In the Afterglow (Luke 2:41-52)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Dec 27, 2015)

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“But He Was a Baby Last Year…” 

In the nursery at the small, country Catholic church, Sister Teresa gathered the children round to tell them the story of Christmas. She set up the nativity and began. The little children were clearly captivated. They followed the gentle movement of her hands, as she brought the figurines to life. All was calm in the room. All was bright. Until Sister Teresa got to the end of the story and placed the baby Jesus figurine in the manger. At this, a look of utter confusion washed over the face of little Sammy, one of the older toddlers, and he leaned in for a closer look at the baby Jesus. Little Sammy had had a baby brother himself since the year before, and maybe that explains what he said next. “But he was a baby last year! Jesus must be bigger now.”[1]

While little Sammy had not yet quite grasped the nature of birthdays or anniversaries, he has a thing or two to teach us who would keep Jesus eternally in the manger, or eternally at the end of his life. Jesus, according to little Sammy and also to our story today in Luke, lived a life just like any one of us. Jesus grew up just like you and me, enduring growing pains just like any adolescent.

The Afterglow 

Which brings us to today’s scripture, a remarkable story that offers us the only glimpse we have of Jesus when he was a child.

And the setting of the story is a remarkably familiar one. We can imagine the scene in Jerusalem: decorations are being taken down; residents are tidying up; a satisfied silence envelops the city. Passover, the main holiday of the year, has just ended.

And I imagine that the first couple days after Passover are like the first couple days after Christmas: they pass anonymously, as though we don’t care so much to acquaint ourselves with them but would rather just rest in their quietness. And perhaps that’s why Mary and Joseph didn’t notice their son’s absence on the first day of their journey back. Perhaps they were relishing the tired plod of their donkeys, the relative quiet of their relatives, the calm afterglow of the festival.

I imagine that’s where a lot of us are right now: relishing the afterglow. We too are quietly coming down, gently preparing ourselves for the return to normalcy.

Where Is Jesus? 

And perhaps like Mary and Joseph, we too will eventually stop to ask: where is Jesus? Our nativities are coming down. Which means the baby Jesus is no longer a baby, no longer in the manger. So where is he now? Where is Jesus as we remove the ornaments and take the tree down?

According to Luke, Jesus has not yet left the scene of the festival. Passover was finished for Jesus and the rest of them. But Jesus was not finished with Passover. While the rest of his family were relishing the afterglow, reliving the festive scenes in their minds as they recalibrated their hearts to business as usual, Jesus remained alight, aglow, aflame with curiosity. By that time, the festive lights in Jerusalem would have been disappearing—as many of our Christmas lights will soon be disappearing—but as the fire died outside, it only flamed higher and higher inside the youthful soul of Jesus.

A holy spark had jumped the ashes of Passover and had caught hold of Jesus. He could not leave the Temple. And what follows is one of the strongest images we have of Jesus’ humanity.

It’s easy to sentimentalize this scene, to paint it in the broad, warm strokes of a Thomas Kinkade painting: the boy Jesus, astonishing the rabbis with his divine wisdom. But that would risk missing the point that this boy Jesus is just like any other boy his age. He’s full of questions. Eager. Curious. He’s not there with a point to prove. He’s there to learn—to “grow in wisdom,” as Luke says it (2:52). I imagine him pushing those rabbis to the limits of their knowledge, subjecting them to that most rigorous form of inquisition practiced by twelve-year olds all across the globe: “Why? Why? Why?” Or perhaps to that other infamous youthful inquiry, in which the impossible is imagined, along with the daring question: “Why not?”

