Second
Sunday of Advent
Year
C
2012
December 9
Malachi
3:1-4; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:-16
Yesterday was
beautiful—breathtakingly beautiful. And
in this very place the presence of God was powerfully felt. The Holy Spirit could be felt moving through
the music, the liturgy and through the very people gathered. I was overwhelmed and emotional (you might
have noticed that), but I was also uplifted and energized—terrified but ready
to say yes to my vows and ready to begin my ministry as a priest. I was ready to answer the call God was making
to me. But let me for a moment take you
back to where it all began---
Picture this
scene for me if you will—one very early hot and humid July morning in 1997, we
were living in Athens GA, I was
standing in my dining room at the side board changing my newborn son; yes in
the dining room at the sideboard which had been converted into a changing table
because I couldn’t go up the stairs due to the c-section. Standing on the chair next to me “helping”
was my not yet 2 year old daughter talking non-stop (wonder where she gets
that). My eyes were rimmed with dark
circles, my feet were still swollen, I probably hadn’t showered in a day or
two; I was covered with the results of a baby with reflux and surrounded by a
collection of dirty sippy cups—and all of a sudden I very clearly heard God
calling me into ordained ministry. That
night I decided to test this out—not that I had too much time during the day to
think about this powerful moment, but occasionally it occurred to me that I
might have been hallucinating due to lack of sleep—so that night I said to
Chris, “I think I know what I’m supposed to do when the children are
grown.” And he looked at me and said,
“Me too—you’re supposed to be a priest.”
And in that moment God was as powerfully present as He was here
yesterday. The Holy Spirit was working
in the chaotic ordinariness of our lives just like the Holy Spirit was working
yesterday in the extraordinariness of the ordination liturgy.
Our Gospel
today brings these two together—the ordinary and the extraordinary, the holy
and the ordinary—the reading begins by setting the particular time and place;
it names 7 very important, very powerful, very well-known political and
religious leaders, but it is not these people to whom the word of God
came. No, the word of God came to a
simple eccentric nobody, according to world’s standards—to a man living in the
wilderness with wild hair and wild looking clothes made of camel’s hair
(probably looked a lot like I did on that July morning)—a man subsisting on
wild honey and locust—a humble ordinary every man. The word of God did not come to those who
“deserved” it—to those who thought they deserved it, and it did not come to
those who had the most power and influence—but rather to John the son of
Zechariah, an unassuming man living in the wilderness. And he responded.
John
responded to his call right where he was in the region around Jordan. John’s ministry was to a particular place at
a particular time and yet that ministry—John’s answering yes to God’s
call—changed the world.
Now before
you sit back and think “whew” I know for a fact I’m not called to live in the
wilderness and I’m sure I’m not called into ordained ministry, read the final
lines—all flesh. Yes, that means
you. God is calling each and every one
of us—everyone here is called into a ministry at your particular place and at
this particular time. God is calling us
all to prepare, to prepare ourselves and to prepare the world. Today’s passage reminds us that the Kingdom
of God is here and yet it is all still to come.
God is still in the process of redemption, and God is calling all of us
to participate—God is confronting us, commanding our attention, and demanding
our response.
God is coming
to us in the our own wildernesses; in the messiness of our everyday chaotic ordinary
lives and challenging us to evaluate our lives, our values and our
priorities. To look at our lives and to
see how we are living into our ministries wherever they may be—the office, the
home, or school. How are we living that
proclaims the presence of and the coming of the Kingdom of God? Our first reading talks about refining and
purifying—what in our lives needs to be refined so that we are prepared to
answer and live into God’s call?
It is not
easy—in our lives there have been, there are and there will be challenges. The path is not straight; there are valleys
to go through and mountains to climb.
There are days we won’t feel like it or days that we will be challenged
and feel like the whole world is against us and that God has abandoned us. Days where we are certain there God has no
purpose for our particular life in this particular time. There may even be days we want to give
up—throw in the towel and let the others, those important people do the
work. And in those days, in those
wildernesses God is right there with us.
God is with us and pushing us forward.
In the messiness of our every day ordinary lives where bills have to be
paid, lunches have to be made, baseboards have to be cleaned, and laundry has
to be done, God is demanding that we pay attention and that even in those
mundane things we do we remember that we are to be constantly preparing for and
living into the Kingdom of God.
Fifteen
years—fifteen years ago I heard God’s call into ordained ministry; fifteen
years ago and through mountains of dirty diapers, endless trips to hospitals,
thousands upon thousands of lunches made, multiple moves and adjustments, God
continued to work. I can promise you
(and there are people here today who can attest to this) that there were many
days I wanted to say never mind. I’ve
said it before here, I was perfectly happy being a stay at home mom. It’s the greatest job in the world. There were days I was certain that yesterday
would never come—the road blocks seemed too many, the work too hard, the
challenges too great, but God doesn’t let us say no when He calls. There is no choice. And God has chosen each and every one of us
into a particular ministry in our own particular places and at our own particular
times. Hear God’s call to you, live into
God’s call for you—prepare yourselves, prepare your heart and in that way we
will all together prepare the world to receive the love of and the salvation of
God. Amen.
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