Sermon Preached at St. Aidan’s Alexandria (December 12)Third Sunday in Advent, Year A: Isaiah 35:1-10, Canticle 15, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11
"The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name." Amen.
A couple weeks ago I was introduced to a phenomenon called the Advent Conspiracy. It's a movement, mostly promoted online, that was founded a few years ago by an ecumenical group of ministers whose goal is to re-claim this season from consumerist frenzy. Their web site proclaims: "What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want Christmas to look like?"
The Advent Conspirators' main question is this: What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? They offer a challenge to buy less stuff and give more of yourself, to live more simply (which is a noble goal, especially at this time of year). But they also present a bigger challenge: to redirect some of what we usually spend at this time of year toward creating a better world. They provide some pretty startling statistics. The U.N. reports that 5,000 children die every day from diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. The estimated cost of ending this injustice and creating clean water sources around the world is about $11 billion a year. I invite you to guess how much Americans are expected to spend this year on Christmas presents? [Congregation guesses.] Answer: $450 billion.
For those of you who are feeling an overwhelming desire to "google" right now, I have already done so – because I didn't want to believe these numbers myself. Unfortunately, a number of sources, including reports from the World Water Fund and the Wall Street Journal, confirm these stats – it's not just crazy church propaganda. This message from the Advent Conspiracy is true, and it is uncomfortable.
Speaking of uncomfortable messages, let's turn now to today's Gospel reading. This selection from Matthew doesn't sound much like the Advent we know and love – Isaiah's promises of peace and comfort, or Mary and Elizabeth rejoicing over the children they are expecting. This sounds very different, with John the Baptist sending messengers to ask whether Jesus is really the coming one, to which he receives a reply that seems to raise more questions than it answers. Why would we read about these doubts during this season when we're supposed to be awaiting a world-changing event: Christ's coming? John's questions are puzzling, because early in Matthew's Gospel, in the portion we heard last week, John very confidently proclaims the coming of the Messiah: "One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals! He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!" So what has happened since then to shake John's confidence?
For one thing, John now finds himself in prison, and in his day prison was not a final destination – it was a way station where you went to await your fate, which usually wasn't good. So John is having a very close encounter with his own impending death. He is in a place of darkness, and it is understandably difficult for him to see light and hope, and to trust that he has given his life for a worthy cause. But the other thing that's been happening in Matthew's narrative, between John's predictions and these questions, is that Jesus has been healing the blind and the sick, casting out demons, and even restoring to life a little girl who was believed to be dead.
So, in answer to John about whether he is the coming one, Jesus does not offer a simple 'yes' or 'no.' He offers instead a recap of remarkable events: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor hear good news. To Jesus' listeners, this list was a resounding echo of the words we heard today from the prophet Isaiah. But it probably also confused them, because in general their picture of the messiah, the coming one, would have been a king or military hero, who would come among us in great might, who would restore Israel and reign over it with authority and power. Their vision of the messiah didn't include the gentle healer standing before them. Jesus recognizes that he doesn't fit their expectations.
Then Jesus further challenges his followers. He asks them three times: What did you go out into the wilderness to see? Was it a reed shaken by the wind, or someone dressed in soft robes? It helps decode this language to know that King Herod reportedly built at least one palace beside the Dead Sea in the wilderness, and some of his royal coins depicted a reed from the Jordan Valley, so Jesus is probably saying, "Did you go out to see the rich and powerful living decadent lives? Did you go into the wilderness to see the Real Housewives of the Dead Sea?" No, he says, you came to the wilderness to see a prophet who is not glamorous at all, John the Baptist dressed in his camel's hair, eating locusts and honey, with his message that the coming of God's kingdom is about repentance, it's about re-orienting our lives, it's about sacrifice, not splendor.
Something I read about this passage said: "John and Jesus share one crucial characteristic: they are both willing to risk entering the public arena against well-prepared opponents, even when it means speaking truth to those in power, a very dangerous occupation that can land the prophet in prison or on a cross. All of this speaks about how the old age continues to operate. Those in power stay in power. The powerful exploit the powerless. It is a vicious cycle that only an advent can change. Both John and Jesus are part of that advent as it struggles to come to life."
Yes, today's gospel reading would be a lot more palatable if Jesus could answer with simplicity and assurance, "Yes, I am the coming one. Don't worry, John, everything will turn out fine." But Jesus knows that to truly usher in the new kingdom and the lasting peace of God, all of our expectations about how the world works have to be turned upside down first. And that is going to require a great deal of sacrifice. He's reminding his cousin John what exactly he put his life on the line for, and he is reminding the disciples that what they came to the wilderness to see is probably not what they were expecting. Before they can truly see the savior, they have to go through the wilderness.
Almost exactly one month ago, the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released (again) from house arrest. In the 1980s, Suu Kyi started the National League for Democracy, which led to widespread civilian protests and a surge of hope in a country that has been ruled by a military junta for almost 50 years now. She was actually elected to be the country's leader in 1990 but was prevented from taking office, and she has lived under house arrest almost constantly since then. She has been released twice before, then imprisoned again when she attracted too many followers. She has had almost no contact with her family, not even to be with her husband when he was dying. When Suu Kyi was released before, she could have fled the country to live a normal life near her family, but she chose to stay in Myanmar, because a third of her country's people live on less than a dollar a day, disease is rampant, health care is nearly non-existent. Myanmar is a place that needs an advent in a bad way.
When I was there two years ago, I became swept up in the Burmese people's love for their gentle hero. When Suu Kyi started making headlines again, I picked up a book of her beautiful letters, Voices from Burma. In an introduction to that volume, Fergal Keane describes trying to find out why so many Burmese people risk their own lives to rally around Suu Kyi. He stood with the crowds gathered outside her house and asked them, "What did you come here to see?" He writes: "Perhaps the most eloquent answer to my question came from an old man, standing drenched to the skin outside Aung San Suu Kyi's house on the day after her release. 'We come here because we know that we are the most important thing in the world to her. She cares about us.' To a people who suffer continually the brutality of one of the world's most odious regimes, the notion that a leader might actually care about them, and risk her own freedom to fight for theirs, is indeed unusual."
The common message that the Advent Conspiracy and Aung San Suu Kyi and John the Baptist and Jesus proclaim to us is that unless all of us are free, none of us is free; unless all of us are healthy and safe and warm, none of us is healthy and safe and warm. It's the message that saints down through the centuries have put their lives on the line for, because they truly believe that this world can be turned upside down, that the lowly can be lifted up and the hungry filled with good things, that the vicious cycles of our world can be redeemed.
Before I go back to my seat, I want to be clear about something: I'm not saying that if you buy Christmas presents you're a bad Christian. After all, you're here this morning, which leads me to believe that you have come here to see something more, something more to this season than consumerist frenzy.
But I also want to be clear that the Advent message isn't entirely tidings of comfort and joy – it's also a message of challenge:
a challenge to be re-born with Christ, a challenge to help our world be reborn, a challenge to upset the age-old cycle of the powerless and the powerful, a challenge to give up some of our own comfort so others can come to the table.
To the one who is coming, each of us is the most important thing in the world, and we are called to love one another in the same generous way.
On some great and glorious day, Jesus will usher in a new kingdom where this love will prevail. And every year – every day – we are invited to prepare his way, to help bring about the advent of a new world.
So I invite you to become part of this great conspiracy of Advent, to ponder in your heart that basic question: What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? What if?
[Watch the Advent conspiracy video!]
