What makes you afraid? An old Peanuts cartoon showed Charlie Brown seeking counsel from Lucy at the psychiatrist booth. Why do I feel afraid? What could be wrong with me? Lucy ticks off a list of potential candidates. How about acrophobia? Are you afraid of heights? Maybe you have arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. Or coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. Is that it? Charlie sadly shakes his head and the two stare at each other. Lucy continues, Maybe you have pantophobia? Do you think you could have pantophobia? Charlie asks, What’s pantophobia? Lucy responds, The fear of everything. And Charlie explodes, That’s it!
Well. Fear is part of human experience. We all know the way it feels in our bodies: the tightening throat, the butterflies in our stomach, the shadow across our thoughts. Fear can keep us awake at night, and tired during the day. In some circumstances fear performs an important evolutionary benefit to warn of threat or danger. But more often, fear holds us back from the fullness of life by keeping us from taking risks or allowing ourselves to show vulnerability.
Fear can cause us to stay stuck in worn-out patterns or unfulfilling activity instead of pursuing change and growth. Which may be why everywhere you turn in the Bible someone is proclaiming Fear not. Don’t be afraid. Be strong and have courage.
The phrase doesn’t appear in the morning scripture lesson. It doesn’t have to. The excruciating detail of the opening verses locates the scene in a particularly fearful time in Israel’s history. The nation was ruled by the oppressive power of Rome and exploited economically. Luke names names because these are not theoretical bad guys, but the mighty tyrants of the Empire. Even the identified religious leaders had become corrupted by the rewards of collusion with all-powerful Rome.
The people were discouraged and uneasy. Fringe groups, of course, advocated revolution and violent overthrow—and got crucified for their trouble. The emperor showed no mercy to any whose loyalty was not absolute. Most people saw few options except through the advent of the long-promised Messiah, one who would liberate them and inaugurate a new era of justice and peace. Like the blast of a ram’s horn comes the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
A reading from the good news according to Luke, in the third chapter verses one through six. Listen for God’s word to God’s people, calling for change. [Luke 3:1-6]
I can hardly read this text without hearing the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah, and the tenor voice describing the preparation for the coming of the Lord. Caught up in the music, we might miss the meaning of the words unless we pay close attention. It’s said that when Georg Frideric Handel was complimented on the oratorio from adoring fans, he replied: I will be sorry if I only entertained you; I intended to inspire you.
Inspiration is exactly what we need in this season of waiting for the glorious promise that all flesh—-every single person on earth—-shall see the salvation of God—–the purposiveness, wholeness and peace for which we were created. To be honest with you, I find the “waiting” aspect of Advent frustrating. It seems that God’s people have always done a lot of waiting.
Waiting for liberation from slavery. Waiting for the gifts of covenant, land, the formation of a people. Isn’t that how it is with us, too? Always waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for an end to warfare and violence. Waiting for little children to thrive in healthy communities. Waiting for economic justice to bridge the divide between those who have so much and those who have so little.
I’m so tired of waiting—aren’t you?—for the world to become good and beautiful and kind. One of my Facebook friends posted this poignant question on Instagram recently and I thought it was his reaction to the aftermath of the presidential election, until I looked more closely at its source, Black poet and civil rights advocate Langston Hughes. . . writing in 1936.
Like our spiritual forebears and the prophets who cried out in distress, Hughes was tired of waiting; waiting that felt like willful inaction, or even passive acceptance of intolerable realities.
But I wonder if our impatience and at times despair can be the grist for something different. Look, John the Baptist was no Pollyanna. He carried out a hopeful ministry in a decidedly unhopeful time with fierce urgency, as if this good news was for this very time. Fact is, his bold announcement of the one coming to save the world was actually words the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed some 700 years earlier. Still waiting. . .
Friends, can we re-imagine what it means to wait? To prepare the way of the Lord not with a tiny nod here and a quick prayer there, but with the bold, transforming, systems-shaking, expectation-busting actions that change everything, including you and me. To bring down a mountain is a monumental task. To smooth out rough places requires more than an emery board or a piece of sandpaper. In our busy efforts to have a “merry little Christmas” have we overlooked the big love –the great, life-changing love— God gave us in Jesus?
