Sermon for St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church, Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete), Dec. 17, 2018
Sermon for SMHP, Year B, Advent III, Dec. 17, 2017
46And
Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
47and my spirit rejoices in God
my Savior, 48who has looked with favor on the lowliness of the
servant.
Surely, from now on
all generations will call me blessed;
49for the Mighty One has done
great things for me, and holy is God’s name.
50God’s
mercy is for those who fear the Lord from generation to generation.
51God has shown strength with
God’s arm; The Lord has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52God
has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
53God has filled the hungry with
good things, and sent the rich away empty.
54God
has helped God’s servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy,
55according to the promise made
to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants forever.”
6There was a man sent from God, whose
name was John.7He came as a
witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.8He himself was not the light, but he came
to testify to the light.
19This is the testimony given by John
when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are
you?”20He confessed and did not
deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”21And
they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the
prophet?” He answered, “No.”22Then
they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us.
What do you say about yourself?”23He
said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the
way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.24Now
they had been sent from the Pharisees.25They
asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor
Elijah, nor the prophet?”26John
answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not
know,27the one who is coming
after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”28This took place in Bethany across the
Jordan where John was baptizing.
[Show The Silence
Breakers]
Time
Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2017 is not a single person. Perhaps you’ve seen this. The “Person of the Year” is “The Silence
Breakers,” representatives of the hundreds of women—and persons of all gender
identities—who came forward over the past year to say “no more” to sexual
abuse, assault, and harassment.
There
are these ones on the cover, including a cropped photo representing one of the
thousands of people who came forward in the midst of so much fear that she
couldn’t show her face. And then there
are these, again, just a fraction of the women who have ended some of the
silence around sexual assault and harassment.
About
them all, Time says this: "The people who have broken their
silence on sexual assault and harassment span all races, all income classes,
all occupations and virtually all corners of the globe. Their collective anger
has spurred immediate and shocking results. For their influence on 2017, they
are TIME’s Person of the Year.”
“Immediate
and shocking results.” The “shocking”
part is probably debatable. I think a
lot of people have been waiting for this reckoning for a long time. There’s a good chance that half of the people
in this sanctuary have been victims of some form of sexual assault or harassment.
We’ve
been waiting for the reckoning, right? We’ve
been waiting for the world to turn…away from immunity for the powerful
persons who use their money or their age or their physical strength to harm the
innocent.
It’s
been a sort of long Advent season for those who have suffered in silence, or in
the loneliness of the solitary witness.
Waiting, for people to believe what you’re saying without
reservation. Waiting, for the powerful
to be brought down, and the lowly lifted up.
Waiting for the healing to begin.
And
yes, it is clear that we have not yet lived into a Magnificat Time—the
rich are doing just fine, thanks…but the Silence Breakers cracked open the door and
let in a little light. When we most
needed it. It was a reminder that a
collective, courageous witness can, in fact, turn the world.
To
paraphrase Margaret Mead: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
During
this Advent season, we’ve been listening to Mary’s testimony that God is about
to turn the world—testimony found in the passage we read together—The
Magnificat—and interpreted in the hymn we sang together—"The Canticle of
the Turning.”
This
morning, we add to those powerful
testimonies, “the testimony of John.” John
came to testify to the light, he declares, in a gospel written by a different
John. He came to testify to the light,
and that was pretty much his whole job.
Testify to the light. Point…away
from himself…and toward Jesus. As we
discussed Wednesday night, that is how you will often find John in
iconography: pointing.
[Show
cover] The Silence Breakers might well
have been channeling John. Note the
similarities:
--They offer their testimony from
the wilderness. Yes, there is a
wilderness in Hollywood. And Washington,
DC, and New York City, and everywhere
else where the word of truth is minimized and hidden and feared.
--They are called to account for
themselves. They first have to say who
they are, before anyone will listen to what they have to say.
--They are speaking a word which
the world needs to hear. Which the world
is desperate to hear,
--and they are speaking it on
behalf of others. Their witness is a
witness on behalf of the whole broken
world.
There
is a reason that the story of Jesus Christ, as told be each of the four
evangelists, begins with John the Baptist.
It’s because the story of Jesus is more than the story of Jesus. Right?
The
good news of Jesus Christ is the story of how God is willing to turn the world,
away from sin and selfishness and toward justice and love for all.
That
story doesn’t exist if there aren’t people willing to tell it, people willing
to bear witness to a story which will turn
the world.
Without
witness, the light of the gospel would be subsumed by the darkness of sin and
evil.
But
there is a witness. “6There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John.7He
came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through
him.8He himself was not the
light, but he came to testify to the light.”
There
was a man named John, and then there was a man named Peter and a man named Paul
and a woman named Mary of Magdala and a young man named Timothy and a monk
named Martin and a saint named Teresa.
There
have been so many witnesses, and without them, the gospel would be dead. Without persons willing to testify to the
light, the light would go out. And
the powerful would redecorate their thrones and the world would not be about to turn.
But
there are witnesses! Amen? Can I get a witness?
There
are witnesses! Some of them witness from
the wilderness. They witness from the
wilderness because they have been driven there by shame and brokenness. Or they witness from the wilderness because
that is where they choose to be. Because they happen to like locusts and wild honey, thank you very much.
Some
witness from the halls of power and the fortress tower. That’s some difficult witness—turning over
the stones which hold together institutions at cross purposes to God’s
justice. The ones who witness from those
places [show cover]—and some of them are here as well—those ones are literally
speaking truth directly to power.
There
are many places to stand and testify to the light of the gospel. The wilderness, the campus, the
boardroom. The cover of Time magazine.
All
we need to figure out is where we will stand.
With whom will we stand. Will we stand with the poor and marginalized? Will we stand in the halls of power? Will we stand with the brokenhearted who desperately need a word of hope?
We must decide where we shall stand. And how we shall speak a word of hope, a word of truth, to a hurting world desperate to turn.
We must decide where we shall stand. And how we shall speak a word of hope, a word of truth, to a hurting world desperate to turn.
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