Advent II, Year B

Isaiah, 40:1-11
2 Peter, 3:8-15a,18
Mark, 1:1-8

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

For the most part, American culture suggests that we ought not take religion too seriously, that real religious devotion and belief is at least slightly eccentric. One of the characters of the playwright Tom Stoppard says that there was "a calendar date - a moment - when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when quite suddenly the noes had it." ⁽¹⁾

The majority of Americans may profess belief in God, and perhaps may even regularly attend religious services, but most of us, at least here in blue America, act like we are part of a barely tolerated, eccentric sect. Most Americans generally assume that we have to be wary about anyone who acts upon religious belief, especially if that person gives greater weight to religious authority than to the authority of the rest of the world.

Think about it and ask yourself, "When was the last time I told a non-Christian, or a lapsed Christian, that I supported something, or did something, because of my faith in Christ? When was the last time that I told a non-Christian, or a lapsed Christian, that my standards of behaviour and my beliefs came from my Church, from my understanding of God, from my experience of God, from my submission to God? When was the last time I told a non-Christian, or a lapsed Christian, that Christ had changed my life?" It is possible to say any of that without being obnoxious or sanctimonious, but for most of us, it has probably been quite some time, if ever, and it has been quite some time because we have good manners, except our good manners, in this case, do not come from our Lord, and ultimately may not be so good. In this case, the mainstream dictates our manners. It essentially tells us: we should know enough to keep our religion to ourselves; it is a sign of a feeble mind and weak heart, perhaps even a shameful thing. If you must, practice your religion, but keep it to yourself.

For the most part we comply. We want to get along with other people, and we do not want to be obnoxious, but religion does matter to most Americans. That's a great irony. Americans do take religion seriously, but we get nervous about it in public. Part of it is a class issue. Mostly it is the humbler bits of the middle, those of red America, the hinterland, the rubes, hicks, and boors following the likes of Graham, Robertson, Falwell, and Schuller that talk about their faith full-frontally. Those of us with sophistication demure and mind our manners, our misguided manners. Another irony is that religion is fundamentally not a private matter; it can not be contained; it is not something that we can keep quiet about; it is who we are. Jesus should be part of the whole of our lives, our private life and our public life. Our religious belief, our religious practice changes our personality, and it expresses our personality. We can not keep it private and be true to ourselves, and have integrity. It is who we are.

John the Baptist exemplifies this. Here is a rabid religious fanatic. There is no coy holding back. Everything about him indicates his dedication and service to the Lord.

Everything he does works toward [preparing people for what is to come, helping people know what God wants from them. We see this in]: the location of his work in the desert, the central act of baptism for which he is remembered, the content of his message, the lifestyle he embraces, and the description of the one to come. ⁽²⁾

John's frugal, ascetic diet reminds us that man does not live by bread alone. John's clothing reminds us of Elijah, who had been sent to call Israel to repentance. John's baptism signifies repentance. John's preaching has one theme: get ready for the Christ, the mighty one of whom we are not worthy. John's lack of ambiguity, his lack of calculated hedging scares us, and it convicts us. He is hardly my favourite saint. Last week we observed the feasts of three of my favourites: December 4^th, S. John of Damascus, a champion of beauty, whose pen warred against the barbaric iconoclasts - the Christians who perversely destroyed art in the Name of God - and who denounced their false teachings about the inherent evil of matter; December 5^th, S. Clement of Alexandria, who embraced secular learning and laid the foundations of Christian humanism; and December 7^th, S. Ambrose of Milan, the irenic catechumen to whose amazement and dismay the Milanese elected bishop even though he had not been baptised, whose episcopacy was notable for its piety, its promotion of beauty and learning, its pastoral sensitivity, and its conversion of S. Augustine. These saints are urbane, refined, cultivated, subtle, eloquent, cosmopolitan - a startling contrast to John the Baptist, a wild loner calling to us from the desert. He is harder to warm to, harder to hear, harder to follow, even if he is very much within the pattern of the prophets sent by God to proclaim his Word to Israel, even if everything about John witnesses to God.

John calls us to the desert, to the wilderness, the place of Israel's wanderings, the place of her temptations where she met with numerous complaints and pains, but also the place of God's revelation, the place where God shows himself to us. The wilderness is symbolic of our lives, of our journey to God, facing temptations and distractions. Life for each one of us is like Israel wandering in the wilderness, waiting to enter her true home. In our Old Testament lesson on Thanksgiving Day, we heard Moses tell Israel the meaning of life: "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no." (Dt 8:2) The Lord, of course, rewarded Israel after her journey, bringing her into "a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it." (Dt 8:7-9) It is the Promised Land as Paradise, the great reward for accomplishing the journey through the wilderness, just as we hope heaven will be our reward for the journey of life.

John calls us out to the wilderness to make our journey, to meet God, so that we may have his reward. Yet, to go out requires us to heed John's message. We have to repent, to turn away from the way of the world and its distractions. Few of us are going to do that unless we feel any need to do it. John does not offer comfort and wit and entertainment. Most of us opt for distraction and minding our own needs. This is our preference until we become depressed and dissatisfied with life, until we become fearful or shameful, until we become self-loathing, until we notice that something is missing in our lives, and we recognize our emptiness, our absurdity without God. When this happens, when we know that something is wrong with us, then we are ready for John the Baptist. We begin to yearn for God. Repent means to give up our unhealthy ways, to recognize our incompletion without Christ, and to begin healing through a relationship with him. Once we are unsettled, shaken a bit, suffering and aware of our need, then we may open to changing our lives, re-orienting them to God. This does not happen once in our lives. It repeats, again and again and again, helping us to grow and mature in faith. Our journey with Christ to God needs continual renewal, continual repentance, continual turning back to him and his way.

God renews us with the ups and downs of our lives, but he also has less painful methods. He has the Church year. The pattern and rhythm of the Church year orders our lives, adding color and interest, as well as opportunities for renewed growth. Advent is a time for waiting and anticipation, a time to delay gratification so that it becomes sweeter and more satisfying. John's message of repentance prepares us for our Lord's coming to us in a manger, for his first coming. We heed it so that not only will we be prepared for Christmas, but also so we will be prepared for our Lord's second coming. In repenting, in turning back to God with renewed zeal, let us try to muster John's courage to proclaim God in our lives. That is preparing the way of our Lord. That will open our hearts and prepare them so that the Lord will find a place there when he comes.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

1. Tom Stoppard, Jumpers, quoted in Stephen L. Carter, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, HarperCollins (1993), p. 7.

2. William J. Abraham article in The Lectionary Commentary: The Third Readings: The Gospels, Roger E. Van Harn, ed., Eerdmanns (2001), p. 162.