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Season of Decision Luke 3: 1 - 6 |
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Summary
Season of Decision We are now in the season named — traditionally, historically, appropriately — Advent. Webster defines “advent” with a small “a” as “a coming into being.” Okay, then — what is it that is “coming into being” that the church celebrates at this time every year? In the past, the season of Advent in the church was, beginning four Sundays out from Christmas day, a time of preparation, a time of meditation, a time of quiet examination of life, and not the consumerist feeding frenzy beginning the day after Halloween that it has become in recent years. Traditionally, Advent was a season similar to Lent, without being quite so intense — a season in its own right and not an early extension of Christmas, a season of preparation, a season of quiet acknowledgment that something has, indeed, “come into being.” What is it, then, that is just now “coming into being” in this season just begun? Today’s passage lays that out for us in all its drama, in all its irony, in all its threat, in all its promise. Fully a third of these six verses are taken up by an ironic “proclamation,” truly a proclamation fit for royalty, for it is a proclamation about royalty — about an emperor, a governor, three “rulers” and a high priest, to be exact. What we have here is the whole hierarchy in place at that time, in that place — from the very emperor of the Roman Empire, the world power of that day — dare I say the “United States” of that day — down to the rulers of the various provinces and regions, down to the high priest in charge of the practice and public face of the Jewish religion of that time. But here’s the irony: In the midst of the emperor and the governor and the high priest and all the rulers in between, to whom does the word of God come? To whom does God, the Creator of the universe, the true and only “emperor” of all that is, make the divine presence known? Not to emperor or to governor; not to high priest or any “ruler” in between, no. God makes himself known to … a man simply named “John” — a name every bit as common then as now. The word of God came to “John, son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” John, son of Zechariah, is an itinerant preacher who has placed himself well outside the boundaries of established religion and political order, so as to call established religion out of its conformity to the ways of the world and back to itself, so as to hold the political order accountable to God. He proclaims no elaborate political theory, theology or strategy of accommodation with the ruling powers, but a simple baptism of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” His religion is simple and direct. His God is not just for the emperors and the governors and the high priests and the rulers; his God is for everybody. Doesn’t matter who you are — soldier, tax collector or face in the crowd — this simple religion is for you, whoever you are — if you are willing to do the one simple thing you have to do, which is, repent. Acknowledge that your life, that our life, is off track. Turn your life around. Align yourself, not with the stars or with whomever is in power this political season or with whichever gang happens to be remotely successful in resisting the powers that be, but with the ways of God. It is to this John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness, that the word of God comes, in this time of the rapidly increasing, reaching and overreaching power of the Roman Empire. A great leveling In these opening verses of this early, ground-laying chapter of Luke’s gospel, we see the advent we’re looking at today; we see what is coming into being. What is coming into being is nothing less than a whole new world, a whole new vision of how human beings are to be alive in the world. Valleys are going to be filled up, John says; mountains are going to be laid low, rough and crooked paths are going to be straightened and graded. No, this John, son of Zechariah, is not foretelling the coming of steam shovels and bulldozers. Valleys being filled, mountains being made low — this, as I’m sure you understand, is symbolic language. Those whom “culture,” “society,” “the world” — call it what you like — have set on high over the rest of us are going to be brought low. They are going to be brought down to the level of those they lord it over. And this has already started to happen, you see — the word of God, the emperor of the universe, has not come to these high-and-mighty ones; it has come to a simple “country preacher” (or a simple inner-city preacher if you like) with nowhere to lay his head. And the emperor of the universe? This Mighty One of mighty ones?” That emperor, the real one, is going to surrender his highness and majesty and come to the world himself as one who is low, born not in a palace to a prince and princess, but in a stable, to a common working couple. This is the Advent we’re talking about; this is the Advent we celebrate now. It began 2,000 years ago, when the word of the Almighty God came, not to emperor, governor, high priest or ruler, but to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. What is coming into being is what the faithful have been waiting for since the time of the prophet Isaiah — the one John quotes when he speaks of valleys being filled and mountains and hills made low. What is coming into being is what the people of God were waiting for when they were slaves in Egypt — indeed, what is coming into being is precisely what enslaved people always and everywhere have been and are now waiting for. It has already begun. It has been coming for a long time — perhaps since the beginning of time — and it is still coming. This is the Advent that the church celebrates now, in this time before “the Christmas season.” We are preparing for the coming into being of God’s reign, on earth as in heaven. Valleys are going to be filled up, mountains and hills made low. What we are being prepared for, hard as it is for our status-obsessed, idol-creating, hero-worshiping Western culture to hear, is a great leveling. The flourishing empire What else is there to say about this? Shall we say, gloriously, “And now, the Roman Empire is dead, and look! The church is alive and flourishing!” No. It’s not as simple and self-serving as that. The church today, as you all know, is hardly flourishing. Churches are closing. Greater and greater numbers — not only in Europe, where such has come to be expected, but right here at home — are proclaiming that they have no religion or are declaring themselves to be vaguely “spiritual, not religious.” And the Roman Empire? We need to remember that this passage speaks in symbols. “Valleys” are not literal valleys. “Mountains and hills” really mean … well, you know very well what they really mean. And the Roman Empire? What is represented by “the Roman Empire” has not vanished from the face of the earth. What is represented by the Roman Empire is as alive now as it ever was. The “Roman Empire” is alive wherever there is … well, empire; the “Roman Empire” lives wherever there is arbitrary political power that defines itself solely in terms of its own power, and that acknowledges no prerogative outside of its own. What is symbolized in these verses by “the Roman Empire” flourishes wherever human beings are subjected to forces — “democratic” or whatever— that push them to work and live and vote blatantly against their own best interests, to choose what is merely “the best of two evils,” where human beings are driven to see one another as adversaries, and not as brothers and sisters, where people are basically no more than slaves to large and impersonal entities that demand ever increasing commitment of time and of life-energy and give less and less in return. It flourishes where what is called “economic reality” forces families to choose between health care and food, where genuine human welfare is sacrificed for “business,” where political systems that claim to exist “for the people” provide food and health care, but demand mindless submission in return — anywhere in the world where we find conditions like these, we find to be alive and flourishing what is represented in today’s passage as “the Roman Empire.” What is coming into being What we are faced with today, in other words, in this season of Advent, is the coming into being of the reign of God and the rule of God. And we are faced with the witness — of John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness, and of Jesus and those earliest of his followers — we are faced with the witness and the proclamation that the reign and the rule of God are not at all like the reign and the rule of the little gods — human and in-human — that lord it over us even today. What we are faced with today is a choice — the same choice with which those first hearers of John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness were faced. Will we live for security among the fleshpots of Egypt — and remain slaves? Will we continue to live for the comfort and security bought by a life that pits us against one another, fighting over smaller and smaller amounts of material goods? Or shall we open ourselves to the reign of God that is even now coming into being, and hear, and accept, John’s proclamation of a baptism of repentance for forgiveness? Shall we continue to peer suspiciously at one another from behind the mountains and the hills that separate us from God and from one another? Or shall we, with God’s guidance and help, begin to level the mountains and fill the valleys? |
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