Camp Selbies: December 2011

Sermon on John the Baptizer

All Saints Episcopal Church

Morristown, Tennessee

Advent II, 2011

Henry G. Selby

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable unto thee O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” (PS. 19)

There are people in this world, annoying people, who are always pointing out what’s wrong with things. In fact, the people I’m talking about seem to be unable to contain their observations. They are compelled to share them, welcome or not.

You know the sort: they may not know the precise details of what’s wrong, but they can smell a problem a mile away! There’s something wrong in Washington! There’s something wrong in the church! Your plan won’t work!

Sometimes they turn into curmudgeons. Andy Rooney, of 60 minutes fame, was one of these. H.L. Mencken, who wrote for the Baltimore Sunpapers was another. Don’t get me wrong: they’re not simply complainers! In fact, they are usually right. There is something rotten in Denmark. They have a genius for what won’t work or what needs fixing. And most other people find this genius to be very, very tiresome.

If you recall the Enneagram class that Cindy and I did several Lents ago, you may remember that this spiritual type is a “one” (out of the nine types). The area of giftedness for a “one” is that they are discerning, wise, morally heroic and often noble. Their dark-side, however, is a huge fear of being corrupt or evil. So you

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see, in sniffing out a problem “over there” they are always suspicious of themselves at the same time. In a nutshell, they want to be good. They thirst for righteousness. At their worst, they become moody, perfectionistic, angry, and sometimes irrational.

I am a “one”.

But happily, the sermon today is not about me! It’s about prophets, and particularly it is about John the baptizer. I think the prophets were all “ones”: they saw problems, made a great noisy rant about the problems, and (I’m guessing here) were profoundly uncomfortable with the task they were given to do. Why? Because they found themselves unworthy. That’s what ones feel.

So first, let’s be clear about this word “prophet”. I believe that if you exclusively think of prophets as “predictors” of future events, you probably will miss their greater message. The greater message is what’s happening now. Let me say that another way: prophets are really good at helping the rest of us to remove our blinders and see things as they really are, here and now.

The last of the prophets of Israel had been silent for 400 years before John appears on the scene. To the locals, he probably looked just like they imagined someone from long ago: camel’s hair garment secured with a leather cincture, eating locust and wild honey, coming out of the wilderness, wild hair, wide eyed . . .

“It’s a wild man! It’s Elijah,” they thought. Elijah had prophesied almost 900 years before John. Listen again how Mark begins his version of the Gospel: As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

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"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

`Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight,'"

And Isaiah was prophesying about 750 years before John! If I asked you to picture a resident of Hamblen County from 700 years ago, what image comes to your mind? Well, that startling image that you just drummed up is similar to what the Judeans saw in John.

But in any event, John appears. In today’s gospel lesson the writer we call Mark jumps right into the prophecy of John.

First, Mark reports that Isaiah had foretold the messenger John. Then, John encourages everyone to be baptized . . . literally and figuratively, in a very symbolic and sacramental way, washing away their sins. But then, like a good Enneagramic “one” John denigrates himself by saying that one even greater is coming

. . . “one whose sandals I am not even worthy to untie.”

We’ll come back to this in a moment.

So several questions come to my mind. The first one is, why in the world would people from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem listen to a wild man who tells them to wash away their sins in the River Jordan? But they did, didn’t they?

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I think the answer to this question is simple: First, they remembered their scripture (remember Isaiah?) and they responded to God’s word. They were on the lookout and they were ready! Second, they recognized their own sinfulness and need for confession and repentance.

“Wouldn’t it be great to unload all those burdens I’ve been carrying my whole life?” The answer is an unqualified “YES!”.

The next question that occurs to me concerns the meaning of John’s phrase that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

I suppose most of you know that John was Jesus’ cousin. I think this is probably true. He was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and St. Luke tells us that Elizabeth and Mary were cousins. Since Luke is so precise, I would think that this relationship is bona fide. Unfortunately for me, my NT professor at St. Mary’s Seminary was Raymond Brown, the foremost NT thinker of the 20^th century, and he doubts this relationship. But let that pass.

That second question, the one about baptizing with the Holy Spirit, is powerful. John Baptist would have called this a baptism by the breath of God: the Ruah Yaweh. This, said John, is what the one who comes after him would give to you and me.

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So here we are smack dab in the middle of Advent. We’ve lit two candles on the wreath, our liturgy and music is constructed to cause us to lean forward in expectation of the coming of Jesus. We are expectant, but solemnly so (look at our colors!), and in political jargon one might say that we are “cautiously optimistic” about what this birth might bring.

But in the meantime we’re decorating, and planning parties, and buying presents, and running back out a THIRD time for more scotch tape. The good scissors have disappeared from their drawer and the hectic holiday season is in full swing. It got an extra big push from retailers with their Thanksgiving day “black Friday” one-day-early thing this year. Wow. “If I can only get that new Kindle Fire my life will be complete!

It reminds me of the airline pilot who came over the loudspeaker.

“Hello. This is your captain speaking. I have some bad news and I have some good news. First the bad news: we’re lost. The good news is, we’re making real good time.”

I think the wonderful thing about Mark’s account here is that all those folks out in the Judean countryside and all the people in Jerusalem KNEW that they were lost. I’m not sure we really do.

We have an opportunity this morning to listen to John speak directly to us, to hear his words: to absorb them and ask “what is he really saying to me?”

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Do you recall that in other versions of the story John says that he himself must decrease? And do you recall from this morning that John says, “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thongs of his sandals”?

I believe that what John is telling us today is just this: we need to get ourselves out of the way. We need to get ourselves out of the way.

I need to get myself out of the way. Because if I’m blocking the light with my own worldly needs, I’ll never be able to see that baby lying in a manger and know who He is.

Get myself out of the way. It’s not easy. It’s often agonizing.

Then . . . and only then . . . the need for scotch tape and honey baked hams and Kindle Fires will start to dim a little bit. And even those things that we consider more important: our health . . . the mental or physical health of a loved one . . . the economy . . . may begin to assume a proper place in the true hierarchy of our needs.

For you see, brothers and sisters, even here in the middle of Advent, we are an Easter people.

T.S. Eliot asked the question in his poem The Journey of the Magi

were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

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We are privileged to see the child Jesus in his manger. We are edified by his good news. We are saved by his sacrifice. And it is in the resurrection that our hope lies: “at the last day to be with all the saints in the joy of God’s eternal kingdom.”

So my friends. Let’s make a commitment this morning to follow God’s word as foretold by his prophets. It’s not too late. Will we join together and do this in our hearts?

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight”

And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power, dominion, and glory, both now and evermore. AMEN

Camp Selbies

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Christmas Plans 2011 so far: please add items

Monday, December 5, 2011

Sermon: John the Baptizer