After last
Wednesday I am near the place where I dread checking out the news. There is just so much that is awful and disheartening:
killings abroad, killings in at a Planned Parenthood Clinic, killings in San
Bernardino. We are living in a sad,
sobering time where each day we discover a new depth to darkness and
despair. In between each tragedy we live
with the inevitable dissection of what happened, who is to blame, and what
should be done about it. It is a
conversation – well, not so much of a conversation as it is people yelling at
each other with no one actually listening – that tears us down and tears us
apart and fosters only a spirit of anger, meanness, and hopelessness.
Jonathan
Safran Foer, is his novel Everything Is
Illuminated, wrote this about one of his characters, but he just as easily
could be describing our country as a whole:
She
was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous
strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be
divided into its infinite spectrum.”
As a people
we have responded to the times we live in by immersing ourselves in sadness and
in the process we have become a prism through which sadness can be divided into
its infinite spectrum. If this is true,
and I think it is, then the biggest challenge we face in the world today is not
how to secure our safety. It is not how
to identify those who mean to do us harm.
Our biggest challenge is spiritual.
There is no
question but that we live in a difficult and challenging age. There is little we can do to change this
reality. But how we respond to our times
– how we allow it to affect us – is well within our control. Chronic sadness, hopelessness, and despair
are choices we make in response to what we experience. No one forces them on us. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Sorrow
looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up”. What do you choose?
This morning’s
first reading was taken from the inter-testament Book of Baruch. It is set during the period of the Exile, a
time after God’s people had been conquered militarily, taken from their
devastated homeland, and forced to live in Babylon. It was about as bleak a time as anyone of us
could ever imagine. God’s people lived
in captivity for more than two generations until no one alive had ever
experienced anything other than life in Babylon. In that dark time Baruch’s words shined with
the brightness of the sun:
Take
off the garment
of
your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever
the beauty of the
glory from God.
Put
on the robe of the righteousness
that
comes from God;
put
on your head the diadem
of
the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor
everywhere under
heaven.
We like to say,
“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Baruch might change that up a tad to say, “When
the going gets bleak, put on festive clothes and celebrate.” In the face of real life social and political
problems he points to a spiritual solution: “We must mourn no longer. It is time for us to reflect the beauty and
the glory of God. We will choose in whom
we live and move and have our being. And
people everywhere will know and see who we are, what we believe, and the power
of God working in us.”
Today’s gospel
reading demonstrates how Luke sets his story in a historical context: the
emperor, the governor, rulers of various regions, and religious leaders in the
temple. All of these people possessing
all the world’s power and yet the word of God comes not to them nor does it
come through them. God’s word is spoken
by a prophet preaching not in the halls of privilege and power, but in the
wilderness. His message is simple:
“Repent of what you have become and be baptized into what God would have you
be.” It is a call to choose spiritual
renewal in a time of darkness and despair.
Advent is a
season of waiting. We wait for God’s
promise to be fulfilled. In a little more
than two weeks we will celebrate the birth of Jesus and receive its gifts of
peace and hope and light. But these
gifts won’t sweep around the globe like some kind of holy tsunami transforming
everything in their path. Peace and hope
and light are more like the image Baruch gives us: new garments we put on and
wear after we take off the old garments of sorrow and affliction. They come into the world as God’s free
gift. They are made real in the world
through each one of us as we wear them.
Shannon
Alder, in her book 300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It’s Too Late,
makes this obvious, but important observation: “Anger, resentment and jealousy
don't change the hearts of others, they only change yours.” As I watch and read the news I am keenly aware
of how what is happening is changing us, changing me. Looking backward and looking around without
looking up has a way of affecting our wardrobe, doesn’t it. It makes us people of the moment rather than
representatives of Eternity. I for one
need to hear John’s call: “Repent of what you have become and be baptized into what
God would have you be.” I need to take off
the clothes I am wearing and put on the clothing of peace and hope and light
that reflect the beauty and the glory of God.
I began Advent last Sunday with a simple, three-word message: Take
Advent Slowly! Here are this week’s
three words: Change Your Clothes!
