Soft Robes and Shaking Reeds
(Rutgers, December 13, 1998; 3rd Sunday of Advent, Year A;
Holy Communion)
Psalm 146:5-10 (OT, pp. 644-645); Matthew 11:2-11 (NT, p. 11)
Herod Antipas, the velvet-clad ruler,
had thrown John the Baptist, the camel-hair-clad prophet,
into prison, at the fortress of Machaerus,
in the mountainous wilderness east of the Dead Sea.
Soft-robed Herod had charged rough-robed John with sedition-
with fostering revolt against the established political authority,
a political authority that Herod had had symbolized
on some of the coins of his realm
with the image of the reed plant
that grew along the banks of the Jordan River,
in the wilderness that was, ironically,
the arena of John's prophetic ministry.
In this morning's Second Lesson,
Jesus turns to the assembled crowds and, in speaking about John,
uses the images of "soft robes" and "shaking reeds"
to symbolize John's archenemy and nemesis-Herod.
Soft-robed Herod was a reed who continually bent and shook
at every political breeze emanating from Rome,
the capital of the empire,
whereas camel-clad John
stood firm as an unbending, unshakeable prophet of God
who, like Jesus,
represented a realm that was the opposite of Herod's,
not the empire of Rome,
but the sovereignty of God.
Unlike Rome's rule, God's rule was aimed primarily
at fostering the well-being of the poor and the dispossessed
rather than the well-being of the rich and the elite.
Thus, we find the psalmist of our First Lesson
celebrating the God (quote) "who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry" ...
who "sets the prisoners [-like John the Baptist-] free" ...
who "opens the eyes of the blind....
lifts up those who are bowed down;...
watches over the strangers; .. .
[and] upholds the orphan and the widow.”
It is this God who "will reign forever"-
not Caesar, and certainly not Herod.
It is this God whose reign John the Baptist has come to proclaim.
It is this God of whom Jesus, as the Christ, is the incarnation.
And, in our Second Lesson, from Matthew 11,
we find Jesus establishing his identity as the Christ
by doing the work characteristic of God-
by healing the blind, the deaf, and the lame;
by cleansing the lepers;
and by bringing good news to the poor.
So today's second lesson
contrasts the nature of God's reign to that of Herod's
and calls upon us who identify ourselves as disciples of Jesus
to dissociate ourselves from the Herods of this earth,
from those soft robes who serve the interests of wealth,
from those shaking reeds who waver and shift
so as to accommodate themselves
to the principalities and powers of this world.
Today's lesson calls on us who identify ourselves as disciples of Jesus,
to continue the work of Jesus,
to fulfill here and now the work of the Christ of God,
the work of God's realm on earth,
the work of righting every wrong + healing every infirmity.
Under the sovereignty of God, the measure of a person's greatness
is not fame, power, wealth, or any other worldly standard of value.
Rather, under the sovereignty of God, the measure of greatness
is humble fidelity to the work of Christ.
But New York City-where we live and work-is certainly a place
where the realms of Herod and of God compete for our allegiance,
where the value of humble fidelity to Christ is challenged
by the allure of physical comfort and political influence,
where humble fidelity to Christ can easily be co-opted
by the soft robe of economic well-being
and the shaking reed of accommodation to power.
Now "humble fidelity to the work of Christ" is a huge topic,
worthy of a lifetime of sermons.
So in preparing this sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent,
I felt it important in this second section,
where I am to apply the ancient texts to today's situation,
to lift up just one aspect of God's concern for the poor ,
and to do so by telling a true Advent story about New York,
a story that will, I hope, prompt each of us to consider
how we may fulfill the work of the Christ of God
and avoid becoming "soft robes" and "shaking reeds."
The third candle of our Advent wreath is the shepherds' candle,
and it reminds us that the shepherds found the baby Jesus
lying not in a home, not in a motel room,
and probably not even in a stable.
Most probably they found him lying outside
in an outdoor feeding trough for animals.
So as we prepare for this Christmas eve, as we prepare
to meet the homeless Christ-child, asleep outside in the hay,
let us through this true story of Advent
meet some of the homeless persons of New York City,
asleep outside on our streets in their cardboard boxes.
It's 9:00 p.m. last Monday night on Fifth Avenue,
the most fashionable, soft-robed street in New York.
10 to 15 rough-clad homeless people are, as usual,
preparing to take shelter in cardboard boxes
on the steps of the church where my wife, Margaret, works.
One of them, a woman, is reading by flashlight
from a large-print Bible that she's fished out of her shopping cart,
a cart that holds every possession she has in the world.
"What are you reading?" Margaret asks.
