Readings for 16 December 2007
Advent 3
Year A
- The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
- the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
- like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
- and rejoice with joy and singing.
- The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
- the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
- They shall see the glory of the LORD,
- the majesty of our God.
- Strengthen the weak hands,
- and make firm the feeble knees.
- Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
- "Be strong, do not fear!
- Here is your God.
- He will come with vengeance,
- with terrible recompense.
- He will come and save you."
- Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
- and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
- then the lame shall leap like a deer,
- and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
- For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
- and streams in the desert;
- the burning sand shall become a pool,
- and the thirsty ground springs of water;
- the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
- the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
- A highway shall be there,
- and it shall be called the Holy Way;
- the unclean shall not travel on it,
- but it shall be for God's people;
- no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
- No lion shall be there,
- nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
- they shall not be found there,
- but the redeemed shall walk there.
- And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
- and come to Zion with singing;
- everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
- they shall obtain joy and gladness,
- and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
James 5:7-10
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming
of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth,
being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the
Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you
may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an
example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke
in the name of the Lord.
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was
doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one
who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them,
"Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is
anyone who takes no offense at me."
As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
- `See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
- who will prepare your way before you.'
Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
Sermon
The Rev. Jack Zamboni
“A highway shall be there, and it shall
be
called the
Highway,
travel;
exodus, pilgrimage; exile and homecoming. Again and again the
scriptures speak
to us of journeying. God calls Abraham and Sarah to leave their people
and
their ancestors’ homeland and journey to an unknown land that
God will show
them. Jacob takes his sons and their families --
the 12 tribes of
Journeys
are of many
sorts, and evoke many feelings.
There
are journeys of hope, excitement, and exploration as people leave the
familiar
in order to find new possibilities in life. Children grow up and leave
home for
college or marriage or their “own place;” a change
of vocation or job gets
people on the road, as may the simple desire to live somewhere new.
People have
journeyed from oppression into the freedom of new opportunity, as many
of our
ancestors did when they came to this country. On vacation, we journey
with the hope
of re-creation as we experience
an
unfamiliar part of the world. On pilgrimage or retreat, we journey with
the
hope of encountering God in a holy place.
But other
journeys
are not so hopeful nor so freely chosen. Forces more powerful than
ourselves
push people on journeys they do not wish to take. Families relocate
when
companies close plants or move operations; illness may lead to journeys
toward
weakness or death; some
of our ancestors
came to this country in the holds of slave ships; to this day, refugees
are set
onto a desperate road for survival by the dogs of war.
There are
still
other journeys, journeys that are inward, journeys into ourselves and
into God.
“Spiritual journey” and “faith journey”
are common metaphors for the Christian life. This language assumes that
life
with God is always one of movement, not stagnation. In our life with
God, we
are always on the way: we haven’t yet arrived; there is
always further to
travel. Spiritual journeys, like the physical journeys of our lives,
are
varied: Sometimes
we take wrong turns, and
need to retrace our steps; at
other
times we move forward with a clear sense of direction and purpose.
Many
journeys are
mix of all of these: journeys
physical
and spiritual, journeys chosen and not chosen, journeys full of
pressure and
possibility all at once. But
common to
all journeys is unavoidable element of uncertainty. What is known and
familiar
is left behind; the
path forward and the
destination are to some degree unknown. This is more than obvious when
God
calls Abraham and Sarah to a “land that God will show
them” -- and
says nothing more. But even when we
return home after an absence some uncertainty remains -- things will have changed since we were here
last, and we won’t
know what until we arrive.
Uncertainty
can make
journeys exhilarating and hopeful --
for
there is always new possibility to be found: “Still round the
corner there may
wait a new road or a secret gate,” wrote J. R. R. Tolkien.
But uncertainty can
also make journeys painful and fearful. It can be painful to leave
behind what
is familiar and beloved, painful to be separated from places and people
that
matter to us. And it is fearful to move into the unknown. We wonder
whether we
are sufficiently wise travelers, whether we have the knowledge and
strength to
navigate the journey successfully. There is danger on the road and that
traveler’s anxiety as evening falls about finding a safe
place to stay the
night before we move on again. To go on a journey is to take our life
in our hands.