If Jesus were with us today as a twelve year old, he might well take stock of our Christmas celebrations and then audaciously ask, “Why not? Why can’t we have this spirit of love and selflessness all year round?” I can’t help but think that he was asking similar questions there in the Temple just after Passover. In my mind, the grey and wispy-haired rabbis are remembering the exodus, how they were helpless strangers in Egypt but God took notice and saved them, and how they as Israelites were commanded to do the same, to take notice of the stranger in their midst and to care for them. And in the midst of this discussion, Jesus pipes up and asks, “And what about our enemies? How should we treat them? And what about forgiveness? If we only ever forgive people who are sorry, will that ever change the world?” How the biggest questions often come from the smallest among us. And yet even as Jesus grows up, he does not discard these big questions. His sermon on the plain, just four chapters later in Luke, will invite people to love their enemies and to forgive unconditionally (6:32-38).

Growing Pains 

The hard lesson that Mary and Joseph learn in today’s story is the same hard lesson that any parent must learn, I suppose. Their baby child is growing up.

And that, I believe, is the lesson for us today too. We learn it just as easily from little Sammy as we do from today’s story in Luke. Jesus was born a baby. But now he’s growing. And he’s showing us that even though the great festival has ended—Passover, in his case, Christmas in ours—even though the party is over, it continues in our hearts. As the fire dies down outside us, so it sparks something inside us. For Jesus, the fire within would grow and grow until he was publicly proclaiming the good and difficult news of enemy love and unconditional forgiveness. For us, perhaps the fire within is Jesus, and Jesus is growing. And like Mary and Joseph, we watch nervously, realizing that the baby Jesus is not ours to keep, but a curious and inquisitive and bold spirit who will exasperate us as much as he will endear himself to us.

“Let Christmas Last the Whole Year Through…” 

“Let Christmas last the whole year through. Let love and joy abound.” So begins the poem by one of our very own, Becky. It is an invitation that we see in the flesh in today’s story. The ancient story of Passover and God’s love for an oppressed people catches hold of Jesus, ignites a holy passion within. Passover the festival has ended. But Passover the story lives on in Jesus. Where it simmers beneath the surface, fermenting, evolving, growing into the gospel that Jesus will soon be proclaiming. So for us the festival of Christmas is ending. But the hope is that the story of Christmas will live on—and not just as a fixed memory. The hope is that the story will grow within us like the Christ child himself, will ask questions of us, will lead us to live out love and joy in a real and fresh way.

Naturally, I’m inclined to wrap this sermon up neat and tidy. But I think perhaps today’s story resists such a clean conclusion. Today’s story says rather that the afterglow of Christmas, like the afterglow of Passover, means that even as the fires without die, the fire within is flamed. And that fire within is unpredictable. It caught the parents of Jesus by surprise. Fifteen years or so later, it would catch all of Galilee and Jerusalem by surprise. Some might even say that, in the garden of Gethsemane, it caught Jesus himself by surprise.

You know how they say be careful what you pray for—you just might get it? If we should dare pray that Christmas last the whole year through, then we should also be ready for some growing pains—and a wonderful adventure we could never see coming.

Prayer 

We wonder at the Christ child, God, born in a manger, born in our hearts. Thank you for the gift of love. Our natural tendency is to hold on to the good gifts we receive. May we allow Christ to grow beyond the manger. Open our hearts to the play of a Christ who escapes our expectations, asks unending questions, and surprises us again and again. Encourage us through the growing pains as we seek to let the Christmas story live and grow in us. In the name of Christ our companion: Amen.

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[1] Adapted from a comment on Craig A. Satterlee, “Commentary on Luke 2:41-52,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1524, accessed Dec 24, 2015.

Welcome to the World (Luke 2:1-20)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Christmas Eve Worship, 2015)

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Who’s Welcoming Whom?

“So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (v. 16).

So we too have come in haste, amid the bustle of family gatherings and last-minute shopping, amid the excitement of wrapping gifts and cooking favorite dishes. So we too have found the child lying in the manger—finally filling that empty spot in our nativities.

And yet…it is a little bit ironic that we have come here of all places, that we have come to church on Christmas Eve. We come here, of course, with the best of intentions: we come to welcome the Christ child, and we do it here at church, because in our society, church is where respectable people go to pay their respects to God.

