December 7 2003 -Second Sunday of Advent
Luke 1: 68-79, Luke 3: 1-6
NRSVKJV
Philippians 1: 3-11
“In the Wilderness”
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness”— In the wilderness is where, in the Bible, prophecies are so often made: in exile, in unexpected places, in the dark and lonely and cold corners of the world. The opening of this chapter of the gospel of Luke (3: 1-6) begins by providing a rather impressive list of monarchs and priests. But the word of God, Luke says, comes not to these political or religious leaders. The word of God comes to an unknown prophet in the wilderness.
In the wilderness is where so often we hear God, during times of wandering around, of confusion, of fear. And it has been in my own wildernesses where I have most felt the presence of God. Most recently for me, I feel that I have come through a wilderness to find you, to find this congregation. I have, if truth be told, spent much of my life in wildernesses.
I have spent most of my life, in fact, not in Wisconsin, and this likely does not surprise you after hearing me speak. When I start to talk I sometimes see a quizzical look come over the other’s face and I know what they’re about to ask: “You’re not from around here, are you?” No, I’ll answer, I am from Texas. So I could say, to fit the theme of this morning’s message, I found my way to Wisconsin from the wilderness of Texas, and to some degree that would be true. But the wildernesses I speak of have nothing to do with where I was residing geographically.
One such wilderness of my life was vocational. Ministry is a second career for me. For the first 20 years of my professional career I was in business; in public relations and corporate communications. But I never felt I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and I heard the call to ministry. So I began ordained ministry more than five years ago and during all that time I have felt blessed to have found my calling, albeit later in life.
And yet even upon finding my calling in life, I continued to struggle. I had been serving Unitarian Universalist churches, first in Fort Worth, Texas, and then in Brookfield, which is what brought me to Wisconsin. It was among the Unitarians, in fact, I learned my Congregationalist history, for the Unitarians are congregationalists (we might call them little “c” congregationalists), having split from the main body in the early 19th century. I struggled with knowing if I was in the right religious tradition for me. I was hearing the call of Christ in my life and had been for many years and I needed a place to go deeper into Christian ministry.
This past summer, I tried to better discern my calling, trying to listen for the voice of God in my own wilderness of not knowing exactly where I should go. I realized that I wanted to serve as a minister in a full Christian context, that I wanted to be with people who have experienced the Christian story in their own lives and that I wanted to be in a community of covenant and in service to God. And through what seems to me to be a series of providential events, here I am as your Associate Minister of Pastoral Care and Spiritual Formation. I feel that I have arrived to you, literally, from a wilderness.
We kid ourselves if we think our wildernesses are easy to get out of, and yet God speaks to us in our wildernesses, as God did with John the Baptist. John asks us to prepare the way. This is a particularly seasonal text, which is why it is chosen for the lectionary, as we know the Christ child is coming. And yet we get so anxious for the holy infant to appear (for we know this story so well), that we often miss something important in today’s gospel text.
The Lukan gospel misquotes Isaiah and changes an important emphasis. In fact, all the other gospels do the same. They tilt the message. Luke quotes Isaiah as saying: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord.” Note where the colon or comma is. So the voice is in the wilderness. All the other gospels quote Isaiah in the same manner.
But this is not what Isaiah says. Go back to Isaiah 40:3: “A voice cries, in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.” Not, “A voice cries in the wilderness: prepare....” This punctuation change greatly changes the meaning of the text. In the original, we are commanded to prepare the way in the wilderness. It does not suggest where the voice is. It suggests where we are.
We are in the wilderness and that recalls salvation history. In the wilderness, Israel was led by God. In the wilderness, Israel was fed by God. In the wilderness Israel was disciplined by God. John recalls salvation history and yet John also speaks to our contemporary needs. God speaks to us in our wildernesses. God is coming to get us out of our wildernesses.
It is not so much the voice in the wilderness as the command to prepare the Lord’s way in OUR wildernesses. And it is a command. This suggests a more active approach, not passively waiting for the voice of God, but actively preparing a place to welcome it. And acknowledging that much of life is in the wilderness and it is here, in the reality of our everyday lives, that we are to prepare a way for God.
And I would emphasize, it is about US preparing a way, we as a community. While I think that God manifests to each of us personally, in unique ways so that we have a personal relationship, we also have a communal relationship with God. Paul points to this in his letter to the Philippians.
Paul writes from prison, but even so he expresses thanksgiving to God and to the church. Throughout the text he uses plural pronouns, suggesting the importance of community. He refers to our “partnership” in the gospel. In fact, in this brief selection we heard this morning, in the way the Revised Standard Version pew Bibles render it, four times Paul uses the phrase “you all,” emphasizing community. (And to my ears, suggesting that there might be a bit of the Texan in old Paul himself from his frequent use of “you all,” though it would help if in his reading of today’s gospel, Dr. Peay would have compressed all the “you alls” into the true one word of “y’all”—something, by the way, “y’all” will be hearing more with me here!)
The letter to the Philippians suggests that it is in community that we might know God. This is one of the strengths of historic Congregationalism since our faith is grounded in the locally gathered church. John calls us to prepare the way of the Lord in our wildernesses and Paul reminds us of community. Our faith is not a mere privatistic concern—it has important communal elements.
At this point in the sermon I would usually give you an illustration of someone facing a wilderness in their life and how perhaps the church as a community helped them out of the wilderness. Perhaps I would tell you a story from my own life or pull a story out of some other work, to illustrate the main points of the message. But I’m not going to do that this morning, for most of you have your own illustration. You can think to yourself of something you’ve faced, and how this community helped you find your way. Maybe it was a wilderness experience of a job loss, estrangement from family or friends, family difficulties, illness, an ailing and aging parent, feeling overwhelmed in some way, divorce, loss of custody, a death, estrangement from the pulse of life, or some other manifestation of exile. These are things all of us face.
And you found in this community, in this community of covenant and of care, you heard a word from God, you felt a spark of life, you had something to hold on to and someone to hold on to and you found yourself, one day, returning from the wilderness.
And today in our wilderness, we hear the promise of the One who is to come. The One for whom we wait during these days of Advent. The light of the world.
When all flesh (all flesh!) shall (shall! A term of certainty and conviction) – When all flesh shall know the salvation of God. This is a universal vision of a God for all humanity, beyond even the boundaries we set in our own little categorical thinking.
So today, as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we prepare to once again recognize the presence of the Risen Christ among us. We acknowledge the Christ in each other and in our community – The one who walks with us in our own wildernesses, the one who points the way to our salvation.
Amen.