Over
the course of this next year, we are going to be spending a good deal
of time in this Gospel of Luke, one of the four early accounts of
the story of Jesus and his message. I love this Gospel because Luke
tells stories and he brings the astonishing message of God’s
love for the world right down into flesh and blood lives and situations.
Often when people who don’t know the Bible very well ask me
what parts of it to read for starters, I suggest the Gospel of Luke.
Luke
tells us about real people in the real world, and the difference Jesus
will make for them all. I like to call Luke “Reality Gospel”
because all the usual suspects are here—rich and poor, young
and old, men and women, emperors and subjects, prophets and shepherds,
saints and sinners. They’re all here in Luke’s cast of
characters whose lives and whose world will be turned inside out by
Jesus the Christ.
This
Sunday and next Luke tells us the story of John the Baptist, a prophet,
and the precursor of Jesus. In Luke’s story, it’s John’s
job to set the stage, to tell the reader what’s about to happen
and why. John gets everything ready, so that when Jesus is born and
brings the world the message of his new kingdom, we’re ready
to hear it.
The
Scripture on the cover of our Order of Worship this morning comes
right out of a song found in Luke’s gospel, the song of John’s
father, Zechariah:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably
on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior
for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the
mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from
our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown
the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we,
being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without
fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you,
child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go
before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation
to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy
of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light
to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide
our feet into the way of peace.”
Imagine
John growing up hearing his father sing this song to him. Think it
might have had something to do with John’s ability to hear the
word of the God out there in the wilderness? What a lullaby for the
baby John, preparing him for his role as the one called to set the
stage for Jesus and his coming kingdom.
I
know you’ve all seen those signs and buttons that say: “Jesus
is the reason for the season.” I would only modify that a little
bit to say: “Jesus and his kingdom are the reason for the season.”
Because, you see, the job of John the Baptist is to remind us that
all this fuss about a baby being born is a lot more than the happiness
of a birth, and the animals around the manger, and the angels singing
pretty songs to frightened shepherds. It’s about God inaugurating
his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And that’s why we have
to listen carefully to what John the Baptist is trying to say. He’s
not speaking to a warm fuzzy situation at all, but to a time of tyranny
and oppression.
Now
I’m sure many of you have been reading about Mel Gibson’s
latest movie, “Apocalyto,” a drama of Mayan civilization
in the 1500s. As one reviewer quipped, noting Gibson’s penchant
for “depictions of stupendous amounts of violence,” this
movie doesn’t miss an impalement or a dismemberment. Not a movie
that’s on my must-see list. But the thing is, the brutality
of that time is not so different from the conditions that the prophet
John the Baptist was addressing. Tyrants ruled. God’s people
were suffering at the hands of earthly rulers.
You
heard Luke set the scene: “In the fifteenth year of the reign
of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and
Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region
of Itureaea and Trachonitits, and Lysania ruler of Abilene, during
the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas….the word of God came
to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”
And
what a scene! Tiberius. Pilate. Herod. Caiaphas. Imagine these parts
played by your favorite creepy actors. Or, better still, fill in the
names of your least favorite politicians and world leaders.
Luke
makes his story graphically specific so that no one can miss his point.
When evil leaders are oppressing the people, imprisoning them, killing
them, torturing them, crushing them in poverty, God will act. The
word of God comes to John and he shouts it out: “Every valley
will be filled, and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh
shall see the salvation of God.”
Sounds
a lot like another song in Luke’s gospel, the song Mary sings,
which we call the Magnificat: “God has shown strength with his
arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he
has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the
lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich
empty away. He has helped his servant, Israel, in remembrance of his
mercy, according the promise he made to our ancestors….”
The
prophets tell us: God is going to set the world right in the lives
of his people. God loves us all this much. And so, people, prepare
the way.
What
in the world does that mean? How do WE prepare the way of the Lord?
Let’s
look at three levels of preparation. The first, the social and global
level, makes us perhaps the most uncomfortable, but Luke and the prophets
make it clear that we can’t avoid it. Luke is unabashedly political,
isn’t he? The Lord is coming, he says, into a world ruled by
emperors and governors, this world, these rulers, this time, this
place.
In
those days, just before the Emperor was to come to town, workers would
scramble to get all the rocks out of the road so it would be smooth
for the royal entourage. Not so different now. When a President or
king or the Olympics are coming to town, roads are repaired, trash
picked up, the homeless moved out of sight, a fresh coat of paint
put up. Luke quotes the words of the prophet, Isaiah, to describe
John’s work of preparation, but he means something quite different,
doesn’t he? Not this superficial prettifying, but real justice
and reconciliation and peace. For when the Lord comes, the blind will
see and the lame will walk and the deaf will hear and the prisoners
shall find release and the poor, the poor will hear Good News.
This
is the very heart of Jesus’ message and of his kingdom. We pray
for it regularly, when we pray the prayer he taught us, as we will
do in just a few minutes. “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is
in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into
temptation but deliver from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the
power and glory, forever and ever. Amen.”
It’s
all there in the kingdom prayer. Glory to God who is faithful and
trustworthy. Daily bread for all. Forgiveness and restitution of relationships.
Deliverance from the evil of this world. All this is God’s kingdom,
accomplished through God’s power. Forever and ever.
But
for all that preparation to have real integrity, it must start in
us, in our own hearts and in our relationships. To have any impact
on the world, the valleys must first be lifted and the mountains brought
low in the interpersonal worlds of our lives. In our closest relationships,
our friendships, our marriages, our families, our workplaces, our
social groups, we must lift the valleys of bitterness, competition.
Lay low the mountains of resentment, prejudice and exclusivity, the
rocky and rough places of the turmoil and tension of our daily life,
the relationships twisted and crooked from jealousy and mistrust.
We must work to make the highways that connect us one to another straight
and smooth and safe. Free of hurt and violence of any kind, violence
of word, deed and heart.
To
prepare the way for the one who comes to us from the love in the heart
of our God is to increase our love for one another, our respect for
one another, our honoring of one another in all that we do and say
is to prepare ourselves. John’s words call us to prepare the
way of the Lord into and within and between and among us. And that
work begins, of course, at the very core of who we are. John calls
us to prepare the way of the Lord in our own hearts, to make the royal
highway straight and smooth that God may enter in and find us at the
place of our deepest longing and need. In our prayers, we lift the
valleys of our disappointment, doubt and fear. We bring down the mountains
of our pride, our idols, our self-satisfaction. John calls us to repentance
for the forgiveness of sins and this work we must do in our own heart
of hearts, to make ready a place for the Lord’s Messiah to come
and make a home within us.
All
this, you see, is the personal and challenging work each of us must
do in Advent to prepare the way of the Lord and his kingdom, for we’re
surely not going to convince anyone else of the truth of God’s
Messiah if our own lives do not witness to the life-saving power of
the Holy One.
Prepare
the way of the Lord, o people, on the world stage, and in all our
interpersonal relationship, and in our own hearts. For God comes in
Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, to be with us, to live with us, to comfort
us, and to restore the world to God’s home of justice and peace.
God comes in Christ Jesus to infuse us with heaven.
Let
us give thanks and praise, glory and honor, to the one who now comes
to dawn in our hearts and guide our feet into the way of peace.
Notes:
Kenneth Turan on “Apocalypto.” Los Angeles Times. December
8, 2006.
©Patricia
Farris , 2006. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
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United Methodist Church
1008 Eleventh Street
Santa Monica, CA 90403
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(310) 393-8258
Good
News for the Real World