Advent 2B December 4, 2011
Jeremiah 18:1-11 St. Alban’s, Austin
If you’re ever planning to go to Rome, January is a great time to go. The climate is just about the same as Austin’s, so you know we can have some glorious days in January and typically nothing worse than cold rain. The best part is that there are no crowds of tourists.
And so when I went to the Sistine Chapel several years ago I got to stay as long as I wanted to. I didn’t have to wait for hours to get in, and I wasn’t prodded through an airless and humid room like cattle from entrance to exit, able only to catch a glance of God’s finger touching Adam’s and the tormented melting figures in the judgment scene. No, I was able to lean back on a bench for hours and stare up into the ceiling that Michaelangelo painted on his back suspended on scaf-folding for what seemed like eons to the pope. I was able to take in figures that one might not expect to see. Jeremiah, for instance.
What are prophets and seers doing on the Sistine ceiling? Actually, there are seven Old Testament prophets and five Greek sybils, all of whom were purported to have offered assurances of the birth of Christ. The good news of the gospel was at work in the world long before Jesus was born.
Jeremiah, contrary to popular belief, was not a bullfrog. Jeremiah was born into a powerful and prestigious family in the southern kingdom of Judah in the seventh century BCE and was called by God to be a prophet in the year 626. The book of Jeremiah is long, and it occupies a pivotal place in biblical history. Last week Gerard told us about how King Josiah returned the children of Israel to the worship of one God, but after his death everything went straight downhill again when his successors Jehoakim and Zedekiah officially welcomed the idols of Baal back into the holy of holies in the Temple. God commissioned Jeremiah to warn them and the people of Judah that all hell was going to break loose if they didn’t stop.
They didn’t stop.
But, oh, my. How they tried to shut Jeremiah up. He was imprisoned. He was banished. He was cast into a cistern. He was ordered to be silent. He was made to eat his writings. But Jeremiah was called by the Lord, and Jeremiah kept telling the truth.
So what does this have to do with Jesus? I mean, after all, this is Advent. We’ve got a beautiful wreath with two candles burning. We’ve got Nativity figures making their way towards the manger. We’ve got children practicing for the pageant, and if you haven’t started decorating your house or shopping, you might be beginning to feel just a little bit desperate. As they sing, Christ-mas is coming, the goose is getting fat. Jeremiah doesn’t sound much like a fat goose or a sparkling tree with piles of gifts. Jeremiah doesn’t seem all that connected with Silent Night, stranded as he was in Egypt after the conquest by Babylon.
The thing about the prophets, though, is that they were all about promise. They were all about the God-given conviction that when all is said and done, when all illusions are dispelled, we are standing on solid ground. That even though we get beat up again and again as the consequence of our own idolatrous actions, God is in control, and God’s plan for us is all about healing and wholeness and our coming to know our identity as God’s beloved.
But as I said, it can be a very rocky road indeed getting to that point.
We’re very close to the end of our focused attention on our Old Testament scripture readings as we make our way through the Narrative Lectionary. In just a couple of weeks we’ll be turning our attention to the Gospel according to Mark, and we’ll follow God’s project into its incarnation in the person of Jesus and toward the birth of the church as the body of Christ at work in the world.
One person said that the Old Testament is the story of the repeated failure of the children of Israel to be faithful only to God. God’s project to love creation and be loved in return went off track at the get go. The first little human beings proved to be surprisingly willful, and eventually God hit the reset button with the flood and the ark, but then even those people followed the devices and desires of their own hearts, and then the kings of Israel and Judah got seduced by their foreign wives, and over and over again the people let idols of one sort or another sneak in and occupy the place where only God should dwell.
Advent is a time of preparation in many ways. Some of us are preparing for Christmas by writing letters to Santa. Unfortunately, God is frequently understood to be the big Santa in the sky. We too often equate prayer with handing God our to-do list. I do know prayers sometimes get answered the way we want them. The rain we are having is an answered prayer. I was with our grandson Ben this weekend and he is very much an answered prayer. But I also know that sometimes it feels like God isn’t listening or that God doesn’t care. Why pray if it is not how we get what we want?
Our gospel reading gives us another picture. A prophet in a later time offering the same message as Jeremiah. Repent. Come back to God. Get the idols off your altars and out of your hearts.
Get your life back into focus. Can’t you see? The kingdom of God is here, now.
John the Baptist stood in the murky waters of the river while throngs of people waited in endless lines to be submerged and to receive the promise that they had another chance. These were not the powerful people, the officials in charge of the Temple, the politicos who were in cahoots with the Roman Empire. No. These were the ones whose hearts and bodies were broken and who wanted a fresh start, who wanted to hear that if only they would cleanse their hearts God would indeed come among them. God would give them the kingdom.
Some of us are preparing for Christmas with a frenzy of shopping and planning and running around feeling as if we can’t possibly get done all that needs to be done. I think of the image of Jeremiah up there on the Sistine ceiling. He’s got his head in his hands as if to say, “They still don’t get it.” And probably we don’t, at least not all the way through. But I think we get glimpses.
Look. I’m going to be shopping and cooking and planning just as you are. And I have expectations for what I would like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to look like. There’s nothing wrong with all that. It’s just that it is not supposed to take the place in my heart and on my calendar that only God is supposed to occupy.
Jeremiah and John spoke cautionary words to the people. Repent.
Stop what you’re doing and look and listen and remember. All God wants is your love.
All God wants is for you to love God more than you love anything else.
What might happen if we cleared a little room for prayer – the kind of prayer that is not our wish list but the kind of presence that calls us to stand still long enough for God to gaze on us with love. For us to return our attention to God. Preparation is about time. It is about space. It is about stopping our drivenness to contemplate gratitude. It is about considering what is truly most important to us. What really belongs in the holy of holies?
Our Advent calendar says it all. Jeremiah would approve. John the Baptist would approve. It tells us first, Slow down. Be quiet. If the people of Israel and Judah had slowed down and listened they could have avoided calamity. If the people of Jerusalem rose up out of the Jordan River and truly turned their lives around, they, too, would have been able to hear the words of Jesus. And if we can slow down and listen in these next few weeks, we will receive gifts that have nothing to do with anything that can be purchased or wrapped or placed under a tree.
I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. But knowing and doing are not the same thing. Jeremiah tells us in the metaphor of the potter that God can take what is misshapen and make it perfect. All we have to do is relax and yield to the loving caress of his hands.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment