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It almost seems as if we are hearing an echo this Sunday
with the scriptures. Last week we heard
Mark’s take on the story of John the Baptist, this week we hear from the
beloved disciple, John and his Gospel’s version. What’s the difference between the two? Well, as one of my early mentoring Pastor’s once
said, the Gospel of Mark sounds like Jesus double-parked and the Gospel of John
is truly the poetry about Christ. Poetry
formed in the heart by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the light! It’s a shame that
this excerpt from John’s Gospel doesn’t include the full beginning verses for
they are quite powerful.
John’s Gospel begins with the story of creation and the
power of God’s Word:
“1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with
God. 3All things came into being through Him, and without Him not
one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in Him was
life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Mark’s Gospel was written in such a way that one could
wonder if the writer was thinking in terms of keeping everything as “just the
facts.” John’s Gospel is truly the most unique in comparison to the synoptic
three, Matthew, Mark & Luke. John’s
Gospel was not only the last to be written, but is the only Gospel that truly
challenges and inspires one to contemplate the divine and human aspects of the
Christ. Something we have perhaps taken
for granted over the centuries, but proclaiming, as well as believing, that
Jesus the anointed One, is both fully human and fully divine, saw centuries of
battle and conflict to become the staple, heart of our claim to being
Christians.
Proclaiming one’s “identity” in an age of conformity
sounds to be the universal and timeless problem of humanity. The Prophet Isaiah and the Psalmist message
for this week tremble with joy and triumph for they have both reaped this joy,
this victory through suffering and tears.
For the ancient Israelites, they were just coming out of exile, as heard
through the powerfully inspiring and overflowing hope from Isaiah. Here were a people who had their lives’
identity as the “chosen” people, held captive and suppressed by the
Babylonians. Can you imagine how much or
how many times they felt abandoned by God?
Slavery, captivity was an ancient form of suppression, spiritually
however, at an even greater cost.
The Prophet Isaiah is truly bringing, reaping tidings of
comfort and joy. Another loss for our
hymnal to not have included the hymn: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman…” A loss to understanding and frankly in my
opinion, rather self-absorbed than inclusive to exclude from our ears to hear
and sing. Humanity does that a lot
though… we want, what we want, when we want it, and we want to have it the way
we want to hear it. Over the centuries,
so much time has been lost for the people of Israel to be allowed to be who
they are. Partisan politicking, keeping
an illusion of “peace” has denied an occupied people their true capital. Our president did pass something no one
before had the courage or inclination to care enough to do and that was to
proclaim Jerusalem once again, the true capital of Israel.
Some psychics and columnists are going crazy claiming
this will be the year of the war of wars, by that action. Politicians are just claiming stakes in sides
and in the meantime, the true exiles, not sinless by any means at all, are
being “allowed” to contemplate re-taking their ancient capital. History cannot and never should be erased by
what we feel we just don’t want to handle… and that’s humanity’s great
self-absorbed weakness. A voice has been
crying in the wilderness of the world for us to fully become God’s people. It ain’t gonna happen by indifferently
turning a blind eye to real justice.
John the Baptist, alongside Isaiah, were more than bold witnesses to the
truth of God—they opened our hearts to the light of this truth. St. Paul echoes what the Holy Spirit has been
wanting me to shout throughout this message thus far, and that is: Do not
quench the Spirit!”
Do not quench the Spirit of the heart seeking and needing
to proclaim God. No one has that right
of judgment over another. God is our
great redeemer, planter of New life and our only judge, period. We are still challenged with the calling from
God to make His way straight and open for all to follow. Being a responsible witness to God’s Word
active in our life is certainly not partisan, politically correct,
opportunistic or fool-hardy. Being a
responsible witness, light, in our dark times with God’s great message of Hope
is: LIVE IT and GIVE IT! Can’t wimp out on God’s calling here… We have been
clothed with the garments of God’s Grace and have donned that robe of
righteousness on occasion… but not often enough do we really incorporate that
Joy truthfully into our lives.
