Hope in the Midst of Privilege

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Luke 3:7-18

Penitence and preparation are never easy. Many long years ago, Advent was a penitential season. That is, it was to be a time of self-examination, confession, fasting, to both purse the sinfulness that clings so closely to us and to heighten the realization of the absolute need that humanity has for the Savior whose birth celebration was immanent. The problem with all this crepe-hanging, woe-is-me, self-flogging is that it is a real downer. A person can kick themselves in the seat of their britches only so much. There needs to be sense that there is an approaching end to all the sackcloth and ashes. So the third Sunday of Advent became the joy Sunday, a break in the gloom and doom, a breath of fresh air to get us to the celebration. You noticed I hope that today’s Advent Candle is pink. Pink is a happy color, I suppose. Especially compared to the penitential purple.

Our word from the prophet today begins with the command to rejoice. Have joy. Raise the rafters, be happy, celebrate. The prophets message was one of hope, of promise; it was a lightening of the grief in which the people had been or would soon be living. Those were dark times. A foreign power was sweeping through Israel and Judah, rending families, decimating crops, removing leaders, destroying culture. Fear was the predominant emotion. Hope was in short supply. Joy was non-existent.

Here’s a question for you: What does hope look like? How would you describe it? How might you paint a picture of it? If you had to come up with a universal symbol, a kind of catch-all image for this universal experience and feeling that we call hope, what would it be?

Is it a mother holding her newborn child? That has to be joy, hope, promise. What about the shout of a fan when his team finally wins it all, like the Boston Red Sox breaking their curse and winning the World Series? Hope keeps the people coming to Wrigley Field. Some day, in somebody’s lifetime, the Cubs will win the big one. With three major league sports teams, Cleveland has been waiting since 1964 for one of them to take the trophy.

Hope is tough to explain and difficult to put into words, yet, when you see it, it’s unmistakable and when you feel it, it’s unforgettable. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all felt it. So again, how might you describe this thing called hope? What would you say is the symbol of hope?

Zephaniah gives us some symbols as he tells of God’s future activity.

Watch what I am about to do to all your oppressors at that time.
I will deliver the lame;
I will gather the outcast.
I will change their shame into praise and fame throughout the earth.
At that time, I will bring all of you back,
at the time when I gather you.
I will give you fame and praise among all the neighboring peoples
when I restore your possessions and you can see them—says the LORD. 

Zephaniah is acutely aware of the corruption and injustice perpetrated by Judah’s leaders. Right up to an admonition to “wait” several verses before today’s speech, Zephaniah laid out line by line the details of the spiritual and political oppression perpetrated by Judah’s leaders. The prophet pulls no punches about God's impending punishment: destruction. As a result of the social injustice, the oppressed are fearful and ashamed, while the powerful are haughty and corrupt and totally oblivious to the coming divine correction.

Zephaniah gives us a foretaste of the words which Mary will utter to Elizabeth in what we have come to call “The Magnificat”:

He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed.(Luke 1:51-53)

As we prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus, both the context and the content of the prophet’s words challenge us to remember the character of God's continuing and living promise to protect and exalt the lowly. The prophetic word affirms that God's purposes are to make right systems of injustice, to heal the shame that results from oppression.

All that is difficult for us to understand and process. We aren’t oppressed. Things may not go the way we would like, be we are far from being victims of injustice. And in spite of what the folks seeking nominations for President, we are not overrun, we are not subjugated, we are not in chains. We have roofs over our heads, chickens in our pots, dollars in our piggy banks, honor in our names, dignity in our lives. So how can we imagine hope in the midst of our privilege?

We hope because we are privileged. We hope because we know the message that the prophet gives, even though it may seem to be far from accessible right now. We hope because we have faith in God who cries out against the sins of greed, self-centeredness, falsehood, and fear. How many times has the message from God been, “Do not fear, do not be afraid”?

Fear is a sin. Fear is a sin because to distrusts the righteousness, the purpose, the love, the grace of God. Fear is being ladled out generously by so many people. Some are filled with hatred. Some are filled with ignorance. Some are filled greed. Some are filled with fear and don’t want to be alone in it.

Fear is a desiccant. It dries up joy, hope, love, and peace. It destroys relationships between people as well as the relationship God desires to have with us. Fear builds walls, fear digs bunkers, fear arms itself to the teeth, fear skews rational thinking. Fear says that I am inadequate unless I have more than someone else. Fear says that I am inadequate unless I have more power than someone else.