We travel with both pain
and promise,
fear and hope: hope, that in the end, the
journey will prove
worth the risk.
To the
people of
Israel, returning from exile in Babylon to ravaged Jerusalem, Isaiah
proclaims
a word of hope. To a people uncertain about the long road through the
desert,
and unsure what they will find at
journey’s end, the prophet speaks a word of
assurance: “Say to those of
a fearful heart: Be strong! Do not fear!
Your journey will be along God’s
How can
Isaiah offer
such confident assurance to God’s people? How can he be so
hopeful in the face
of the unknown? His
answer is simple:
“Your God is here.” Your God is here, with you, as
you journey. You do not
journey alone, you do not walk the highway by yourself; you have a
guide, a
friend, who walks with you, and, whether you are wise or foolish, that
divine
companion will not let you go astray. God is with you as you journey.
This
promise of
God’s presence on the
journey
goes counter to how we commonly think of
where we are in relation to God on life’s
journeys. We often imagine
that God is the goal of our journey, the distant One who waits for us
with a
safe dwelling place at journey’s end. In this imagining, God
is far away from
us, and we must journey towards God, being careful about not getting
lost. The
exiled people of Israel thought of
far
away Jerusalem as God’s dwelling place. But Isaiah showed them a different
picture. Isaiah says,
“You do not need to journey to get to God. Your God is here,
with you, now; and
will walk with you on your journey. So even as you travel, you need not
fear
going astray. How can you get lost if God journeys with you?”
Jesus
makes this
point yet more powerfully when
speaking
of himself in St. John’s account of the Last Supper. When
asked by Thomas how
the disciples are to get to those heavenly mansions where they think
Jesus is
going, he replies “I am the Way, the Truth, & the
Life. No one comes to the
Father except by me.” “I
am the
Way,” says
Jesus. “I am also the
Incarnate Presence of God– and I am here with you. God is not
somewhere away
from you. In fact, God is never “away.”
Rather, God has come to you as the Way to be with you on
your way. I am
that Way, here and now with you. You do not have to go on a journey to get to God: God has journeyed to be
with you in me, and I
am with you as the Way in every journey you take.” When we journey, we never
journey alone. We
journey in Jesus who is the Way, we journey in the Spirit who is our
guide, we
journey in God who is our home and whose home is in us.
A certain
strain of
popular piety among American Christians seems to understand this well.
I’m
thinking of people -- perhaps some of you -- who have crosses, or
rosaries or St.
Christopher’s medals hanging from the rearview mirror of
their car; people who
have bumper stickers that say, “God is my
co-pilot.” Un-Anglican as some of
these expressions of faith may be, they are onto something, something
deep and
true: the knowledge that whenever and however we journey in life, God
journeys
with us as companion, guide, and friend.
The
announcement I
made two weeks signaled at time for new journeys --
new journeys for myself, for Mother Susan and
for you the people of GraSP. Mother
Susan and I are entering into journeys toward new stages in our lives
and our vocations
as priests. You are
beginning a journey
toward a new stage in your life and ministry as God’s people
in this
place.
Like the
many sorts
of journeys I described at the beginning of this sermon, these journeys
will be
a mix of pain and possibility, exhilaration and anxiety, fear and hope. As we enter these
journeys, I invite us all
to remember Isaiah’s promise to the fearful people of Israel
and Jesus’ words
to his anxious disciples: God
journeys
with us as our companion and guide on our way, indeed, as the Way
itself. There
will, no doubt, be challenges on these journeys – times of
uncertainty, sadness
and struggle. But
in the end, we do not
have to give in to fear or be ruled by anxiety. Wherever and however we
travel,
we do not journey alone. On God’s holy way, God journeys with
us, and since God
is the Way, we can never, however foolish we may be, go astray.
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