story of John the Baptist. Mark looks back to Isaiah, Ezekiel and Malachi to understand who John is. John is the fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy. John is a prophet and is the promised return of Elijah. John is the promised messenger who prepares the way for the coming of the Messiah, for Jesus Christ. John knows who he is and knows who Jesus is and proclaims the message to all who come to hear him preach. John preached on the need for repentance, on turning our lives away from self-centered desires and turning to God and God’s will for us. Baptism was not new in the Jewish tradition, but usually associated with the conversion of Gentiles. John is teaching that repentance is required of all people including the Jews and many believed John and came out into the wilderness to hear his message and to be baptized. But John did not just teach on the necessity of repentance and turning over our lives to God, John also taught that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, would come and require a change a heart, an internal change accomplished through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. God gave us the gift of life, the gift of a good, abundant creation, the gift of his word, the gift of his love and the gift of his son Jesus Christ. Jesus gave us the gift of an example of what it means to live as the sons and daughters of God created in the image of God, the gift of reconciliation with God and each other and the gift of eternal life in God. Jesus asked us to share these gifts with others, telling them God’s story, giving them the gift of love, sharing the bounty of God’s creation and giving them the promise of forgiveness and eternal life in God. Amen.
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Who is this John in Prison and what happened to the fiery John the Baptist from last week who knew who he was and knew who Jesus was. Last week John proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” and was not above calling the Pharisees and Sadducees names. Can’t you just hear John shouting, “You brood of vipers!” John knew he was the one Isaiah spoke about when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” John was every inch the prophet! John fulfilled the prophecies and knew it!
John knew who Jesus was too. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” In the Gospel of John when John the Baptist sees Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” And Jesus knew who John was and recognized his authority. When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John tried to refuse, but Jesus said “no”, this is the right thing to do. So what happened between last week and this week? Why is John suddenly questioning who he is and questioning who Jesus is? Is Jesus really the long expected Messiah? It is really not too surprising. Things have not quite turned out how John expected. John is in prison and probably knows the outcome will not be good for him. You don’t question the king and his choice of bride and expect to get away with it. Jesus is not exactly who he was expecting. I mean where is the Holy Spirit and the fire! Luke would have us believe that John and Jesus are cousins born within six months of each other. Many scholars believe that Jesus was a disciple of John and that over time John’s prominence diminished as Jesus’ increased. John is probably wondering if things are really turning out as planned. John probably needed a little reassurance at this point that things were going according to God’s plan, that he hadn’t chosen the wrong side. At one point Jesus even asked his disciples who people said that he was and who did the disciples say that he was and Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It sounds like even Jesus had times when he questioned who he was and was he really following God’s way. So here we are at Advent III, two weeks to the day before Christmas. We have been busy with baking, gift buying, Christmas letters, Christmas parties, Final Exams, grading papers, decorating, but have we taken time to ask, “Who was John the Baptist? And what does he mean for me? Who was Jesus? And why do I care?” Teachers, professors, what is your pedagogy for teaching? How do children learn? How do adults learn? And how do you apply that to your work and how do we apply that to our lives? We learn by seeing what our parents, teachers and other adults do, by example. We learn about God by hearing his story over and over again until we can repeat it. We memorize the Lord’s Prayer and know it by heart. We learn the alphabet, we learn to count, we learn the multiplication table by rote, by continuous repetition. We may know Psalm 146 by heart, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being”, but do we understand what it means. When learning to read music I learned the rhymes, “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” and FACE for the alternate keys, but that did not mean I could read music. We hear the stories of our faith, we tell the stories of John the Baptist, but have we engaged with the story, chewed on it, struggled with it, and questioned it? There is nothing wrong with having doubts and asking questions. Was Mary really a virgin? Why is Jesus born to an unwed teenager? Was John really Jesus’ cousin? Why does Matthew include the story of the wise men and were there really only three? What is the author of the gospel really trying to tell us? It is in the questioning, the struggle with the story that we really come to understand the message. Have you heard the phrase “Elevator Speech”? Essentially an Elevator Speech is an extremely pithy description of something, prepared in advance to be used in situations where time is of the essence. The term comes from the hypothetical situation of somebody seeing a pin or something similar on your person that arouses their curiosity while in an elevator (such as a Safety Pin), and then asking you what exactly the pin stands for. Because “Welcoming and Affirming” would be rather difficult to explain in the remaining duration of the elevator ride, the prepared elevator speech serves to provide as best of an answer as possible in the available time. At a recent Episcopal Evangelism Conference, that sounds like a bit of an oxymoron doesn’t it, the participants were asked to create an elevator speech of who Jesus was and why they loved him. It is harder than you think. How would you explain in 30 seconds why you are a Christian, why loving Jesus is still relevant in the 21st century? Try it. In today’s gospel, John needed to be reassured as to why he loved Jesus, why he believed Jesus was the Messiah and why he was willing to die for that belief. When John’s disciples came to Jesus to ask if he was the Messiah, Jesus did not answer their question directly. Jesus asked them to look at the evidence and decide for themselves. “Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus didn’t tell them what to believe, but challenged them to think about it and come to a conclusion. Your homework this week is to think about why you love Jesus and write a 30 second “Elevator Speech”. Start with three minutes and distill it down to the most important details. Look at the evidence, review scripture, watch for where you see God active in our community today and come to your conclusion. Is Jesus the Messiah? Why is He relevant today? And why do you love Jesus? I look forward to hearing some of your answers in the future. Happy discernment! Amen. We have had a busy week with the Thanksgiving weekend followed by Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Our float looked grand in the Albion Aglow Parade, thank you to Dick, Mary, Glen, and Lisa for walking. Dick is hoping a couple men will come out to his place and help take the float a part so it can be put back in storage. St. James’ hosted the first Advent lunch last Wednesday, many thanks to Glenda, Glen and Willie for providing an excellent lunch. You missed some fantastic cookies! There is a schedule for the remaining Advent Lunches on the back table. I hope you can attend one or two. I will be the speaker on December 14th at the Free Methodist Church on Maple Street. When I dropped in on the Christmas Bazaar and Cookie Walk on Saturday morning I found the Parish Hall very busy. I am told there was a line down the walk waiting for the doors to open. Thank you to Patti, Monna, Glenda, Willie, Bev, Diana, Phyllis, Tamara, Dick, Mary and everyone else who baked cookies and bought cookies.