But on that first Christmas Eve, God did not receive a welcome at church. No one at the Temple sung God’s praise, no one in the local synagogue organized a welcome party. On that first Christmas Eve, God was not being welcomed so much as God was welcoming. God was out in the fields among the shepherds, those dirty, smelly wanderers who were among the least respectable in their society, who were considered by many to be the riffraff of the fields. On that first Christmas Eve, God went out into the brisk backcountry, welcoming the least among us.

And so it is ironic that we are here at church tonight welcoming God, when according to the Christmas story, God is out in the cold, dark world, welcoming us—especially those of us who, like the shepherds, are on the outside of life.

The truth is, for many in our world tonight, perhaps even for many of us, God is actually the last thing on our minds, because heaven seems so far away from the earth we walk—from the hospitals we visit, from the vacant seats at our tables and the emptiness in our hearts, from our fractured relationships. But if the good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is for anyone, it’s for these people, for those of us who feel this way. The good news of great joy is for anyone who feels unwelcome in this world, who feels like a stranger in this world, scavenging for hope, scrapping about for a bit of warmth. It is for anyone who feels a deep disconnect between the sentimental Christmas cards we share and the daily life we endure. The good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is not that all is well in heaven and one day we’ll get there, but that somehow all is well here even as all is not well, because God is in the dirt and shadows, among the shepherds and the lowest of the lowlife, because heaven is come to earth for anyone with eyes to see.

There are two welcomes going on tonight. There is the small welcome that happens here in church, where we presume to welcome God. And there is the infinitely larger, life-saving welcome that happens outside these doors—where God is welcoming us, where the angels are singing the good news of great joy that God is not tucked away in some holy book, or far away beyond the clouds, or beyond the tick-tock of our clocks. God is here with us, being born among us in countless indescribable ways. This world is God’s home, and we are all welcome. The good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is God saying to the shepherds—and all of us:

Welcome to the world—my world. I made all of this for you. I cannot promise an easy or safe life. See, I myself have made my home in this manger, in this little town of Bethlehem, watched over by a couple of nervous teenagers and you, a band of dirty, smelly shepherds. I myself will hang out with people who are broken and needy. I myself will be one of them.

I cannot promise an easy or safe life. But I can promise great joy and I can promise peace. I can promise you the stars and dinner feasts and companions along the way.

You have lived here all your life, but as strangers and scavengers. You have lived here all your life, but the world has been a hostile stopover rather than a home. So here, at this manger, in the mysterious murmur of this newborn child, I say to you again, “Welcome. This world is yours. I made it for you. It is my home—and yours too. Life is a gift. You need not look for it anywhere other than where I am—which is right where you are.”

God is with us tonight. Here in church, yes—but not just here, thank God. God goes out into the cold darkness of our world, to wherever we feel most unwelcome, to wherever we feel like strangers on this earth, and extends there an infinitely large, life-saving welcome, the kind that opens our eyes to the life right in front of us. And that, if ever there was, is “good news of great joy for all the people” (v. 10).

Merry Christmas

A merry Christmas to you all: a merry Christmas as you leave this church, as you return to family, as you return to the daily grind. A Merry Christmas to you as you return to the world, where God in Christ is welcoming you in ways as small and mysterious as a newborn child.

A Needy God (Luke 1:46-55)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Dec 20, 2015, Advent IV)

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Finally, the Birth Story…

Finally! For the first time this Advent, we get to the birth story itself. The last few weeks have led us on such a strange and roundabout journey through scripture, you’d be forgiven for wondering if the church leaders had had a bit too much eggnog before they sat down to pick out our Advent texts. On the first Sunday of Advent, we had a grown Jesus talking about the end of the world as we know it. On the next two Sundays, we went to the wilderness and listened to John’s wild words about forgiveness and repentance. And each story in its own way has been preparing us for the birth of Christ. Each has stripped the excessive sparkle and glitter of our festivities, reminding us that when God comes, God comes neither into a perfectly prepared palace nor by way of a poised, princely step. God comes unceremoniously into the dirt and darkness of our unprepared world. And God comes bringing change.

