Sermon Archive

The advertisements in the New York Times and the West Side Spirit have been placed. Come December 24th, about 150 people who don’t usually come to Rutgers are going to walk up these aisles and sit in these pews. Some may have gone to church as kids, and still feel guilty if they don’t come on Christmas Eve. Others may be lonely or depressed, and hope that the carols and the company will comfort them. Some may come on a whim, following a call of the Spirit they don’t yet recognize. We may have evangelicals, visiting family or friends in New York. There may be others who could care less about Christmas, but love music and want to check out our new organist. But no matter what brings them here, at some point they’re bound to wonder: who are we? The people who come here all the time. What do they say about themselves?

In today’s scripture we heard what John who was baptizing said about himself. He began with what he was not: he was not the Messiah, nor Elijah nor the prophet. Now in those days, many – by no means all, but many Jews believed that God was going to intervene soon to fulfill the ancient promises of justice and peace made to the people of Israel. What time if not then? Roman rule was harsh and brutal. The landscape was dotted with crosses where political opponents were hung along with criminals. Most people barely eked out a living from the land and were crushed by taxes. Perhaps, some thought, the prophet Elijah would return, to herald the great and terrible day of the Lord when Israel would be vindicated. Scripture said he had not died. He was taken by a whirlwind into heaven, with a chariot and horses of fire, right in front of the eyes of his disciple Elisha. The prophet Malachi said Elijah would come back before the terrible Day of the Lord, to turn the hearts of parents to the children and the hearts of children to their parents. Or maybe God would raise up the prophet from the people, the one Moses said would be like him, the one who would speak the true word. Or maybe God’s anointed, the Messiah himself would come and bring good news to the oppressed, bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives.

John was not the Elijah, the prophet, or the Messiah. But he makes another claim that’s just as bold. He is, he says, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, as the prophet Isaiah said. The same Isaiah who said to prepare the way of the Lord, for every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low. The same Isaiah who said prepare the way of the Lord for the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all the people shall see it together. John himself was not sent to deliver Israel, but he is saying the time is now. The time of which Isaiah spoke. The one Israel has been waiting for is coming after him, and John is not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.

This was an extraordinary claim. It may have seemed like a false one to John’s visitors, for messianic pretenders and self-deluded prophets were a dime a dozen in first century Palestine. It would become an even more extraordinary and difficult claim 60 years later, when John the Evangelist’s community would insist they knew God through the Christ, for Israel was hardly living in the messianic age as described by Isaiah. But John who baptized believed what he had seen, and he testified to it. When asked who he was and what he had to say for himself, he went straight to what mattered: he was one who had seen the Lord.

Let’s think again about those Christmas Eve visitors. If someone were to ask us, say, during the coffee hour, “Who are you here?” Or, more likely, “Tell me about the church,” what would we say? Most likely we’d say things like: we’re a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). We have about 120 members and 40 children in our Sunday School. If we veered into deeper waters we might say that we’re an inclusive church, meaning that gays and lesbians are welcome. We might mention that we have a dinner program on Thursday night and support a homeless shelter. We could even refer to that survey we all completed a year ago, the one where we learned that most of us prefer traditional hymns and classical music and that we valued our openness to diversity but didn’t worry much about reaching the unchurched. Those are perfectly good answers – I say things like that all the time – and they are the kinds of answers that people are expecting. They are answers that fit the world we live in most of the time: the world where we watch TV, order take-out, help the kids with homework, and check e-mail. The world where we worry about a transit strike and shop for the Harry Potter lego set on our niece’s Christmas list.

But that world is not the only world we live in. We also live in a world where our president has threatened to use nuclear weapons and is hell-bent on going to war. We also live in a world where a third of the adults in some African countries are soon going to die of a painful and debilitating disease. A world where millions are starving. A world where we also welcome new babies and see stars at night. A world where that visitor in coffee hour may have just lost their spouse of thirty years, or been diagnosed with cancer.

What kind of answer fits that world? Not a membership tally. Not a list of outreach programs – as important as those may be. A fitting answer might be that we are a people who have seen God in the risen Christ. That we are a people who believe God came to us as a baby, and a teen-ager, and a grown man because of God’s great love for us. That we are a people who believe God loves us and all people, and that God’s love and justice will be the final word. That we are a people who believe God’s ancient promises to Israel will one day, yet to come, be fulfilled for all the nations.

Those kinds of answers are hard to say. They’re hard to say because we’re still struggling to know what they mean. They’re hard to say because we know we don’t really live into them. They’re hard to say because we don’t always believe it. They’re hard to say because it is extraordinary and certainly not provable. And I’m not suggesting that we talk about the love of God and the risen Christ at coffee hour as an evangelistic strategy. (Although why not?)