In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ² "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." ³ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" ⁴ Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit worthy of repentance. ⁹ Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ "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. ¹² 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."

Text: Mt. 3:1-12

Theme: invoking God to intrude

Date: Dec. 9, 2007

Assembly: Zion Lutheran

Well, Matthew thinks that the Advent of Christ—that is to say the Coming of Jesus

changes everything

and his gospel encourages us to believe the same thing

This week I’ve been thinking about John the Baptist as invocation

Invocation: a call to worship

A call to what is to come

A pointing to God

I’ve been thinking about John the Baptist as an invocation to the Advent of Christ

Because John was good at that

It’s what he’s known for…

You have picked out John the Baptist in art

When you’ve found “that guy” who’s pointing

At a Lamb

Or a Book

Or a Man

And then you also know that that Lamb or Book or Man

Is Jesus

In Scripture, and therefore in art, you find John pointing to Christ

John calls us to see Christ

And by doing so, invokes Jesus’ coming

John invites us to see what he knows is coming

Now, we know something is coming in worship

And we’ve invoked God’s presence…

Our typical invocations in worship

Say “welcome to worship in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”

Well, John just says it differently—perhaps in a way that shakes our cobwebs off…

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

But in a way they are inviting us to the same reality

Be aware…the divine is coming near…

It makes us take a look at how we’re living

We’ve got this time we call Advent where we know the Christ is coming

So we examine our lives

Even as we crane our neck to get a better glimpse at the crèche

Is the babe there yet?

When we examine ourselves today in light of Romans…

We see Paul’s urgency for unity

It’s so beautiful what Paul writes:

May God’s steadfastness (not our ability) enable us to live in harmony with one another

And for what end is that, Paul?

He goes on: “so that together you may with one voice glorify God”

I’m assured that many of you are with me—

That I’d rather spend my Advent with more of that “one voice glorifying God” thing

And less shopping…

So, one voice glorifying God—it’s an ideal, Right?

And sometimes ideals seem hard to practically approach…

but this time, Paul tells us a way

and here are Paul’s steps,

that were we each to take here,

we would be able with a more unified voice

to give God glory…

it starts with this…putting up with the failings of others

(no, that doesn’t mean settling for mediocrity

—it means accepting one another and then working together for better)

And then Paul continues with a next step…

That we don’t seek to please ourselves,

But that we seek to (and these are Paul’s words)

“please our neighbor for the good purpose

of building up the neighbor”

And this being done…(building up our neighbor for the sake of our neighbor)

Is what, Paul says, brings hope

And our hope in this time is the in-breaking of a baby who changes the world

And our world needs hope

Meg Strohmer, a member of Zion,

recently followed a calling to accompany people in the Holy Land

--to hear their hopelessness and their hopes

--to be able to have a first-hand view of the crisis there

--and, I feel, we are fortunate that she is one of our body

Who, today between services will share/shared stories and insights

That came from listening to others in the midst of this struggle

There is this word “Shoah” that is a Hebrew word meaning “catastrophe”

The Shoah refers to the same events as another word

—the Holocaust (which means burnt offering).

Only catastrophe seems a much better description than burnt offering

There are those who say

“The Shoah happened to us, may it never happen to us again.”

This may seem understandable

Until you hear that others have a sense

that much more closely reflects this passage from Romans:

They say:

“The Shoah happened to us, may it never happen to anyone again.”

Do you feel the great difference between the ideologies in those statements

“The Shoah happened to us, may it never happen to us again.”

This first sentiment

Would, for one thing, lead to an increasing of military strength

and use of power against the other

and we see this playing out in our world

you know many examples—I’ll share one…

I was riding the bus from Jerusalem’s old city

to my home for the summer about 10 minutes outside of Jerusalem

sitting next to an Palestinian woman

I tried all the Arabic, I’d mastered

“Salaam Alecum”

And she naturally responded

“Alecum a’Salaam”

And she spoke a bit of English

So we were able to communicate a bit

I was able to get across

“do you have children?”

And I learned she had 3

And to her question I answered I had no kids

But was about to be married

And she pointed out to me houses that belonged to her family

before they had to move to refugee camps

and she checked with me…was I American

and then she asked—what cuts me still

“Why do you send guns to kill us?”

But there’s that other response as well…

“The Shoah happened to us, may it never happen to anyone again.”

But, this second response

does has more than the individual’s needs in mind

—it seeks to protect all and would use power

not against the other,

but on behalf of the other

these biblical texts call us to help this play out in our world

Texts that call us to build up our neighbors instead of ourselves

And to do so for their benefit—not our own

And all of this so that God may be glorified because unity has been strengthened

All this done to the glory of God—on behalf of others

6 times, this text names who it is for

It is on behalf of the Gentiles—that is…the nations

We are granted to live in harmony

So that together we may with one voice glorify God

Yet, sometimes it is hard to see how this can happen…

Today there is a catastrophe occurring in the Holy Land

A land where Christian and Muslim and Jewish religions are neighbors

And I am convinced that we are called to work on behalf of our neighbors

But one begins to wonder, after so many years of conflict

Where is there a path ahead

Can a path be made straight?

So, when our senses of how to move forward fail,

I wonder if it isn’t at such a time that we could step

into John’s role and announce the coming

--even to invoke God’s abrupt way of change

And to believe that God is coming

It is a time to implore God’s coming in a way that we haven’t yet imagined

It is a time to invite and believe in God changing the world through the force of a baby

John the Baptist in Matthew’s gospel abruptly

—almost as to show us that the heralding of God’s action

may not come with much lead time

—that God’s action in human history

is often sudden and surprising…

Can we dare hope for and speak an invocation of our God that is dramatic and abrupt?

Might God unexpectedly break in to change this catastrophe

Will you dare to invoke God to intrude…

…In your life?....

…in the world’s life?...