In today’s scripture, finally, we can sense God’s coming. Finally we get to something resembling the nativities that we set up weeks ago, the gentle scenes that have been waiting ever so patiently on our tables. Finally we can feel the baby kicking. Like Elizabeth, we can feel life leaping for joy deep within us (1:44). The birth is only a few days away.

A Hero’s Birth Story

And if the events leading up to this birth are to be believed, then this child is indeed worth singing about, as Mary does in today’s scripture. Angels, an unlikely mother, a miraculous conception. All the key ingredients of a hero’s birth story. Mary herself could have recited similar stories from ancient tradition: Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel. These heroes of the Jewish faith all entered the world through a magnificent yet unlikely birth, where a barren mother conceived or the baby escaped certain death. A miraculous birth indicated that the child was destined for a miraculous life. It marked the child for greatness, imprinting upon him the stamp of divine approval.

And it is a striking coincidence—or perhaps more than coincidence—that such a miraculous birth story accompanies not only Jesus, but also the emperor who ruled at the time of his birth. Ancient Roman tradition tells us that Augustus was conceived miraculously one night by the god Apollo.[1] In time, Augustus would become emperor and would receive titles like “divine,” “son of god,” “lord,” “redeemer,” “savior of the world.”[2] Sound like anyone else you know?

Declaring God Great? Or Making God Great?

All of the sudden, then, Mary’s song loses the innocent tones that we may have been hearing of a gentle and grateful mother’s lullaby, and assumes instead a more dangerous, insurrectionary melody. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she begins. But she is not magnifying lord Augustus. She is not proclaiming the emperor to be the “son of God” or the “savior” of the world (cf. 1:36; 2:11).[3]

Mary’s song is less of a lullaby, more of a march. If the ancient world had been in the habit of composing national anthems, Mary’s song would have been a perfect candidate for the people of Judea. In a world that proclaimed the greatness of the Roman emperor, Mary dared proclaim the greatness of God. It would have raised eyebrows among the Roman citizens of Mary’s day, in the same way that a refusal to pledge allegiance to the flag would raise eyebrows today. Mary’s song is the stuff of revolution; her ecstatic vision of the proud and powerful and prosperous being brought low and the poor and hungry being raised up would be enough to scare any government. It’s no coincidence that Mary’s song has been banned on numerous occasions—even in the last century, when British colonial rule outlawed the song from being sung in Indian churches, or when the military states of Guatemala and Argentina prohibited its public recitation.[4]

As a declaration of God’s greatness over against the powerful, Mary’s song is revolutionary enough as it is. But if we listen closely, there are revolutionary overtones in her song that go far beyond a challenge to empire. And it all begins in the first word of the song, megalynei, which can mean either “to declare great” or “to make great.”

God Needs Us 

(To Make God Great)

To “declare” God’s greatness would have been treason against the Roman Empire. But for many of the pious who pontificate from raised platforms, it would be an even higher heresy to even entertain the idea of “making” God great. “Make God great? God is already great. God doesn’t need you one bit to be great. A needy god would be an inferior god.”

Which is all true—according to the gods of our world, the gods of the Roman empire or any world power today, the gods for whom the most important attributes are power, command, and control. But the birth story that we celebrate this Advent, the strange and wonderful tale of Mary, does not celebrate a god of power, a god-above-us. It bows not at the altar of omnipotence but at a rustic crib in a lowly manger. It celebrates a God as powerless as a baby in Bethlehem; it magnifies a God who scatters the proud and brings down the powerful not by an iron first but by the powerless invitation of love extended by an infant with an infant’s needs, by a man with the same flesh and bones as you and me; it glorifies God-among-us, the God-within-us, the God who is seeking to become a part of our world.

The message of today’s birth story is so simple, it’s easy to take for granted: being born in human flesh is the way of God in our world. God needs people like Mary, people like Abraham and Sarah, people like the Hebrew midwives in Egypt, people who say, “Yes” to God’s plan for new life. God needs the flesh and blood of a baby Jesus, a teenager Jesus, a grown Jesus—all of whom embody the beauty of God’s love.