Advent invites us to look into ourselves once more and consider what needs to change in order to prepare for God’s arrival. I cringe a little at the word “repentance” in the images of TV preachers sweating and bellowing. But the word literally means a “going in a different direction.” It’s taking a moment to discern where we’re going. What values we’re reflecting in our choices and actions. It’s assessing our lives in the light of the Baby of Bethlehem, whose saving work initiated a great reversal.
The first shall be last; the last, first. The mighty shall be humbled and the poor shall be lifted up. Every valley shall be exalted, and the roughest ways made smooth as a baby’s cheek (either one).
One of you shared a story with me that bears repeating to show us this reversal in values, in affirming what is right and good even when they’re not popular, victorious or even on script. Eight-year-old Wally’s family were members of a church that held an annual Nativity pageant on Christmas Eve. Wally was one of those kids who are called “neuro-divergent” but was enthusiastic when he was chosen to play the innkeeper in the pageant.
The big night arrived. The curtain went up and Wally was right where he was supposed to be standing behind the large wooden door of the “inn” awaiting Mary and Joseph’s arrival. When Joseph knocked loudly, Wally right on cue, open it and demanded “What do you want?” “We need lodging,” Joseph responded. Wally delivered his line perfectly: “The inn is full. There’s no place for you. Go away.”
The script had Joseph protesting that they had come a long way, that Mary was pregnant, and there was nowhere else they could go. Wally was supposed to stand firm, point his finger and say, “No! Begone!” But instead he just stood there, crestfallen, his eyes brimming with tears. “Don’t go, Joseph!” he finally cried out. “Bring Mary back! You guys can have my room!”
In that simple story I believe I can hear the low rumble of tectonic plates shifting and the gears of industry and profit cranking to a halt. I believe I can feel solid earth beneath my feet, the path ahead smooth and straight. I believe when we open our eyes and see the vulnerable, the last and the least who are members of God’s family and then give up our room for them or share our good food or invest in their future, and when we choose kindness instead of rejection or cynical resignation, the little Lord Jesus is born again in our town. Friends, no act of love is ever wasted.
It is the force that can crack open rock-hard hearts and minds with the startling truth that Love rules, no matter who is in the White House. It is a baby born in a backwater town to new parents who didn’t have a clue what to do next, and who had to flee their homeland from the murderous wrath of a king who would have slain him. It should inspire us—-no, it should confound us—that God would choose this way to become known, born into a world full of violence and fear.
This is the God to whom we can safely anchor our lives and know more peace and mercy and grace than we can ever imagine.
And I think it’s this knowledge that inspires people in our congregation to address the specter of gun violence in our nation with courage and perseverance. This week marks 12 years since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 20 children—six and seven years old; 6 adult teachers, and the mother of the shooter, all gone, as well as the shooter who took his own life. The event is forever linked in my mind with the suicide death of my best friend’s 21-year-old daughter the next day, with the note she left referencing her despair that the deaths of innocent children would not be enough to make any difference.
Yet some progress has been made. I am grateful for Central’s involvement with Colorado Faith Communities United to End Gun Violence, Colorado Ceasefire, and the specific Guns2Gardens initiative. These and other organizations use multiple approaches to this public health crisis: through passage of gun regulation laws, through raising awareness of mental health resources and access, to overcoming fear with knowledge, and prioritizing the safety and security of our little ones. These organizations are not anti-gun much less anti-gun-owners.
During coffee hour today, please look at the photographic display of our Colorado neighbors who have lost their lives to this scourge. Next Saturday, you’re invited to participate in another Guns2Gardens event in which unwanted guns are surrendered, and right on the spot are “chopped” down and will be transformed into garden tools. So far, Guns2Gardens has received over 554 firearms, including 31 assault weapons. Learn more about these collaborations at the volunteer table in the lobby.
Prepare the way of the Lord! Look first into your own heart. What makes you afraid? What needs to change in order to have those fears relieved? What crooked systems need straightened up? What lonely person needs mental health services and a caring community to come around them? How in the world can you and I ever move mountains? Well, the grown-up Jesus said it only took a little faith.
In the silence that follows, let us pray to have that faith rekindled. Then, in the words of Howard Thurman, we will light candles this Christmas, Candles of joy despite all the sadness. Candles of hope where despair keeps watch. Candles of courage for fears ever present, Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days. Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens, Candles of love to inspire our living, Candles to burn the whole year long.
May it be so. [SILENCE, then CANDLELIGHTING]
