SERMON: What Are You Looking At?

 10:30 am, 3^rd Sun of Advent, Dec 11, 2022 - J G White / FBCA

(Is 35:1-10; Luke 1:46-55; Mtt 11:2-11)

What are you looking at?

I mean, there is a lot to see, everywhere you go, in December. And hear. And taste and smell. Last night, we went to Port Greville to a concert of the annual Living Christmas Tree. This afternoon, we go to the Lessons and Carols Service at Trinity – St. Stephen’s. Later on, I will hear Jason Morrison practicing here for his mini-concert, Noontime Noels (which has been moved to Thursday).

Back at the house Sharon and I have, on Clinton St, there is something new every day. Walls have been ripped open, doorways moved, openings walled up.

What are you looking at, in this room? There is a little something different here each week, including the location of Leon, the shepherd on the search. One more candle is lit. And this is the Sunday of Joy.

Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was just beginning his speaking and healing tour. His cousin, John, had been arrested, at this point. When Jesus spoke to the people gathered around, he asked them about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A prophet? Yes, and more than a prophet.” John was the messenger who prepared the way for the Messiah, the Anointed One, to arrive.

John had kept the attention of many people. He was what me could call a ‘fire and brimstone’ preacher. Then, he stepped back, as he knew he would, to let Jesus take centre stage. Jesus keeps the people’s attention, with a rather different style. He turns out to be very generous and kind – especially to the neediest people and those on the fringes. He does grind against many of the most religious of the people. He attracts a lot of attention.

What get’s your attention now? What do we look at that keeps us looking at it?

There are ways that ‘bad news’ gets our attention.

But what about ‘good news?’ Some things that happen are too good to be true – and that can keep us looking, and wondering, and sometimes waiting for it to be proved not real after all.

Yet the good things of life point to Christ Jesus. Breakthroughs are true. God with us is not a dream, but reality.

We keep reading this Bible material about dry wildernesses become green and lush, oppressed people finally getting the good things they need, and the sick becoming well, as well as can be. Isaiah 35 said it. Matthew 11 has Jesus quoting this for cousin John.

‘Are you really The ONE,’ John wonders, from his prison cell. His disciples ask Jesus, who does not give a straight answer, but it is an obvious answer. As Frederick Buechner put it,

Jesus said, “You go tell John what you’ve seen around here. Tell him there are people who have sold their seeing-eye dogs and taken up bird-watching. Tell him there are people who’ve traded in aluminum walkers for hiking boots. Tell him the down-and-out have turned into the up-and-coming and a lot of deadbeats are living it up for the first time in their lives. And three cheers for the one who can swallow all this without gagging.” (Peculiar Treasures, 1979, p. 79)

Too good to be true? To believe? Some of us were wondering about this at Monday’s Bible study. At least, wondering about how to see and tell and share the special moments, the blessings and good that does happen, in this world of fear and bad news. And, as disciples of Christ, do we sense the good moments are actually ‘God moments?’

In December we are head-over-heels into the story of God coming for a visit, as one of us. Our world – and we ourselves – need an inspired reminder that God is with us: Emmanuel. He came once; He is with us now in Spirit; He will return.

In the ninth century, a Christian monk (Paschasius Radbertus) wrote, “we must always be on the lookout for Christ’s twofold coming, the one when he comes day after day to stir our consciences, and the other when we shall have to give an account of everything we have done. He comes to us now in order that his future coming may find us prepared.” (Claiborne et al, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, 2010, p. 63)

Jesus lives in us as we prepare all our Christmas cheer boxes, as we donate $800 to the food bank after we cancelled a concert, as we get ready for the baptism of someone among us in the new year. We can see good; we can see God at work.

A priest and author of our day and age, Richard Rohr, told of a chance encounter with a recluse near the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, when I did a retreat at Thomas Merton's hermitage in 1985. A recluse is a hermit's hermit. Recluses come into the community only for Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time, they stay in the forest alone with God and themselves.

I was walking down a little trail when I saw this recluse coming toward me. Not wanting to interfere, I bowed my head and moved to the side of the path, intending to walk past him. But as we neared each other, he said, "Richard!" That surprised me. He was supposed to be a recluse. How did he know I was there? Or who I was?

He said, "Richard, you get chances to preach and I don't. When you're preaching, just tell the people one thing: God is not 'out there'! God bless you." And he abruptly continued down the path. (Richard Rohr, 2015)

There is lots of joy and rejoicing when people see God nearby. We read this from thousands of years ago in Isaiah 35. Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. We hear this from the time of Jesus’ birth, when his mother sang: Tell out my soul the greatness of the Lord; unnumbered blessings give my spirit voice. Thirty years later, grown-up Jesus claims the words of Isaiah, and adds to them: the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

What are you looking at? Are you seeing God?

Dallas Willard said, Jesus’ good news about the kingdom can be an effective guide for our lives only if we share his view of the world in which we live. To his eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. (The Divine Conspiracy, 1997, p 61)

Thirteen days from now, there will likely be a few hundred people gathered here, in the evening. What will they be looking at? Why will they have come here? Seeking something good, wonderful, beautiful, inspiring, traditional, meaningful, hopeful? Looking for good news? Let’s give it to them. We have already prepared our décor. Music and words are being prepared, already. Let us prepare to be among them, in our pews, as people of hope and joy, peace and love. People of faith.

And this is also our mission on the streets, in the shops, in our homes and neighbourhoods. You and I have our moments of being messengers of God, preparing the way. You are John the Baptist. Or Ken the Baptist. Or Barb the Baptist. Or Joyce the Baptist.

Give out some everlasting joy.