God is needy. Not in a possessive or clingy or neurotic sense. Rather, God needs us like the sun and the rain need flowers. Which is to say, God doesn’t need us at all. Just like sun and rain don’t need flowers in order to be sun and rain. But how would we ever experience the real beauty of the sun and the rain, if there were no flowers to soak up ray and water? And how would the world ever experience the real beauty of God, if there were no people who gave flesh and bones to God’s love?

God is great. But God’s greatness is not known or experienced unless we embody it. God needs us not merely to declare God great but to make God great in the world. God’s love needs hands that give, hearts that care, lips that kiss. God’s forgiveness needs heads that turn the other cheek. God’s hope needs dreamers and storytellers and artists that open us up to the impossible.

Mary’s revolution goes far beyond defying the Roman emperor and proclaiming the greatness of God. She makes the greatness of God, because she says, “Yes.” God is waiting, needing to be birthed into our world. Literally, in the case of Mary. But for us too. Just as love found its way into the world in the tiny town of Bethlehem, so love is looking for a way into the world today in our little corner of Richmond.

Prayer

God whose love can topple the powerful and lift up the lowly, in ways that no earthly authority or army ever can, we confess our need for You. Open our ears, that we might hear Your prayers to us, that we might hear angels dreaming the impossible and inviting our help. May our hearts be ready to receive You, to meet your needs, so that the beauty of your vulnerable, trusting love might grow and be known among us—so that it might save the world. Amen.

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[1] John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007), 105.

[2] Crossan, God and Empire, 28.

[3] Crossan, God and Empire, 117: “Caesar’s coins said he was DIVI F…SON OF GOD.”

[4] Jason Porterfield, “The Subversive Magnificat: What Mary Expected the Messiah to Be Like,” accessed Dec 19, 2015.

The Gospel of Fire (Luke 3:7-18)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Dec 13, 2015, Advent III)

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The Gospel? More Like Put-downs and Threats

I almost have to laugh when I read the end of today’s passage: “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people” (3:18). Good news? Luke, were you listening to what John said? If I didn’t know any better, I might think that Luke was trying his hand at a bit of stand-up comedy. “This guy, John, right? This religious fanatic? He’s in the wilderness, and a bunch of people come to him, expecting to hear the word of God. And he goes berserk, calling them a bunch of snakes, telling them that God is carrying an axe, threatening them with unquenchable fire. And the cherry on top? This is supposed to be ‘good news.’”

If that were Luke’s point—if this were just a sketch to ridicule John and those crazy Christians who dream up fire and call it “good news”—then I’d say he does a pretty good job. John’s talk about the “wrath to come,” an “axe…lying at the root of the trees,” all the rotten harvest being burned with an “unquenchable fire”: is that really good news? To me, it sounds more like a bunch of put-downs and threats, like a bit of holy blackmail. We see enough of it in our own world today. “Step in line with God, or else….”

Where’s the Fire Coming From?

So what happened to the word of God that came to John in last week’s text—the good news of a second chance? What happened to the refreshing waters of forgiveness? Why does John suddenly dress forgiveness up in such unforgiving terms? I won’t pretend to know exactly what John meant when he made his fiery speech. But if you’ll remember, John wasn’t proclaiming only forgiveness; he was proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” So I have a hunch that his fire-tinged sermon has something to do with the other side of forgiveness: repentance.

There’s no one biblical formula for the way forgiveness and repentance work. In our world, most people treat forgiveness and repentance like an economic transaction: only after you repent do you receive forgiveness. This makes forgiveness like a mortgage: it’s always on the board, but it’s only ever yours after you make all the payments of repentance—and sometimes there are some pretty steep payments! But for Jesus, I suspect forgiveness is what comes first, unconditionally—whether you’re a friend or an enemy, whether you’re a disciple or a part of the crowd who put him on the cross. Repentance is what you do out of your own heart after you’re forgiven. It’s how you live your life after you’ve been set free. So it’s not “God forgives you if you repent,” but “God forgives you, so repent.”

