Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Luke 3: 1-6+Second Sunday of Advent+December 8, 2024+Gloria Dei Lutheran Church+Pastor Jodi Houge

(Pic of Nick #1)

 

This is a picture of Australian singer Nick Cave. Just in case you aren’t familiar with him, he’s had a decades long career as a musician, actor, performance artist. He fronts the band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. And he happens to be a faithful practicing Christian. 

 

In 2019, my husband Nate and I did a bit of work for the church of Iceland and at the end of it, we had a few days to enjoy the city of Reykjavik. One morning, we stood in line to order coffee and noticed a tall, rather intense looking man in a dapper suit in front of us. When we sat down, Nate discreetly showed me google search of Nick Cave to tell me that we were actually having coffee with him. 

 

(Pic of Nate #1)

 

I discreetly took a picture of my cute husband with his coffee but really I was taking picture of Nick. How could I resist! I had absolutely no chill. And if you zoom in on Nick’s face, it’s obvious that he saw me and wasn’t thrilled.

 

(Pic of Nate #2 with Nick’s face circled)

 

So since 2019, we have told this story. A lot. To all our friends. “About the time we had coffee with Nick Cave in Reykjavik.”

This Fall, Nick was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And Stephen says to Nick, “We have never met but we have been in the same room. In 2019, I was in a coffee shop in Reykjavik and you were standing in line ahead of me.” Which is exactly what we had planned to say to Nick should we ever meet him. 

 

Nate and I were so focused on seeing Nick Cave standing in front of us that we completely missed Stephen Colbert standing behind us. 

 

I’m telling this story because it’s John the Baptist Sunday. John is the one who cries out in the wilderness, who helps prepare the way for the one who is coming. People got so wrapped up in John and his message that they thought he might be the one. So he had to tell folks, there is someone coming that is greater than I am. John is always pointing us beyond his message toward Jesus. 

 

(I understand that this is where the story/metaphor with Nick and Stephen falls apart because Stephen Colbert is not our redemption but you understand what I’m trying to illustrate). 

 

John the Baptist. Man, I love this guy. But I’ve always wondered what on earth gets that guy up in the morning? What motivates him to live his best life now? Is it another breakfast of locusts and honey. Another day on the edge of the wilderness? Another moment of calling to God’s people that change has got to come? And the change begins with you. 

 

I suspect its a burning hunger for something new. John is familiar with weary souls hungry for a tender green leaf on a tree that looks all but dead. 

 

I suspect it’s quiet resolve or burning passion that for the love of God, we need a new way forward.

 

That deep longing is what Advent is made of.

Of God we wait.
But God we can’t wait. 

 

Do you feel it, too?

 

John the Baptist’s message is repent. Repentance is in Greek, the original language this was written in, is metanoia—which means to turn around. 

 

Turning around isn’t just an effort to “change ones thinking.” Or some simplistic idea that we are bad and we repent to be good.  It’s about doing a whole new thing. As in, you are going one direction and now you turn and walk in the opposite.

Repentance is about how to recalculate your life to intentionally turn toward lasting sources of life. 

 

Moving intentionally toward sources of life will be an assault to the status quo. To repent of greed means cultivating a life of generosity. To repent of hate means actively loving your neighbor. To be released from loneliness means opting into community. To turn from despair means living with hope and joy. This sort of turning toward sources of life can feel like an extreme sport as a human. It feels radical to show love to your neighbor but this is what John is calling us to do to prepare for Jesus. 

 

No matter what you do, think, feel. No matter how much you prepare or don’t prepare. No matter how you get things together. No matter how much things to seem to be coming part…

 

Christ has come. Christ is coming. Christ will come again. 

 

This is not, “get it together, and then God can enter.” It’s happening. That baby is going to slip into this world no matter what. 

 

Our Gospel writer chose to begin with the story of John the Baptist on the edge of the wilderness.

 

Not in the temple. 

Not in the middle of the city.

Not in the center of good, ordered society.
Not where it appears the humans have it all together.

Theologian Walter Brueggemann said the wilderness is where the power for life is fragile and diminished. It is a place that crushes your vitality. The wilderness is not easy living. 

 

The good news begins there, in the hard edged scrappy margins. Which makes today’s Gospel a roll call for anyone feeling fragile or diminished or crushed or living in the margins or on scraps.

Feeling like you are in the middle of the wilderness? You are in good company. You have John with you there. And he’s there, then there is a birth announcement that promises love is arriving. 

 

I’m not sure if you noticed but it is very important to the writer of this Gospel story that we notice that the politics of the day could not stop God from slipping into the world. The timing and location also matter.  It begins, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor” and on and on and on with the leaders. When those leaders were in place, in that moment in time, God slips in. 

That is just as true today. God is here now. 

In the year 2024, under the Presidency of Joe Biden, when Tim Walz was Governor of Minnesota, Melvin Carter was Mayor of St Paul, under the direction of Highland District Council Board, during the time when the Elizabeth Eaton was Presiding Bishop of all the United States ELCA Lutherans and Patricia Lull was bishop of the St Paul Lutherans, a word of God came to Gloria Dei.

Today, in this political and religious landscape, God is doing something new. 

If this is a season of preparing, then how might be get ourselves ready for what God is doing?

Well, John the Baptist makes it pretty clear:  we repent and turn from death toward lasting sources of life.

I need a visual and a practice of turning toward life and the light. Maybe you do, too. I’ll share with you what we do at our house, something we have been doing for about 20 years. On the first evening of Advent, sit at the kitchen table in the dark and we light one tea light. One tiny light up against all that darkness. On the second day, we light two.  The third, three. Everyone eats a piece of chocolate and we examine our day with sharing high points and low points. When the kids were small, often someone would be crying. Typically there were fights over whose turn it was to blow out the candles. Now we have one kid grown and off at college and there is less fighting about that. All told, this whole practice takes 5 minutes. But I’m telling you, it’s a daily visual of our source of light. The light that is inevitable. I mean, by day 2 it’s already doubled. By the time we get to December 24, it takes all of us to light all those candles and the kitchen a sea of light.

Maybe you want to join us and light your own. You can always journal your daily high points and low points. 

The good news of Jesus Christ makes it’s birth announcement on the edge of every edge—telling the whole world there there is no place where God will not go for us. 

 

No matter where you are or what you are doing or living with or through, God is arriving. And there is no place that God will not go for you.