Advent 2A

Have you ever been in the situation when you get out of the bath or the shower

and you forgot to get a towel out

and you don't want to step off the bath mat

get water all over the floor, or make your feet all cold, especially in the winter,

so you do the little shuffle with the bath mat... crossing the floor

to get your towel?

This is one of the skits in Ellen DeGeneres' most recent comedy special. 

I'm sure most of you know who Ellen DeGeneres is. 

Thankfully, as a celebrity, she does like to highlight good things in the world most of the time.

But anyway, she had stopped going out on comedy tours around the country for fifteen years 

and was thinking about going out back on the road and some of her friends asked her,

Do you still think you're relatable? 

So much had changed in her world over those years, 

and her friends were concerned.

Anyway, after being asked a few hundred times, 

she decided to call her newest comedy tour, Relatable,

and in it she describes situations which are pretty much relatable to everyone.

like the bath mat scoot,

or that moment when you start looking for your phone when you're on the phone...

Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. That's relatable.

Lately huge questions have popped up in the world regarding church.

Is the church still relatable, is the church still relevant?

Is the church really necessary?

These questions come from a huge change in our culture 

and in some ways they are quite pertinent to the work we are doing here at St. John's.

The mission of the church, the purpose of the church,

is to teach people about Jesus and make disciples.

I'm not sure we are doing such a good job of that anymore. 

We need to work on our mission.

How many disciples have each of us helped create in the last year?

Questions to ponder.

However, in regards to our gospel passage for this week,

 we don't have to ask, is John the Baptist still relatable?

The answer has always been, NO.

Who spends all their time in the desert eating locusts and wild honey?

But if we ask, is John the Baptist still relevant, is John the Baptist still necessary,

then the answer has to be,

YES. Oh, Yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Is there anyone in the room who can't think of someone they would be happy to label as "you brood of vipers!"

we don't have peace in Christ on the world yet.

John the Baptist is still relevant and necessary.

In the gospel stories,

John the Baptist comes out of nowhere.

Wild and full of truth.

Speaking the truth about the mess we create ourselves

and how we need to repent of all the mess we create willfully

knowing we are doing it

One of the sad things about John the Baptist's message

is that we need to be reminded of it every year,

well, actually,

probably every week.

We need to be reminded to stop making messes,

to stop hurting others,

to live in love and God's grace.

We need to be reminded to repent,

to take the time to ask forgiveness, 

to take the time to do the reconciliation work which needs to be done

I mean, I bet John the Baptist would have been happier if everyone did repent

and the world no longer needed his message,

I'm sure he would have been happy to put himself out of business.

Unfortunately he did not.

We still need to be reminded to turn towards God.

We still need to be convicted sometimes of the seriousness of the brokenness of our relationships

how we fail to honor those around us or to act out in love

instead of fear or hurt.

I certainly would be happy if I could come to a time in the world when John the Baptist comes up

and he isn't relevant anymore.

At the time John the Baptist was speaking

The country of Israel was a mess at that point

Occupation

civil unrest

They had issues with racial relationships and political animosity

(talk about relatable and relevant)

The hope through John

was that people would hear the call to repentance

to make paths straight, both figuratively and literally

so that they would recognize God when God came into the world.

We know that didn't happen.

We know instead

the violence which ensued.

Violence which has carried on throughout the ages.

Violence in so many tragic ways

people against people

ideas against ideas

children against children

violence is our sin

each and every day

all around us

I was recently talking with a gentleman of our community

at the coffee shop as part of the Franklin Ministerium monthly theological discussions

about just war theory and whether Christians can believe that war can be justified.

I would like to be a pacifist,

I say that I would like because I believe that there is no justified reason for war,

but I don't always live that way.

Living as a pacifist, as a peacemaker starts at home, in our own hearts

and I am not always the greatest about keeping peace in my own heart.

Most of the sin and violence we do to other people

starts right in our own hearts and minds

all those violent thoughts while driving

all those revengeful thoughts about getting back at others who hurt us

all the cursing and blaming and shaming we do

is part of our daily dose of violence.

John the Baptist calls us to return to God,

to turn back, to repent.

To repent and seek forgiveness

blessing the mess by acknowledging it and repenting in the midst of it

changing it for good

for centuries the theological thought, and so very human thought, about blessing,

is that you have to touch something 

or touch the human involved in it, 

to bless it.

this idea goes back before Christianity, it comes from the Jewish tradition

birds, animals,

people

temple items

all were touched when they were blessed

and we continue that tradition now

during seminary class, when we learned how to do the Eucharistic prayers,

we learned when to touch the bread and wine, so that they could be blessed

when priests are taught about blessing people or other objects, you go and touch them,

it is so very intimate and human,

we are sensory beings, we know the world around us by touch, smell, sight, hearing, taste, feeling

we know nothing without sensing,

and in order to bless something, you have to know what it is, you have to touch it.

Sin and violence too can be healed through the process of touch, repentance, and blessing

we can wade right into our lives, acknowledge our wrongs, and touch them with blessing

we can find the moments and spots of violence in our lives and change them

by repenting and blessing them.

It seems so contrary to our normal way of doing things

an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth

but that is not Jesus' way, that is not God's way

God comes into the midst of human violence,

God came into the midst of the Israelite violence under the Roman occupation

and blessed it with presence, with love, with change

with repentance and forgiveness,

with Jesus.

Jesus knew the violence the Roman hierarchy imposed on the Israelites living in the land

he felt it, he touched it, he died from it

and in the process blessed it

and changed it.

Blessing things changes them

in some unmistakable way, even if we can't see the blessing

One of my favorite blessing scenes 

comes from the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

At the beginning, while they are singing the famous Tradition song,

someone asks the Rabbi, "Is there a proper blessing for the czar?"

A Jewish man, under strict racial and political oppression in his own country, 

asking if there is a blessing for the man who is oppressing him.

And the rabbi answers, 

"A blessing for the czar? Of course! 

May God bless and keep the czar - far away from us!"

In every situation we find ourselves, 

there is room for movement closer,

closer to each other,

closer to God.

In every situation, John the Baptist's call for repentance

is relevant and a blessing.

In every situation, 

God calls us to make a change towards love,

repenting, forgiving, blessing and changing. 

Amen.