Advent 3

*note before: with thanks to my friend, mentor, and colleague Rev. Kevin Powell, who lives in Japan now, but still resides on the internet here and here. I would call it an homage, what I do below - but let's face it: it was thievery, and I'm proud of it.

John the Baptist confuses me. I’ll admit that right off the bat.

John confuses me, because he doesn’t do things the way they ought to be done. He stands out in the desert, a howling fanatic dressed in rags, drinking only water; last week we heard that he ate locusts, and wild honey. He stands at the shores of the Jordan river (the wrong shore, I must add) and bellows at those who come: “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”

He demands those who come be baptized as a sign of repentance, and elsewhere threatens people outright with terrible divine punishment if they don’t change and, in the words of Isaiah, “bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives,” and right the wrongs that they have done.

And people flock to hear him. They’re willing to travel miles, on foot, out into the desert, to hear John preach. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be done.

A recent article I found at the Globe and Mail’s online site featured a prominent church in Calgary as the prime example of what a growing church should look like. A giant parking lot, free designer coffee, theatre seating and a professional five-piece rock bank got the credit for bringing the people in. The pastor’s messages, with his sound-byte tagline “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me,” – the writer of the article called them ‘kick-in-the-pants-style sermons’ -- focus on finding personal success through your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The church’s $4.7 million dollar budget, I guess, is a testimony to the success of the model.

That’s the way you’re supposed to do it, I guess. But, as I commented on the online article: if that’s where the bus is going, I’m getting off. It’s not that there’s nothing good about this model: obviously, it reaches many people. But I do not like when worship looks like me, or a mirror of what I enjoy in life. Then, I’m not sure who I’m worshiping.

Where John preached, there were no distractions. People came to hear a genuine word from God that help hope, peace, joy, and above, love for them. In our world, the most populated churches are the ones that look like the mall; sound like the radio, and focus on you. And it’s everywhere. I was listening to the radio the other day, and I noticed something about almost all of the commercials that I heard: they were all about you. And I don’t mean about “the joy of giving” or anything like that; they’re about how much other people will like you, love you, respect you, when you find something they want.

The Pharisees, the religious elites in Jerusalem at the Temple, want to know if John has something they want. So they send the temple caretakers to ask him a question: “who are you?” They know that he’s a preacher, but they want to know a few things: who does he represent? Is he a known quantity? Is he toeing a line, or drawing his own? These are important questions. They need to know, because if John is a messiah, then he needs to know who they are, and where the power is.

And, as the writer of the gospel tells us, “…he confessed, he confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the messiah.”

Wow. That’s a major letdown. That’s like me, every day, when my boys look at the presents under the tree and ask if they can open one and I say: “sure….on Christmas day!”

Please, don’t call the authorities.

The Temple authorities are looking for the messiah they know is coming. But they don’t want to get their hands dirty, or mess up their designer duds trudging out to the desert. But they don’t get any answer, at all. Or, they receive an answer that is no answer, at all. “Among you stands one whom you do not know.”

So what does his answer mean?

Have you ever looked at that silhouette of a vase that suddenly seems to disappear and form a background for two people's facing profiles? Artists describe the shapes created by the areas around objects as "negative space." It's not negative in any bad sense. These spaces help define objects but also may take on lives of their own. The not-the-vase space becomes two facing faces.

Today's gospel invites us to explore the surprising richness of what is not. The priests and Levites ask John the baptizer, "Who are you?" They offer him some options, including Messiah, Elijah, and prophet. John repeatedly responds, "I am not." The narrator describes John as "not the light." He describes himself as "not worthy" to untie the sandal of the one who is coming. Being clear about what he is not throws into sharp relief what John the baptizer is: a witness to the light, a voice in the wilderness, someone through whom all might come to believe.

John tells his questioners, "Among you stands one whom you do not know." When it’s paired with "among you," "do not know" becomes a word of promise. Although yet to be revealed, the Messiah is already here. Where? Who? These words invite us on a search for a gift already given: the presence of God in our long Advent nights. We discover the treasures of winter darkness.

The treasure of a Messiah who comes, not bringing pain and rejection and fear, but peace, hope, joy, and love.

Imagine being one of the crowed when John preaches. You think he’s a nutjob, but something catches your attention. Like a car wreck you can’t turn your eyes away from him. You want to know what is about this guy that so many people traveled so far to hear.

It’s not a message of “if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” It’s a message of, “it is, because God has promised you.” But it’s easier to think that all of this – all of this Christmas, all of this religion, is about you and only you – and especially how well you can lie to yourself. John tells you that there’s more to it than that.

As a colleague of mine preached:

It’s when you push your way through the crowds that you know why so many have beaten you here: this guy knows you. I mean he REALLY knows you. He hasn’t met you before and doesn’t know your name but he has you all figured out.

He knows what hides in the secret chambers of your heart. He knows what you do when nobody’s looking.

He knows your shame and he knows your pain. He knows all that stuff you’d rather keep quiet and hidden. He can see it in your eyes. He can see in the way you keep staring at the ground while he’s preaching. He can see it in the way you walk. With your phony self-assured strut or with your hunched back, stooped from being beaten down by the world. He knows the secrets you harbour.

He knows your failings. He knows your broken places. He knows those moments of weakness that, if ever came to light, your life would end.

He knows about your cancer. Your failed marriage. The feeling that life is passing you by.

He knows about the grief that tearing your heart into rags.

He knows how your dad smacked you around when he was drunk, and now you’re afraid that you’ll do the same to your kids.

He knows how you just can’t let go of a lifetime of resentment.

He knows that some days you feel so lost and purposeless that you wonder if life is worth living at all.

Yes. He knows ALL of this. That’s why he’s so loved and so feared. But when he looks at you and excavates the buried hurts that lie in deepest alcoves of your soul, his eyes soften and he pleads with you, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight.”

Instead of scolding you for your moral failings, or telling you to stop blaming others for your troubles, or tells you that it’s up to you to drag yourself up, he leads you to the shore of the Jordan River and reminds you that when the people of God were liberated from their slavery in Egypt, they crossed the Jordan which led to the Promised Land.

Then, looking so deeply into your eyes that you’re afraid you’ll melt, he opens his arms and says, “Enter the water of freedom. God is giving you a fresh start. It’s time for you to start over. It’s time for you to begin again.”

The Baptist was giving out second chances. That’s the gift we are given each and every day when we remember the gift of our own baptism. The gift of starting over. The gift of a new beginning. As we prepare the way of the Lord.

God turns the world around; we don’t. As you come to the table of the Lord today, give thanks that it’s not up to you; that God loves you for who you are, and whose you are.

You belong to a baby. You are owned by a King. You, you and all the baggage that you bring, are God’s joy – because God alone waits and wants to take that burden from you, so that you can know what it means to be called “child of God”.

Let the children of God say amen.