Fear is rampaging  throughout the world. It is promoted by the Boko Haram of West Africa, by ISIL in the Middle East, by armed communities dotting our country. Fear destroys. Fear of not knowing everything destroyed the relationship between God and our first ancestors.

"Do not fear" is not a plea, but a declaration. Luke uses it to instill confidence in unsuspecting recipients of God's news: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah,” “Don’t be afraid, Mary.” Later in the story we will hear, “Do not be afraid… I bring good news to you.” Another Gospel proclaims at its end, “Don’t be afraid… He isn’t here, because he’s been raised” (Matt. 28:5-6).

God’s promise is universal. God’s promised messianic kingdom and restoration of fortunes are not just for us, our challenges, and our privilege. God’s promises are for the whole world. In Gods messianic kingdom, oppressors will be dealt with (v. 19), because there will be no oppressed and no oppressors. In God's messianic kingdom, all the lame and the outcast will be restored. There will no “in groups” and “out groups,” there will be no favored nations and unfavored nations. There will be no scattered nations and refugees, for all of God’s people will be brought home and gathered (v. 20).

Our privilege brings responsibility. We do not experience extreme deprivation or shame, but because we love the world, we listen to that pain in the peoples of other nations and other classes. Then, informed and compassionate, we can pray in solidarity with our sisters and brothers around the world who do experience the world in ways much more like the experience of Zephaniah's hearers. We pray for an end to all disasters and conflicts, and we trust in God's promise for restoration. And when the opportunity presents itself, we allow God to use us move the kingdom forward, one act of gracious kindness at a time.

God's promise is for us. At the end of the day, once we have recognized the differences between our own fears and the fears originally addressed by Zephaniah, we can say that God will banish our fears as well. God will ultimately bring an end to our pain and our suffering, whatever nature that pain and suffering take.

So what does hope look like? It looks like Jesus, born in a foreign territory, placed in a feeding trough instead of a bassinet, forced to be a refugee while still an infant, run out of his adopted town because he dared to speak to and for God, recognized by sinners and repulsed by the self-proclaimed sinless, crucified, raised, and reigning. We are privileged to hope in him.

O come, O come, Emmanuel.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Whose Messenger Are You? (And What Message Are You Announcing?)

Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6; Philippians 1:3-11

Look, I am sending my messenger who will clear the path before me;
suddenly the Lord whom you are seeking will come to his temple.
The messenger of the covenant in whom you take delight is coming,
        says the Lord of heavenly forces.
Who can endure the day of his coming?
Who can withstand his appearance?

Those verses sum up Advent. They are rife with the tension of anticipation and apprehension. We haven’t lost that wide-eyed childhood glee for the approach of Christ’s birthday celebration. Yet it is in a life-and-death fight with our life experience that tells us that not everything will be like we expect it to be. If God really comes as God has promised, the impact on our lives will be major. “Who can endure the day of his coming?”  Not any of us.

And yet, here we are, pledging our loyalty, our faith, our very spirits to the reality that God has a plan for Creation, a plan for our prosperity. But the truth of the matter is that what we tell children about Santa Claus watching out for naughty and nice, if it applied to us, would make things pretty dicey for us when Christ appears. Malachi’s message applies to both the first coming of Christ – his birth as well as his three-year ministry – and his second coming at the culmination of Creation.

Malachi didn’t lay out a simple responsibility for his hearers. The message is magnified and perpetuated through the work of Christ. Remember the words in Acts 1 with which the risen Jesus commissioned his disciples at the close of his earthly ministry and post-resurrection appearance: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The work of the messenger has been laid on the people who would follow after Christ. You and I are in that great relay of witnesses.

I had an old AM radio in my room when I was growing up. It had a small, round, lighted dial and a knob to turn to tune in the stations. It took a lot of work to get a more distant station to come in clearly. Just the slightest twist of the tuning knob could get a clear signal or miss it in a roar of static. The static sometimes happened because there were signals from several radio stations on the same frequency trying to be tuned in at the same time. It wasn’t until I studied physics in high school that I learned how and why static existed.

We live in a world that is full of static. Malachi, along with his fellow prophets, understood that in their day. The hereditary priests and Levites connected with the Temple were saying one thing about God. And the prophets whom God appointed from outside the Temple institution spoke a different thing about God. Everyone spoke about God, but it was like the different radio stations trying to come in on the same frequency. All the people heard was static.

Our radios have improved a lot. With digital tuning, there isn’t any fiddling with the dial. Extraneous and weak signals are ignored. That’s not the case with our lives. The static is still there – in the church, in the world. The messages are fighting with each other as they try to be heard in the midst of every other message. The result is that no single message is getting through.