So as I imagine the scene, John is speaking to a crowd of newly baptized folks, still dripping with water from the Jordan. They’ve heard the refreshing word of forgiveness. And now John’s proclaiming forgiveness’ counterpart. The uncomfortably warm word of repentance.

Divided Hearts

And if you’ll let my imagination run just a bit further: someone from the crowd finally pipes up and asks, “What exactly will be burned by this fire? Or”—and here they look a bit frightened—“who will be burned?” And John looks at the inquisitor, and his lips twist into an almost devilish smile. And he responds, “Ah. If only it were so simple! If only the rotten fruit and the useless chaff were people. If only there were evil people somewhere, and God could separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But surely you know it’s not that simple. The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”[1]

In other words, John’s fiery word of repentance isn’t directed against evil people, but the evil inside our hearts. At the end, repentance isn’t about dividing people up for heaven and hell. It’s about the divide in our hearts. And in fact, this is exactly what the Greek word for “repentance” means. Metanoia. A change of heart.[2] Repentance is simply a new heart. It’s a heart on fire—“fire” because it hurts to change, it’s uncomfortable to give up old ways and walk into the unknown of new life. A heart on fire is not easy; it’s the difficult and messy work of God.

More Kindergarten than Apocalypse

When we begin to think of repentance this way, as less of a repent-or-burn proclamation, and more of a repent-and-burn invitation, John looks less like a fire-and-brimstone preacher and more like a kindergarten teacher.[3] Listen closely to his words, and you’ll hear echoes of the most important lessons you learned in school. To the crowds, he urges, “Share. If you have two, give one away.” To the tax collectors, he says, “Play fair. Don’t take more than the agreed amount.” To the soldiers, he says, “Stop bullying. Don’t make threats, don’t take from others just because you can.”

“Share, play fair, stop bullying.” Jesus would say it even simpler: love your neighbor;[4] be a servant to everyone.[5]

And as colorful as John’s language is, it’s easy to miss the fact that he, like Jesus, proclaims the good news to everyone: to the regular folks with just a couple of coats in their closet, to the vilified tax-collectors, to the reviled soldiers serving the Roman empire. John’s wild-eyed speeches make him look like such a revolutionary, it’s easy to miss the fact that he’s not encouraging these folks to do something completely different with their lives. To the contrary. He’s encouraging them to keep doing what they’re doing, but to do it with a new heart, to do it in a way that welcomes the kingdom of God. John isn’t like a lot of Christians today; he’s not a two-world Christian who believes this world is helpless but heaven will make everything alright. He’s a one-world believer, an “on-earth-as-in-heaven” believer. And he says we can have heaven right here, the kingdom of God right here, as tax collectors and shepherds and soldiers, as accountants and teachers and computer programmers, students and mechanics and store clerks.

The Good News of Fire

And that is good news. It’s true: John’s bark is perhaps a bit bigger than his bite. His words are wild animals, baring sharp teeth and claws, and he makes no effort to keep them on a leash. But they are more than just a bunch of savage put-downs and threats. At the heart of his colorful speech is expectation and promise. He proclaims the gospel of fire, the difficult but good news of burning hearts, of holy flames that tear through our hurtful, harmful ways and make us new.

The gospel of John the baptizer, the dipper, the river-dunker, is the gospel of new hearts. It is an uncomfortable gospel, just like any gospel is—inasmuch as the gospel expects change and change is uncomfortable. But more than that, it is a gospel of joy for our world, a gospel fit for this third Sunday of Advent. It believes with all its heart that we can be changed. And not by some magical recalibration of the soul accomplished by an accountant God, duly keeping record of payments of repentance, nor by some powerful edict and heavenly army that enforces its way on earth. No, our hearts are changed by a child in a manger, a man sharing bread with folks like you and me, a criminal on a cross. Which are all ways of saying that our hearts are changed by love, by a simple and sacred soul whose love for us is contagious and spreads through all our hearts like wildfire.

