UCC Church of Charlotte

'To download a copy of this sermon please click here

'
Into THAT World
Luke 1:68-79
Luke 3:1-6

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
Luke could have said, “The Word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness.”
    
It would have been much simpler.  It would have left out all the
political messiness of the Gospel and made it simply a religious book.

It would have saved us all those names we just skip over when reading
the Gospel anyway.  Kinda like the begats in the Old Testament.  Those
begats, by the way, are far more interesting than just a list of
names.  Just as Luke’s introduction to John’s wilderness preaching is
far more interesting than simply a by-line or a time and a date and a
place would have been.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate
being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his
brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and
Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas…

A chapter earlier, during the nativity story, it was Augustus Caesar
in Rome, and Herod the Great as king over Israel.  There has been a
shakeup in the management since then.  Now, when John starts his
ministry, Tiberius is Caesar, and he has withheld the royal title of
king from the rulers of what King Herod used to cover.  He has split
it into four regions, and set up four rulers as Tetrarchs (which is
what the word means).  But there is still a Herod over Israel.

And we don’t just get told a rundown of the military and political
rulers of the day; we are also told who is high priest.  In the old
days, high priests were chosen by casting lots from among the
priesthood.  A more egalitarian formula one might expect out of the
covenant.  One of Herod the Great’s ideas was to pit the wealthy
families of Israel against each other to vie for the role of high
priest.  It was a good job, came with some perks and benefits, chief
of which to Herod was that this kept the wealthy and the elites
fighting and bribing him for who got that position, and not vying for
his.

This is the world in which John’s ministry starts.  This is the world
where he puts on his coat of hair, grabs his lunch of honey and
locusts, and goes out into the wilderness to proclaim the words of
Isaiah for a new day.  He is not simply speaking in religious terms.
In that day religious terms and political terms were one and the same.
The king of Israel was to be God’s steward on earth.  Caesars were
regularly divinized, proclaimed by the senate in Rome to be gods.  The
office of the high priest was an arm of the state, not a sacred duty
to God and the Torah covenant.

When Isaiah wrote the words to exiles, he proclaimed from the city
that they should go out to the wilderness and build a path, a holy
highway, to lead the exiles home.  John says the same thing, but the
emphasis is put on the other syllable.  He goes out from the city, out
from civilization so ruled and controlled by Pilate and Herod and all
the vassals and vessels of Rome, and goes to the wilderness to cry and
proclaim a way to be found.

Like Moses, having to go to the wilderness, to the backside of the
wilderness to see the Burning Bush and turn aside and hear the voice
of God calling him to save God’s people.

Like Elijah, fleeing the jealous king and queen who would have him
killed for proclaiming their greed counter to the ways of God, and in
a cave in the mountains in the wilderness, hearing God in a still,
small voice.

Like Jesus, after his baptism, led, pushed, pulled by the Spirit into
the wilderness to prepare for his ministry of preaching and healing
and walking towards Jerusalem and the cross.

Like Paul, who was on the road, knowing who he was and what he was
about, when he was struck blind by a vision he couldn’t handle.

Like the Israelites, who found their covenant with God not in
Pharaoh’s brickyard, not in the order of another false god lording it
over them, but in the wilderness, at Sinai, in a place that scared
them so much they almost ran back to the “comfort” of the brickyard.

Luke places John’s ministry in the midst of the politics of the day,
just as Jesus’ birth is situated in the midst of the politics of the
day.  This is the world into which Jesus was born.  This is the world
in which John goes to the wilderness to preach repentance.  It is into
that world that God breaks forth with new light and new hope and new
grace and new life.

And it is a great reminder that if God is God, then no human
institution, be it church or government, be it economic system or
social structure, gets to take God’s place.  That is the basis of the
Protestant faith.  Only God gets to be God.
    
But with that comes another realization.  Nothing is so mundane, so
earthly, so worldly, that God cannot use it, that God cannot break
forth new light and new hope and new grace and new life in the midst
of it.  That is the basis of our faithful hope.
    
The story of Christmas is that God breaks into the messiness of the
world with a new/old word, and that word is made flesh, and that word
made flesh dwelt among us full of grace and truth.  The story of
Christmas is that God can break into our messiness, and dwell with us,
full of grace and truth, even in this moment; that God could break
into this world with a love beyond measure, a love that will shake the
foundations.
    
The story of Advent is “Get Ready.”
    
Thanks be to God.  Amen.