Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24 John 1: 6-8, 19-28
Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.
It’s been said that we learn by doing. Ask the person trying to learn to knit or play an instrument or a sport. Reading about being a good soccer player is not going to make me one. Even if I stand up week after week and proclaim “I AM A GREAT SOCCER PLAYER!” it will not make me one. We learn by doing. And more profoundly, we learn from our mistakes.
This is also true of our faith. We best learn about our faith by participating in it. We worship, we sing, we study, and we serve. We can stand up all we want and say “I AM A CHRISTIAN” and because our faith is a gift from God, and not dependent on us, we are Christians. But to really learn what that means we must practice what we preach, if you will. We must put flesh around our words. We must put feet to our faith. Otherwise, as the writer of the book of James asks: “My sisters and brothers, what good is it to profess faith without practicing it?” (James 2: 14)
Our lives, and what we choose to do with them in response to God’s gift of grace to us, are testimonies to that gift. Like John the Baptist, we are also called to testify to the light. What we do tells what we believe about what Jesus has done for us.
It was overwhelming this week to witness the many ways this community of faith testified to the light. The way, when called upon, we wrapped our faith with our flesh.
Again, from the writer of James: “If any are in need of clothes and have no food to live on, and one of you says to them ‘Goodbye and good luck. Stay warm and well fed,’ without giving them the bare necessities of life, then what good is this?” (James 2: 15-16)
The first people in this place to respond to the need to prepare a meal for our guests from Mary’s Place? Our teenagers. An email went out from one of them: Food needed! Let’s do spaghetti! And they did. And they played with eleven children starving for attention as well as food. And they gave their weary mothers a break. Our teenagers put feet to their faith. And hands and hearts.
And so went the week….offers of help, food, snacks, errands run, donations, prayers….This was how we could testify to the light.
One very cold evening, when I picked our guests up from the Mary’s Place day shelter downtown, I asked if it was ok with them if we listened to Christmas songs on the radio, knowing that we had a Muslim family among our guests. After receiving their permission I turned on the all-Christmas-music-all-the-time radio station.
I’ll be home for Christmas….
Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays.
Quickly I turned it off. Never mind. And in that moment I learned that I had much to learn about what it means to have no place to call home. About what it means, even, to have to depend on others when certainly the preference would be to depend on oneself. To be able to greet your children at the end of the day in your own home.
Now I have been told that I am a quick learner, or at least that’s what my kindergarten teacher said. And this is not the first time I have had the privilege of walking alongside people who have no place to call home. But in the midst of the quotidian things of our lives….the everyday pieces that make up our day to day living, it is easy to forget the particular nature of their struggles.
Because I have not been homeless I do not understand. And there are any number of circumstances I don’t understand. Losing a child. Being unemployed. Being a captive. But there are others that I do know: Losing a good friend. The end of a marriage. Living on welfare.
The story of the people of Israel includes the story of their time in exile. The forty years they spent wandering in the wilderness, uncertain of God’s presence with them. The prophet Isaiah, in our first reading today, was called to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners. And I wonder how that news was received.
In a quiet conversation with one of our guests, she told me that she had grown weary of the smiles and good cheer of those around her, especially at this time of year, she said. And yes, even, she truthfully told me, from those people who were trying to help her. She said that those smiles and all of that good cheer somehow doesn’t acknowledge the darkness of her situation. That the glad tidings don’t fit in with life in a shelter or on the street. She doesn’t celebrate Christmas with her children because, she said, it’s message just doesn’t ring true for them.
And so I wondered, how do we proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor? How do we offer comfort and hope? How do we, as church folks, as insiders….how do we reach outside of ourselves, outside of these walls? How do we offer hope and comfort?
We offer it in a plate of spaghetti and a warm breakfast.
In the Gospel reading today, John is very clear about who he is and who he is not. So many people questioning his identity: the priests and Levites, the Pharisees….who are you? Elijah? The prophet? What do you say about yourself? they ask him.
The prophet Isaiah self defines in our first reading today: The Lord has anointed me and sent me, he said. For specific work, Isaiah has been called.
Who, then, are we? Oh, we can stand up and declare that WE ARE CHRISTIANS. And we are. But how will the world know it? Will they know it in the way we treat one another? Will they know it in the way we serve others? Or will they know it in our petty differences? Will they know it in our judgments? Will they know it in the ways we can stretch ourselves to do ministry in ways we have never done it before?
This is the time of year when we like to get very busy, even with those things that are all very well and good. We put our faith into action by bringing food for the Food Pantry push, by Christmas caroling, by bringing our filled stockings for Mary’s Place. Because those things will fit into our lives. But we won’t interrupt our Christmas morning schedule for worship. And we’re still uncomfortable about having “those people” in our building. And we still think that a smile will fix it or a Christmas song on the radio will be just what they need. We are slow learners.
And so, our task is to keep trying. To practice our faith just like a musician practices their instrument or an athlete their sport. We practice and practice and know that we are going to learn more along the way. The kingdom of God is not ours to keep. It’s not just ours to pass along to our own children; we have to streeeeeetch ourselves until we find the inbreaking of the kingdom of God in the most unexpected place.
And in this season of Advent, while we practice, let us do so with hope. Let’s be aware that we are disciples of Christ, and there’s nothing that can change that….and that is precisely what makes us FREE to practice our faith, to try and try and try again.
Let’s keep learning together, even as we reach out of these doors and these walls. Even as we say “this is not ours; this is yours.”
On the last morning that our guests were with us, we loaded up in the van for a final ride back downtown. As the sun rose over the city, we saw a woman pushing a grocery cart along the sidewalk, loaded with all of her possessions. “Look, Mama” cried out the seven year old voice from the back of the van. “There’s one of those homeless women. Can we stop to help?”
Oh, friends, let us cry out with the Psalmist’s prayer, that those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy, Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.
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