Prayer

God of water and fire, who baptizes us in the refreshing river of forgiveness and in the difficult flames of change, we rejoice. We rejoice, even with divided hearts, even as parts of us remain stubborn and fearful of the fire of your love. We rejoice because your love is unquenchable, a light that shines ever into the darkness of our broken and confused hearts. May it shine so today, through Christ as we encounter him in our world. And may it burn always in our hearts. Amen.

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[1] Inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (vol. 1; trans. Thomas P. Whitney; New York: Westview, 1974), 168: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

[2] Metanoia literally means meta-, “after,” noia, “mind”—where the Greek conception of “mind” included the way a person thinks and feels, which is to say that it includes the predispositions and inclinations that are inextricably linked with our emotions, our “hearts.”

[3] David Lose, “Commentary on Luke 3:7-18,” accessed December 8, 2015. “This feels more like the stuff of Kindergarten than Apocalypse.”

[4] Cf. Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27.

[5] Cf. Matt 20:26; 23:11; Mark 9:35; Mark 10:43; Luke 9:48; 22:26.

A Wild Word (Luke 3:1-6)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Dec 6, 2015, Advent II)

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“As Long as You’re Not Finished…”

Norbert Young sat nervously in the Texas courthouse. The judge returned to his high seat and said a single word: “Guilty.” With that, Norbert Young went to jail. He had been caught, charged, and convicted of bank fraud.

Some time later, Norbert was sitting in his jail cell when someone came by and dropped off a postcard addressed to him. Personal mail was a rarity. A handwritten note was hands-down the highlight of his week.

Not even stopping to look at the front of the postcard, he turned it over and found a short note in his brother’s handwriting. It was a poem. No real surprise there. His brother, Harvey “Tex Thomas” Young, was a west Texas, country-music cowboy, the front man of the Danglin’ Wranglers, who had a poetic streak deep beneath his rough-and-tough persona.

The words on the postcard, which would later be put in song, began like this:

From deep dark wells comes pure clean water
And the ice will melt as the day gets hotter
And the night grows old as the sun climbs into the sky.

And then a few lines later, there was this simple promise:

As long as you’re not finished, you can start all over again.[1]

Simple words. But if you take them seriously, they’re a bit wild. They’re nothing like the reasonable word of the law, that says if you do something wrong, you pay the price. Nothing like the judicious word of the judge, that says if you’re guilty, you serve the time. The words on the back of the postcard said, You may be broken, but you are never broken beyond repair. You may have gone out of bounds, but you are not bound to what you have done. Within you is a wellspring of goodness. You are good.

What Norbert Young read on the back of his brother’s postcard in prison is goosebump-giving good news. It is a country-flavored rendition of the same gospel that we hear in today’s scripture. If Luke had been living in Texas in the 1980s, he may well have written today’s scripture just the same:

“Sometime in the presidency of Ronald Reagan, when Bill Clements and Mark White were governors of Texas, and during the papacy of Pope John Paul II, the word of God came to Harvey ‘Tex Thomas’ Young in the tumbleweeds of west Texas. He sent a postcard to his brother, proclaiming a baptism of ‘deep dark wells [and] pure clean water,’ a second chance for a broken soul. As it is written many times, Jesus said, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’”

The Wild Word of Second Chances

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the word of God, a word of forgiveness, bypasses the chain of command, flying over the heads of Tiberius and Pontius Pilate and Herod, over the heads of Ronald Reagan and Mark White, to the wilderness of the Jordan and west Texas, to the little-known wasteland wranglers John the Baptist and Harvey “Tex Thomas” Young. What could be a better illustration for the word of forgiveness, a word that disregards status and strength, a word that is meant for everyone? Whereas the words of our world establish order from on high, in a Christmas-tree shaped hierarchy, in which the word on top rules whatever is below, the rowdy and insurrectionary word of forgiveness confounds the established order.

