Second Sunday in Advent

Amos 6:1-14; 2 Thess. 1:5-12; Luke 1:57-68

Today we’re at the Church of the Ascension again, and I’m preaching.  It’s John the Baptist Sunday, so at the Eucharist we get the followup to the daily Gospel: the Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79) and Luke 3:1-6, introducing the adult John.  Read all of them today.  Rather than a reflection, here’s the sermon I plan to preach (unless God has other ideas!).

Thank you for inviting me to be with you today.  Yesterday Elizabeth and I led a quiet day focused on Mary’s yes to God, a response to an invitation.  Today’s readings remind us of other invitations from God.  Baruch invites the exiles to return from Babylon, and those who remained in Jerusalem to welcome them.  Zechariah’s song is a response to God’s invitation to participate in salvation as the father of John the Baptist.  And in his song, his son is invited to go before the Lord to prepare the way, to give the people knowledge of salvation.  It all sounds great.

The Gospel reminds us, though, that invitations are often challenges as well.  I feel challenged to bring you a word today, and I pray God to give me that.  Baruch challenged the exiles to go back to Jerusalem, and challenged the residents of Jerusalem to welcome them.  Paul challenged the Phillippians to overflow with knowledge and insight, to be righteous.  Invitations are always challenges.  They demand a response.

Do you think that when Zechariah sang to his infant son that he could have imagined what was to come?  Zechariah was a priest in the Temple.  He served a holy function, within an institution whose leaders will eventually participate in killing Jesus.  He likely expected John to become a priest in his turn.  As a priest he would indeed help the people to worship God, and he would pray to God on their behalf.  But he would do this within the bounds of order and decency, and also within the bounds of the Roman Empire.  

That’s not what happened.  John had another destiny, and it was likely not one that Zechariah understood.  At some point he left home, left the career track, and went to the wilderness.   After a period of preparation he began preaching.  He called the people to repent.  He called all the people to repent, including all those rulers that Luke lists at the beginning of the passage.  His call to others will eventually cost him his life.  But long before that the call that he experienced, the invitation he received, cost him the life his father planned for him.  It cost him family, and secure income, and status.  It would have cost his family in honor, in that honor-driven society.  John received an invitation to fullness of life, and all he had to do was give up everything safe and familiar and risk his life for God.

This is the double edge of God’s invitations.  God’s invitations are always challenges.

When God calls the exiles back from Babylon, most of them don't want to go.  When they are called out of Egypt, most of them turn against Moses when they realize what’s happened.  And who knows?  Maybe the plagues were directed at getting the Israelites to leave, as much as getting Pharaoh’s consent!  

God’s invitations are always challenges.

Every time God or God’s messengers appear, they tell people: “Do not be afraid.”  That should give us a clue as to what they’re up to.

Do not be afraid, Zechariah!  Your prayer has been heard.  You’re going to have a child who leaves everything you understand and value, and dies in prison.

Do not be afraid, Mary!  You’re going to have a child in questionable circumstances that will cost you honor among your people.  He’ll grow up to be hunted and killed.

Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary as your wife.  You’ll have to flee to Egypt and make a new home in Nazareth, and endure the whispers of the neighbors.

Oh yeah.  God’s invitations are always challenges.

Do you want to be invited?  That’s what John is up to.  He follows the invitation and becomes an inviter himself.  As his father prophesied, he goes before the Holy One to prepare the way, to let people know salvation is available, that God’s compassion is here, that release and mercy are right here.  All we have to do, he says, is repent.

Do you want to be invited?

Advent is one of the great seasons of invitation.  We’re invited to parties, to carol sings, to tree lightings, to church services.  We’re invited to donate time and money to help others.  The invitations have gotten more insistent as media multiply.  They carry the challenge to enjoy the season, to do more, to do too much.  The invitations from marketers, from neighbors, from employers and from friends add up to a season from which we can only recover.

But hidden in that pile of invitations is another.  Before it was swamped by the commerce of Christmas, Advent was a little Lent, a time of preparation for the coming Christ.  Our readings still reflect that emphasis, but we’ve lost touch with the challenge of Advent.

The challenge is not to get our Christmas shopping done, or to bake enough cookies for all our neighbors.  The challenge is not getting cards out, or surviving all the Christmas parties.  The challenge is to prepare for the coming of God.

Just when everything and everyone around us tells us to go out and do more, we are invited to sit still and wait.  We are invited to wait with women while holy children grow in them, and to wait with their baffled husbands.  We are invited to wait with the exiles and slaves until the call to go forth is clear.  We are invited to turn again, to grasp the promise of freedom.   We are invited to face our sins, whatever separates us from God, in order to lay them aside and enter the joy of God’s realm.

Do you want to be invited?

You have been.  However you choose to respond, you’ve been invited.  John invited his listeners.  Jesus invited those who heard him.  For thousands of years we’ve been invited, and today you and I are invited.

You cannot pretend you didn’t get the invitation.  Sorry.  Not responding is a response.

There’s good news here.  This invitation is a challenge to enter more deeply into life.  It’s an invitation to really fulfill your deepest hunger, your oldest thirst, your primal longing.  And yes, it looks hard and scary.  We can’t see the promised land as clearly as we can see the land we’ve grown up in.  But it’s there, waiting for us.  God is waiting for us.

John came to bear witness to the light.  This light will shine for us, and guide our feet into the way of peace.  That’s not an invitation.  That’s a promise.

Prepare the way of the Lord.