“Merciful God, who sent your
messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for
our salvation . . .”
So begins the Collect for the Second
Sunday of Advent. This Collect actually does what Collects are
supposed to do – collect the disparate thoughts of individuals and
bring us all into a unified focus of a worshiping body. It touches
on a theme present in all the readings to give us a foundation on
which to build. Today's theme and foundation is that of God's
messengers preaching repentance to prepare the way for our salvation.
In the first lesson, Baruch proclaims a
time when the dispersed children of God who had been taken away would
return to Jerusalem. He proclaims a time when that return will be
glorious and magnificent. And he proclaims that mountains and hills
will be made low, valleys filled up, and the ground made level.
This morning's Canticle, the Song of
Zechariah, proclaims a time when a savior would come, setting his
people free from enemies and to worship God without fear. Zechariah
sings this to his son, John, whom he declares as the forerunner of
the Messiah to prepare his way.
And in the gospel, John fulfills his
father's prophecy by preparing the way for Jesus and announcing that
mountains and hills will be made low and valleys filled, reiterating
the prophecy of Baruch.
We are in the season of Advent – the
season of preparation. We wait in that liminal time of the already
and not yet in hopeful expectation for the coming of the Messiah, the
Christ. All of our readings point us toward that coming. Last week
it was the coming of the Son of Man at the end of days in power and
great glory. Today and next Sunday it is the coming of Jesus and his
ministry to the people of Israel. And in two weeks we prepare for
the Incarnation, the coming of God in human form.
In one respect this has all been
fulfilled. In Christianity, John is considered the last of the
prophets and he came announcing the coming of the Messiah. When
Christians truly follow Christ and live into his example and mission,
there is a leveling of the social, political, and economic systems in
which all people are seen as children of God and treated with dignity
and respect. In this way the kingdom of God truly is at hand. God
is present and we are free.
This is the already.
The reality, though, is much different.
Yes, John came announcing the coming of the Messiah, but we have not
done a very good job of living into the kingdom. The social,
political, and economic systems of the world are still filled with
incredibly high mountains and awfully low valleys. Too many people
are seen not as children of God but as invaders and cancers to be
eliminated. Dignity and respect have been replaced with fear and
loathing. And even here at St. John's we are talking about active
shooters and people are afraid. Imagine the fear our Jewish, Muslim,
or African-American congregations have every time they gather to
worship.
This is the not yet.
As I was thinking about our current
state of already and not yet, and pondering the readings for today, I
kept coming back to this image of the mountains and hills being made
low and the valleys raised up. It occurred to me that many of us
have heard this, myself included, as a physical prophecy. That is,
that literal mountains and hills will be made low and the valleys
raised up in a physical leveling out so that our physical journey to
Jerusalem is made easy. In ancient times this was something that was
done (to the best of their ability) to ensure the approaching king
had an easy journey. But I'm not sure that is correct.
The more I think about it, the more I
see those mountains, hills, and valleys as a reflection of the
social, political, and economic systems in which we live. The
mountains and hills of the wealthy and powerful. The mountains and
hills of systemic racism that affords me the luxury of not being
killed, profiled, or harassed because I am white. The valleys that
are designed to discriminate and keep certain people “in their
place.”
These are the mountains, hills, and
valleys that Baruch and John were describing. These are the systems
from which Zechariah longed to be freed. This is what Mary will
address when she sings, “He has cast down the mighty from their
thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.”
In last week's gospel Jesus said that
there would be distress among the nations and people would faint from
fear. That was part of the apocalyptic vision found in Luke 21, and
it's looking forward to what we call the Second Coming. It's also
why we use it on Advent 1 because Advent is that season of looking
forward and preparing.
But instead of being all panicky about
those end days, of wars and rumors of wars and such, what if that
apocalyptic vision was looking forward to this time of leveling out
that Baruch and John were proclaiming? The razing of mountains and
hills and the uplifting of valleys in a social-political-economic
context is terrifying to people.
It's why the upper classes fear the
lower classes and economic redistribution. It's why those in power
fear those whom they rule and dominate. It's why the white majority
fears people with dark skin.
Leveling mountains and hills and
raising valleys is more than a nice visual of smoothing out the roads
to Jerusalem. It's a metaphor for the social-political-economic
upheaval that occurs when we actually live into, and work to bring
about, the kingdom of God.
When we actually live into kingdom
ideals, when we actually love our neighbors as ourselves, when we
actually strive for justice and peace, when we actually respect the
dignity of every human being, then we will see mountains and hills
brought low and valleys raised up. And when these things begin to
happen we will be in the midst of preparing for our salvation.
We are in Advent – the season of
hopeful and expectant preparation. Look around: what needs to be
brought down, what needs to be raised up, and how can you help shake
the world?
May we hear the words of the prophets
and work to repent of the sins that created social, political, and
economic mountains and valleys as we prepare for the kingdom of God
to appear on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen.
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