Spiritually reaping that great joy of the New world at
our doorstep is being true to who we really are. All the veneers of who we’ve painted
ourselves to be, cannot conceal the truth of who we are, and whose we are. We are God’s children and we have in essence
been chosen, and appointed a task in this world. Our truthful acknowledgment of God’s grace
and promise is a voice making its way into the world with God’s great love,
freedom and justice for all. The
Pharisees certainly didn’t appreciate John the Baptist’s big mouth and neither
did they come to appreciate Jesus’ as well.
We know Jesus’ words before his beginning passion was the echo of the
Prophets about Jerusalem, being the place that kills their prophets. Humanity over the centuries has not been too
kind to those bold witnesses.
That is the tragedy we cover up with “Santa and his
reindeer,” or “Happy Holidays.” That is
the tragedy of the illusion of peace to rename the Byzantine empire’s Christian
capital of Constantinople, Istanbul. We
are called to be a people of upholding the truth. And the truth is just what I’ve mentioned
before, about the task of the preacher: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the
comfortable.” It is a different kind of health/ wealth Gospel, that’s for sure.
It is by no means, an easy road, one is to travel upon. The suffering, the Christian church, must
bear these days, in particular, is keeping true to spreading the Gospel, not
re-inventing it. God’s living Word is an
inclusive light to all. We’re the ones
doing the excluding, “tolerating,” condemning and convicting.
Reaping that gracious Spirit of God as those New shoots
of Hope and promise lived throughout our every day lives, is true Joy. Comfort and Joy is the fruit of God’s grace
overflowing from our hearts, out to our neighbors. How beautiful, how hope-filled this could be
if we only really did it! A few weeks
back, I joined in with a number of pastors from many mainline denominations to pray
& remember that the AIDS crisis is hardly over yet alone the numbers are
something like 37 million now affected.
Many of the 37 million are women and children in Africa as well as
people with drug-addiction issues and other health afflictions that require
complete blood transfusions. These blood
transfusions contracted the HIV virus for millions.
We sang, we shed some tears and prayed mightily for our
world to wake up to the reality of this “still” crisis. I posted some pictures of my participation in
this prayer service, online. Someone saw
me next to another pastor who had a rainbow stole on and has now condemned me
with their ignorance and misunderstanding to what this event was all
about. The rainbow is the mark of the
hope and promise of the covenant this was before it was ever made into holding
other symbolic meanings… Noah after the
flood, God gave mercy and dried the skies with an everlasting arch of hope—the
rainbow. My colleagues & I were
there without bias, ignorance and judgment to love our neighbor through prayer—
“liberals, conservatives and the like.”
None of that was to ever be there, and it wasn’t. Our voice in the wilderness was Christ’s
voice to love our neighbor in compassionate prayer and song—nothing more, nothing
less.
Being a minister of the Gospel is a hard and sometimes
lonely journey, but we must remember that we are all a part of that priesthood
of all believers and are all on our own journeys, laid before us, by God. It doesn’t matter to God where we have come
from, what really matters is what we choose to do with the life and path, He
has set before us to dream into reality.
God is always still speaking to us, whether we like it or not, whether
we really make the effort to truly listen to Him or not, He doesn’t stop. He believes in our sorry-selves and all the nonsense,
we put Him through most of the time.
Just like the wonderful loving parent He is, He still chooses to extend
His glad hand down to us in faithfulness over extending a back hand to us for
our iniquities and failures. Why then,
can’t we be faithful enough witnesses, proclaimers for Him and for the comfort
and Joy, peace and love of our neighbors?
Let us Pray—
Gracious and Loving Lord,
We are upon the Advent of hearing and seeing
The Great light of Your living and restorative Word
To take hold, and shape our New creations within us
Help us to reap those shoots from our learning and
growing out of our past
Into a brave New world, that we need to own up to being
fully whole witnesses to
For Your coming into our World is our true light of Hope,
our comfort and Joy.
AMEN
December 17th,
2017; Third Sunday in Advent; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 126;
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am
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