The refiner’s fire and cleaner’s soap is desperately needed. There needs to be honest reflection on our church and our broader society. What might be refined and purified in God’s promised refining fire? When God’s promise, spoken through Malachi, is finally fulfilled, what will look different in our church? our world? our lives? But before we start to attack enemies or to point out all the things that some imagined “they” are doing wrong, we need to pause and examine ourselves purposefully. We don’t get to escape the divine smelting. We are going to be refined along with all the people we think need it. We are in need of refining.(1)

The prophet calls us to look inside. Look inside ourselves, each of us. Then to look inside our congregation, then our community. What will God’s refining look like? Perhaps the faces in our pews will reflect the rainbow of pigmentation in God’s world more than they do now. Perhaps there will be young as well as old. Perhaps there will be no high cost cars in the parking lot and more beds for the homeless. Perhaps there will be hours of prayer and minutes of meetings rather than minutes of prayer and hours of meetings.

What will our worship and our stewardship look like if “the offering of Judah and Jerusalem [and Chicago and Little Rock and Phoenix and First Presbyterian and New Covenant and St. Mary’s Churches] will be pleasing to the Lord”?

Malachi challenges us to a very different kind of preparation than hanging tinsel, ladling eggnog, and singing carols. Like John the Baptist, the prophet challenges us to look at our lives, our values, our priorities. John’s message of repentance cannot be avoided. John and the prophets of Advent challenge us to recognize that we have been doing things after a wrong life message and must choose to make a radical change in our lives. That’s an impossible task for us by ourselves, but possible with the working of the Spirit in us.

Like the Advent prophets John confronts us, commands our attention, and demands our responses. John’s challenge is to repent and prepare. True repentance means literally, to change one’s mind, turn around, reorient oneself, or to use Malachi’s word, to be refined.(2)

So what is your message? Is about calling God a handyman who can fix everything? Does it describe God as a kind of benevolent grandparent who let’s you get away with things? Is it picturing God as kind of cosmic ATM handing out whatever you want? Does it make God into a cruel and impossible taskmaster ready to crush life out of people? Is it crying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace? Is it the message that appeared on the front page of the New York Post this week following the shooting rampage in San Bernardino: “God Isn’t Fixing This.”

The real message is that God did not will this massacre. Death is an interloper and is not God’s will. The one who hates this violence more than we do is God.

And the real message is that God is in the agony of innocent lives lost. God knows what it is to lose a son. God was with each of those wounded and killed. None of us can say how, or if they knew it, or believed it, or cared. But from the perspective of the Christian faith there is no such thing as a God-forsaken person. When evil intentions enter a room and snuff out life, what they don’t snuff out is the God of life who abides with those in the room more intimately that we can imagine. St. Augustine taught us that God is closer to us that we are to ourselves. Psalm 139 teaches us that we cannot escape God’s loving presence. Nothing can change that.

And the real message is that God wants us to join with God in the community to speak truth to power, as the prophets of old did, as John the Baptist did, as Jesus did, as Peter and Paul did, as the 16th century Reformers did, as the faithful have done across the ages.

In Advent, Christians prepare to celebrate the deepest mystery of our faith – the Incarnation, God’s unique union with humanity in the person of Jesus. Among other things, Incarnation means God is still with humanity and works through humanity. At Christmas we will be remembering that God came as a weak, vulnerable child into our world.(3)

John the Baptist is to us a great prophet who prepared the way for Jesus, but compared with the political and religious leaders of his day, he was just an ordinary guy. Yet God chose John, and not the luminaries of his time, to be the messenger. God sent the message to John, not in Rome, not in Jerusalem, but out in the wilderness. Not the seat of political or religious power, but the wilderness, the often scary and confusing place where God had spoken to God’s people in the past and through which God had led God’s people to a new and promised life. God’s choice of John and where God spoke to John are indications of what God expects from us. Our repentance, our turning around, will likely involve us looking at the structures and the systems and the people of the world around us in new and different ways.(4)

Whose messenger are you? And what message are you announcing? John wants to know. Malachi wants to know. God wants to know.

(1) Seth Moland-Kovash, “Malachi 3:1-6 Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, Volume 1, 29, 31.
(2) Kathy Beach Verhey, “Luke 3:1-6 Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting, op. cit., 47, 49.
(3) “God Isn’t Fixing This,” Rev. Dr. L. Roger Owens, associate professor of leadership and ministry, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, PTSBlog, Ministry/Theological Reflection, http://www.pts.edu/blog/god-isnt-fixing-this 
(4) Verhey, op. cit., 49.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.