According to Luke, the wild word of God belongs not to the rulers of the world but to the wilderness, where it makes home like a wild animal, unruly and untamed. It has not been domesticated in the ways of reward and retribution, it pays no attention to merit. It does not make a list and check it twice, nor does not it give people grades and put them in a pecking order. It does not reduce people to the deeds they have done but sees the goodness that people have it in them to become. It jailbreaks us from guilt and debt and obligation, deserved or not. It frees us from cycles of anger, fear, and resentment. The words of the world, laws and commands and shouts and raised voices and verdicts of power, maintain order by force and intimidation and violence. But the wild word of second chances that came to John and Tex Thomas is a midwife to the birth of peace.

Clearing the Stable of Our Heart

God’s word of forgiveness that brings new life is nothing new, according to Luke. It came to Israel through Isaiah. It came to the Jordan through John. And it came to Norbert Young through his brother Harvey. God has always desired for “all flesh” to know salvation.

Many of us have been setting out nativity scenes in our homes. But the story of Christmas is about more than Jesus’ physical birth in a manger. It is about Jesus’ birth in our hearts. And the wild word of forgiveness that comes to us is what clears the stable of our hearts, what readies the manger within. It is not like the words of emperors or governors or high priests, not a word of command or coercion or compulsion. It is not a raised voice that controls us, so that we are little more than dogs on a leash or puppets on a string. It is a gentle but firm word that clears away the debris, the sin, the broken pieces of our lives, whatever threatens to keep us within the prison of ourselves, and invites us to grow and to change, to allow the life of God in our hearts to blossom, to bloom, to be born.

“All Flesh Shall See…”

But the story does not end with our forgiveness and the birth of Christ in our hearts. Forgiveness is a straight and level highway to God, a highway for everyone, and so even as we hear the word of forgiveness, we proclaim it—to everyone. We make way for Christ this advent by proclaiming this wild word, as John did, and welcoming Christ not only into our hearts but also to our households and our schools and our workplaces and our community. So that, if Luke were living in Richmond right now, he might well write today’s scripture just the same:

“In the seventh year of President Obama, when Terry McAuliffe was governor of Virginia, and Dwight Jones was mayor of Richmond, during the papacy of Pope Francis, the word of God came to a group of Christ-followers who gathered at Gayton Road across from Ollie’s on the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. They went into their workplaces and their friends’ homes, into the supermarkets and supply shops and schools and hospitals, loving people just as they found them, warts and all. They proclaimed good news, and they proclaimed it using different words. Sometimes they used religious words, like God, sin, forgiveness, repentance, and resurrection. Sometimes they used regular words, like goodness, brokenness, second chances, change, and new life. Sometimes they used no words at all. They used whatever the people would understand, whatever would open their eyes.[2] As it is written in the gospel of Luke, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord…. All flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

Prayer

We hear your wild word, God, calling in the wilderness, looking for a home. May we welcome your forgiveness even as we share it with others. In a world that lives constrained by fear and distrust, may we trust in the unruly, unpredictable power of your forgiveness. By your mercy, may it dawn upon our world, to give light to the many who sit in the darkness of anger, guilt, terror, resentment—and may it guide our feet, all our feet, today the way of peace. Amen.

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[1] See the song as it has been popularized by Joe Pug: “Deep Dark Wells,” on The Great Despiser (Lightning Rod Records, 2012). This homily’s retelling of Norbert Young’s story is dramatized from the account found in “As Long as You’re Not Finished: the Harvey ‘Text Thomas’ Young Story,” http://www.artslabormagazine.com/as-long-as-youre-not-finished-the-harvey-young-story/, accessed Dec 1, 2015.

[2] Dorothee Sölle, Theology for Skeptics: Reflections on God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), ebook loc. 36: “[I]f God is really God, then God is ‘that which is most communicable,’ as Meister Eckhart said.”