An Advent Place

A sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California.

Today on this third “joy” Sunday of Advent with just about ten days until Christmas, we find ourselves … in prison with John the Baptist.

Just last week John emerged from the wilderness and began to preach. John was a man who saw the world for what it was and for what it still is today. He saw the needless suffering and the oppression and the misuse of power.

And, John saw the world through the lens of a prophet. He saw God's dream for us just around the corner. He saw the hints — the signs — of that dream wherever he saw God’s justice and love breaking through. And he called the people to see those signs as well. And this was joyful news indeed for the poor, the outcast, the vulnerable, the weak, the hungry, the marginalized. But that call to see signs of God’s dream breaking in has and does and will land as a threat to those who benefit from the suffering of the ones who will be lifted up.

And so it was that John’s message landed him in prison. Put there by the powers that be.

It’s bleak. And sitting in and with that bleakness, this man who recognized God the moment he set eyes on Jesus of Nazareth, started to have questions. And he sent one of them to Jesus.

I can hear anger and sadness and grief and doubt in his words: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

So here is John the Baptist; our prophet —our saint — of hope; having some trouble holding onto that hope amidst the bleakness.

Know this. When, during these holy days of waiting, known for hope and peace and joy and love; we find instead feelings like anger and sadness and grief and doubt, we are in very. good. company. This too is an Advent place.

John is getting at big questions we all have sometimes, I imagine – “God, are you really here? And God, if you’re really here, why can’t it all change now.” And Jesus’ answer – to John and to us — is: it is changing now. “Go and tell John what you hear and see,” he tells the messenger. “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Every time we see even the smallest acts of healing and caretaking and feeding and helping among human beings, especially in bleak places; these are the changes; these are the signs of what is to come, just around the corner.  

Then, Jesus gives John a pep talk of sorts (I do hope the messengers sent it back to him word-for-word).

“John is a prophet and ‘more than a prophet,’” Jesus says. “no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” – it’s a compliment wrapped up in the heart of the hope John preaches and teaches: in this coming realm of God, the first will be last; and that is joyful news.  

Jesus takes no offense at John’s questioning. There is no rebuke here. There is no shame. Instead, Jesus holds the hope for John, and shows it to him.

This is why we do this in community.

There are times, I promise you, that I am not able to grab hold of hope. When I see such great suffering. When it seems too big. When I am tired of waiting. But I know in those moments that someone else is holding it for me. You are holding it for me. And you show it to me every single day. In the way you move in the world, the way you help and care; and the way you notice others who do the same, and tell me all about it.

And, there are times that any one of you is not able to grab onto hope. And what a privilege it is to be part of the community that helps hold it for you, for just a little while.

And so, on this third Sunday of Advent—the Sunday we light the pink candle and call it joy— I can report that Advent joy is real. Look around!

It is real, but it is not denial. It is not so-called “toxic positivity.” Advent joy is not pretending that the bleakness of prison places don’t exist (we need only look to the site of our vigil taking place this Thursday; a makeshift ICE detention center, to know that). Advent joy is recognizing the signs of God’s dream, even there, already at work and just around the corner even and especially in that bleakness. God is and will be found in the cold, in a makeshift cradle amongst the sounds and smells of barnyard animals.

God is and will be found in humans helping humans. In humans seeing humans. In humans finding joy and not threat in the hope of the great reversal to come, when the most oppressed, the most marginalized will be first in line for it all.

Today, John the Baptist shows us that even the  most outwardly faithful, even those who risk their lives preaching God’s dream for us, sometimes find themselves asking, “Is God really here? How long do we have to wait?” And Jesus assures us those questions are not failures of faith, but part of this life in Christ.

This life of Advent waiting for that realm that is just around the corner. And so, we gather. We act. We help. We sing. We pray. We light candles. We ask questions. We wait. And we hold the hope for one another, together.

This sermon was influence by writer (and Episcopalian) John Green, and the way he speaks of finding hope in experiences of God’s work in the world, and his lack of interest in the question of “is God real” (which seemed not unrelated to John the Baptist’s question in Matthew’s Gospel). Examples here and here and here.