*This entry is taken from my sermon on the Second Sunday of Advent, 10/13/15.*
"The crowds said to John, 'What then should we do?' In reply he said to them, 'Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.' Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, 'Teacher, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Collect no more than the amount prescribed to you.' Soldiers also asked him, 'And we, what should we do?' He said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.'"
--Luke 3: 10-14
One evening while I lived in New York I was transferring
trains at 42nd Street, which requires you to walk a good ways underground. While you're down there you'll run into all
kinds of folks: street musicians trying
to make a couple bucks, tourists who have no idea where they're going, and the
inevitable street preacher. I can still
remember one of them, standing by a set-up with some tracts on it. 'How do you know if you're going to heaven?'
is what the tracts were called. This
guy, though, caught my eye: he wore
tattered clothes, his shoes were untied, his hair was crazy, and he smelled
like an ashetray that had been dipped in bourbon--bad bourbon. As he handed me the tract he said 'Here ya
go, young man, God bless ya.' And I went
on my way and never saw him again. I
said to the person walking with me, 'I think that was John the Baptist!'
John the Baptist or a homeless person? You decide.
I suspect that that is a common visual that we get when we
imagine John. He lived in the dessert,
so his skin must have been like leather.
We're told he ate locusts and honey, a cloak of camel's hair, and a rope
for a belt. Most depictions of John show him with crazy
hair, beady eyes. Not the kind of guy
that you would want to run in to while transferring trains. But something about this guy drew the people
from all over, drew every single kind of person. Because as crazy as this guy may have seemed,
he had the answer to the question that every person, rich, poor, Jewish, Roman,
wanted to ask: what must I do to be
saved?
Tracts like the one that John's long lost cousin gave me
under the 42nd Street train station try answering that question. You know the kind I'm talking about: they're usually done like a comic strip and
show a person making two choices, one of the choices lands them in hell, the
other in heaven, and then the strip asks you which choice you'll make. But I
don't think it's that simple. We cannot
expect to read a tract and have it all figured out. Nor could the folks coming from all over to
see John expect to merely listen to him and have it all figured out. And John knew it.
He puts the work of salvation back on the shoulders of the
people. To the tax collectors, the ones
who were despised because they tended to overcharge folks, he said to collect
only what was prescribed, no more. To
the Roman soldiers, who bullied and abused people that they were meant to
protect, he said not to extort by way of threats. And to everyone else he said, if you have two
coats, share one, if you have enough food, share it. This wasn't some magic formula, this was the
kind of work that anybody and everybody could do. It's the kind of work that we can do.
How many of us have been asked whether or not we are saved? My response is that I am being
saved. Salvation is not a one-time
thing, it's a process. It happens our
whole lives long, and it happens communally. As Episcopalians, catholic Christians, we believe that salvation is done
together. Through our common prayer, our
songs of praise, and the work that we do together, we move ever closer to
salvation as members of one Body, the head of which is Jesus Christ. John knew this. He was an Essene, a sect of Judaism that
abandoned the cities and lived together in the dessert, working together,
praying together, and moving ever-closer to salvation together.
What should we do to be saved? We should prepare the way of the Lord. It's been the theme of our Advent. How can we prepare the way of the Lord? Well, John the Baptist would tell us that we
don't have to give up our roles in society by going out in the living in the
dessert like he did, but that we should use our jobs, our skills to work toward
salvation together, honoring God by using those things God has given us to
strengthen and encourage one another and to glorify God. I'm currently serving on the steering
committee for NETworX Randolph, an organization that seeks to partner churches
and other charitable organizations with individuals looking to get out of
poverty. They do so by paring up the
individuals--called Champions--with allies who educate them over the course of
16 weeks on ways that they can change their own narratives. Over time relationships are formed, and lives
are transformed. This happens, not by
some magic formula, but by those allies using their own jobs and their own
skills to strengthen and encourage those individuals. The program hopes to get off the ground in
September, meaning they'll be recruiting allies over the next several
months. So if you're a teacher, maybe
you can use your gift to help someone get their GED. If you're a banker, maybe you can help
someone set up a checking account and teach them how to balance finances. If you're just a really good cook, maybe you
can teach someone how to prepare homemade meals for their family. NETworX understands what John the Baptist is
getting at: all you have to do is use
what God has given you to help one another and you will know what salvation
really looks like. This is what it looks
like to prepare the way of the Lord.
NETworX seeks to help folks get out of poverty in a holistic manner. Check out their Facebook page!
John preached for action and produced it. He wasn't concerned with theological
subtleties in his sermons. He knew that handing out a tract wouldn't do it, and
he knew that people wouldn't get it if all they did was listen to him
talk. Instead, he challenged them to go
out and make salvation happen with the people that they met on a day-to-day
basis. The same is true for us. If we sit here and listen to a sermon, or
take in the beautiful songs of our choir, or receive the holy sacrament and are
not compelled to go out into the world and respond to the Holy Spirit that got
stirred up in us, then what are we doing this for? There's a story of a priest who was standing
at the door of the church after a service one Sunday, and folks filed past with
the usual "Good sermon." comments.
Finally, someone told him, "I really liked your sermon," to
which he responded, "Thanks, but what did it do?"
What will any of what we experience in our worship communities do
to serve one another and especially serve the folks outside our walls. It's like a priest friend--and fellow actor--has always been fond of saying: "Sunday morning is the dress rehearsal for the rest of our lives!" We are meant to take what we hear, see, and feel on a Sunday and put it to good use in our day-to day lives. What impact will any of it have on our lives and the lives of others? John is still crying out to us to take what we have and use it to better others' lives. Do that and we will, indeed, be moving together toward salvation. Do that and we will prepare the way of the Lord.