Margaret's recently begun
making eye contact with a number of the step dwellers,
smiling, stopping to talk, beginning to establish a bond of trust.
"What are you reading?" Margaret asks.
"The Book of Job," the woman answers, without a trace of irony.
"I'm up to chapter 8."
Margaret moves on, around the corner.
There, in the bays of the church building
that line the northern sidewalk of West 55th Street,
another 10 people or so are setting up their cardboard.
This section of sidewalk lies in full view of the palatial entrance
to one of the most luxurious hotels in the city,
The 10-15 on the front steps and the 10 or so on the sidewalk
are but 20-25 of the 20,000 street homeless in New York City,
the homeless who each night are left to sleep on the streets.
This number does not include the 10,000 or so other homeless persons
who every night fill all available beds in the existing shelter system.
Most of the homeless have come to the street from 1 of 3 places:
from a prison, from a mental institution,
or from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.
They've "graduated," so to speak, and can't stay where they were,
but no one's given them a job, or a place to live,
or a support network of any kind.
At 9.30 p.m. someone comes to Margaret's office and says excitedly,
"The police are arresting the homeless in the sidewalk bays.
Come quickly!”
You see, the church is involved in a running dispute with
the police, city hall, and the local Business Improvement District.
For months, these groups have been trying to get the church
to file a trespass complaint against these homeless persons
so that they can be arrested.
But the church contends that the safety of its sanctuary
extends to its property line
and includes the steps and the sidewalk bays,
and that the police should not harass the homeless
anywhere around the church.
The police grumble at the church.
"Bunch of do-gooders," they mutter.
But they have at least agreed to recognize the church's right
to extend its sanctuary down the church steps.
Still, the police are insisting that the homeless in the sidewalk bays
are subject to the city ordinance that prohibits anyone
from blocking or lying down on a sidewalk.
When Margaret arrives at the sidewalk scene, out of breath,
she finds that the police are from the special Homeless Unit,
not the precinct,
and that they aren't actually arresting the people.
Instead, they are "just" frightening them into moving along,
shooing them away, even though they have no place to go.
&, oh yes, the police are also confiscating the homeless people's carts.
"Most of their carts are stolen," the police claim,
as they radio for sanitation trucks
to come pick up the carts-and everything that's in them.
Margaret hurries to the 5th Avenue side to warn the homeless there
to get their carts up onto the church steps
so that they won't be confiscated.
And the two whose carts are on the sidewalk do pull them up.
Margaret then returns to the police and asks, "Who sent you?"
"Somebody at city hall," they reply vaguely.
"Who specifically," she asks.
"Someone high up," is all they'll say.
The police talk among themselves about whether they should
stay until the sanitation trucks arrive for the carts.
They decide to leave.
And Margaret goes up to her office.
An hour later, when Margaret returns on her way home,
the carts are no longer there.
Margaret's not sure whether the trucks have finally arrived, or
whether the homeless've returned to rescue their belongings
before slipping off again into the unwelcoming night.
All that remains on the sidewalk
is a half-dozen empty cardboard boxes.
Meanwhile, on the 5th Avenue steps of the church,
about a dozen homeless have tucked themselves into their boxes.
But who knows if they are asleep'
Harassment is an everyday reality of their lives,
and they worry that it will happen again soon.
At 6:30 the next morning, all the homeless have left.
Many of them have carefully folded their boxes and deposited them
on the street corner-in a relatively neat stack-
helping the church custodian who's brought in each day at 6 am
to take care of the cardboard
and to hose down the urine-streaked steps and sidewalk.
As the custodian finishes his tasks,
the private carter hired by the church arrives, loads up,
and carries off his cardboard cargo.
7.00 a.m. Everything is clean. There's not a homeless person in sight.
The sidewalks of 5th Avenue and West 55th Street
have once again been converted-for at least the next 12 hours,
until nightfall-from the wilderness frontier
where only the likes of John + Jesus would work comfortably
to a preserve that's safe for soft robes and shaking reeds.
Protecting the homeless is not a solution to homelessness.
Being homeless is not a good or safe way to live.
But it's important in this imperfect world to at least decide
whether it's to the Christ of the poor or to soft-robed rulers
that we'll give our ultimate allegiance.
Let us pray.
O God, help us to spurn soft robes and shaking reeds.
Grant us the will and show us the way to do y our work in our city-
the will and the way to free prisoners
without rendering them homeless;
the will and the way to provide care for the mentally ill
without prematurely releasing them to the streets;
the will and the way to both restore the health of substance
abusers and provide them with a living wage;
the will and the way to address and meet the needs
of the homeless.
This we pray in the name of Christ, our example and our sovereign.
Amen.
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