December is a busy time of the year shopping, baking, visiting family, friends and neighbors, decorating and preparing for the holidays, for the Holy Days, for Christmas. Early December is also Advent and as I am sure every priest has told you for as long as you can remember it is also a time to slow down, to reflect on the meaning of the season, to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. With the hustle and bustle of the season, with the continuing turmoil following the general election and with the general uneasiness we find in life such as illness, end of life issues, and unemployment, we seek the peace and calm that only God can offer. This is not unique to our generation. From the eighth century BC we hear the words of Isaiah prophesying of the coming of a great king who will rule with wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord, a time when the people no longer need to worry about rival leaders, war or invasion, a time when even the predator and his prey will rest in harmony. Don’t we yearn for a time when our elected officials work together for the benefit of our country, all the people of this country and in fact for all nations and all people? Don’t we long for a time when we do not need to send our sons and daughters to war or worry about terrorists or weapons of mass destruction here or abroad? Don’t we hope for a world where our children’s children’s children have abundant fresh food and water, when there is no concern for pollution and environmental disaster, where they live in harmony with all of God’s creation, where God rules as their king and leader? We long for a leader who will lead with justice and righteousness, who will give justice to the rich and the poor, who will bring prosperity to our land, who will defend the needy and stand with the poor against their oppressors, do we not pray for peace now and forever more? As Paul wrote to the Romans, scripture, history, stories are written for our instruction. We learn that each generation has men and women who seek power and personal gain at the expense of others. We find children and orphans who are abused by those who should be protecting them. We tell stories of us and them, of the fear of the other, of the fear of being discovered. We hear stories of people yearning for peace and harmony and prosperity and a time when we are all one big happy family with no other. We hear stories of people calling for God’s help, of prophets promising that God will intervene with justice and righteousness and we hear stories of times when God does intervene in the natural order and save His people. John the Baptist is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” John the Baptist is described so as to resemble the Old Testament prophets. In 2 Kings 1:8 the prophet Elijah is described as “A hairy man, with a leather belt around his waist.” Malachi 3:1 says that the Lord will send a messenger to prepare for his coming and Malachi 4:5 says that the Lord will send the prophet Elijah before his coming. Matthew says that John is that messenger, that Elijah has come to prepare the way for the Messiah, that the kingdom of God is near. Jerusalem is the center of society where people come to buy and sell and to worship and sacrifice to God in the temple. John’s ministry is out in the wilderness far away from the city and the center of things and yet many people come to hear John preach and to be baptized in the river Jordan, even many Pharisees and Sadducees came out to be baptized with the water for repentance. Just as the author of the Gospel of Matthew looked back in the Old Testament to explain the events in his time, we too can look back to see predictors of our time. We already know the story of the divine coming down and touching humanity in Jesus Christ. We know the stories of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the stories of Jesus’ ministry, his preaching and teaching. We cannot tell the stories of Jesus’ birth without remembering the stories of Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection. We have cherished family traditions. My family has Christmas traditions of midnight mass, Christmas stockings, opening each present one by one and Christmas dinner with mincemeat pies, fruit cake and steamed carrot pudding. We remember those who are no longer with us and welcome the new spouses and new children that join our family. So what is it that we are waiting for, what is it we are longing for, what are we preparing for? What if we are the modern day John the Baptists preparing the way for the coming of the Lord! We know Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God where there is no hunger or thirst, where all have shelter and clothing, where there is justice for all including the poor, the lonely, the stranger and the outcasts, where all love and are loved by God and humanity. Matthew’s gospel ends with the great commission, “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Mt 28:18-20) As we begin a new church year and as we begin a new three year cycle of telling God’s story, we are reminded that we are part of this story, that it is our story too. Just as John was the messenger sent to proclaim the coming of the Lord, we too are sent to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven, with the hope that others will turn their lives away from personal desires and turn towards God who promises to be a fair and just king where there is peace and harmony where justice and righteousness rule. Amen. |
Mother Darlene KuhnPosting of Weekly Sermons Archives
July 2018
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