A Prophet at Lye Brook Falls

A sermon preached on December 8, 2019 at Zion Episcopal Church in Manchester, Vermont. 

Imagine:

On Monday morning, a man appears on the rocky area by Lye Brook Falls right here in Manchester. The man is wearing an old animal skin cinched around his waist with a frayed leather belt. He’s been subsisting on insects and the honey he collected with his bare hands from a wild beehive over the summer. No one is sure how he’s staying alive on these cold nights.

Your Facebook feed starts to fill up with stories and photos and videos from people who’ve hiked the icy trail to see him. It becomes clear that if you approach him he will begin talking immediately – his voice is loud and he speaks at a fast, urgent clip.

He says things about the authorities – about the government, the police. He says things about all of us. He tells us that something amazing is going to happen. But we have to shape up. We have to do better. He says that this is how we prepare for God.  

He seems desperate to be heard. He scares some people. He makes others uncomfortable. Some, he makes angry. And some simply laugh.

And for some, he awakens something deep within as they detect in his message – some of them for the first time in their lives – a sense of true hope.  

These are the people who start flocking to Manchester to see this man of the wilderness. They come from all over the place. They hike the slick trail – helping one another along – each with pieces of paper in their pockets, listing the ways they know they have done harm and the ways they know they’ve been complicit in systems that hurt and kill. When they reach the falls, they shout those lists out loud for all those gathered to hear, letting the words echo off the damp rocks and dissipate into the atmosphere.

They feel suddenly lighter. Suddenly brave. They squeeze their eyes shut and stomp into the freezing cold crystal clear water, where this man in animal hide stands before them – somehow unbothered by the current that rises to his knees. They feel the icy sting of cold water over their head, and running down their face as he says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

One by one, they emerge from the water to find a new community of people ready to receive them with towels and fresh clothes and a hot fire and shelter. “Welcome back to God,” they say. “Welcome to this new way of being. This is just the beginning.”

On Wednesday, crowd control measures are instituted. Cars are towed from the Lye Brook lot.

On Thursday, words like “anti-American” and “extremist” are being used to describe this man. Cable news has picked up the story – they talk endlessly about his accent, his appearance, and the color of skin. They wonder out loud “where he is from.”

On Friday, the authorities descend on Lye Brook. The man is taken away and the community moves along. But something has changed forever. Because this is just the beginning.

Every year when John the Baptist emerges in the wilderness during Advent, I do this kind of imagining. And I wonder –  what would I do? Would I call the authorities? Would I run to repent and be baptized? Or, would I sit back and watch to see how all this stuff shakes out with this weird guy from the wilderness?

The cries of John the Baptist have bite. He engages in some world-class name calling. He is not polite. He is not civil. He calls into question our earthly sources of power – the institutions in which we place our trust. He tells us we need to do better because the end of the world as we know it is coming, and we better be ready. And that’s terrifying. Which is why this is dangerous and deadly business. Indeed, wilderness voices are often handed over to the authorities: to Herod, to the police, to ICE. And yet they still cry out.

God continues to work through modern-day wilderness voices to get our attention to help us prepare the way. And that is good news. Because in doing so God tells us that we can do better. That we must do better. That, with God’s help, we will do better. In other words, God tells us that even though it may feel scary, this is not actually about fear. This is about hope.

It is our call as Christians to be the ones who choose to run toward the wilderness cries. To confess our sins, to dive into the waters of our baptism remembering those promises we made, and to respond to those voices with the hope and love of God in Christ.

So – given that I am not aware of a man baptizing in the waters of Lye Brook Falls at the moment, where do we hear wilderness cries at this time, in this place?

This week, I heard a cry in the wilderness from historian Heather Cox Richardson who wrote:  “Do not look away,” in reference to the fact Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez – a 16 year old child -- died in US Border Patrol’s custody, having been held in a cell with no medical treatment after being diagnosed with the flu and a 103 degree fever. “Do not look away,” she continued. “We did this, and we are still doing it, and we will continue to do it... until we finally take a stand against it.” [i]

I heard a cry in the wilderness from Alex Saunders, an Inuit elder who told a reporter the hydroelectric power we here in Vermont rely on (which comes from his part of Canada) is poisoning the water, and therefore food supply of his community. “Think about what you’re buying here,” he said. “You’re buying the misery from the local people of northern Canada. That’s not a good thing.” [ii]

I heard a cry in the wilderness from a former teacher and dear friend of mine named Wanda Holland Greene, who wrote “Dear restaurant cashiers....the proper greeting for a customer who walks through the door is "Hello, how may I help you today?" Not "Which order are you picking up?" Not every brown face is a courier. Growing tired of #everydaybias.” [iii]

I heard a cry in the wilderness from Mimi Lemay, mother of a 9-year-old transgender boy – who explained the real-world fall-out of the rollback of transgender rights in this country: “Some transgender children, in the face of bullying and ostracism, will avoid going to the bathroom at school if they cannot choose the one that matches their gender identity,” she said. “I’ve spoken to people who have developed infections at school” because of this. [iv]

These are just four examples from a much longer list. Maybe some of you will join me in making a practice during what remains of this season to take note of the wilderness voices we hear. We can’t respond to them all at once. But we can get real about whether we play a role in the problem at hand. And we can take small steps to make it right. This might come in the form of making a gift or participating in a rally or adjusting a practice or reducing consumption or learning more about a subject or telling someone you hear them and offering support and prayer.

This work of responding to wilderness voices is the work of preparing the way of the Lord. Of making paths straight. It is the work of Advent. Of preparation for the long-awaited arrival of the child in manger. It is the work of hope.

[i] https://twitter.com/HC_Richardson/status/1202777398762184706

[ii] https://vtdigger.org/2019/12/01/the-hidden-costs-of-new-englands-demand-for-canadian-hydropower/

[iii] https://twitter.com/whollandgreene/status/1201712493409603584

[iv] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/us/politics/trump-transgender-rights.html