Lighten Up

Sermon-3 Advent B-Dec. 11, 2011
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
I think it’s because basically because I grew up unchurched that I am fascinated by church traditions. People who grow up immersed in church take all these things for granted-but every time I learn of an ancient ritual I always feel like, “wow-this was there all the time and I am just now finding out about it!!??
For instance, today is Gaudete Sunday. Usually by now someone has asked me “did you run out of purple candles and have to substitute a pink one?” A thousand years ago the season of Advent was almost as strict as Lent-with fasting and prayer. Because the season could be very exhausting, it was decided to give everyone a break. So on the 3rd Sunday of Advent every year, people , in a sense, were given a day off. Instead of the penitential color of purple, rose (or pink) was used. People were allowed, even encouraged, to feast and celebrate. The opening verse of the chanted Introit was “Gaudete in Domino semper” rejoice in the Lord, always…And so this is known as Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday (and in the Anglican church “Stir up” Sunday). We try to have our chicken soup dinner and fellowship on this day, and we light a rose colored candle as our way of taking a break in a dark season.
Everything in Advent is pointing away from the messengers-pointing ahead to the one who is coming. Listen, again, to this interaction from today’s Gospel:
1:19 This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"1:20 He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah."(Anyone remember the tv show from the early ‘90s, Dinosaurs “not the mama”)1:21 And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No."1:22 Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
Who are you? What do you say about yourself? The people want to know who John is, why did he come-and John’s response is to deflect , turn aside, to redirect the answer. He’s like all those pictures of Sacajawea, the Native American woman who helped lead Lewis and Clark across the northwest-try to find a picture of her where Sacajawea isn’t pointing away from herself..
Nope, not me, John says -I’m not the one.(“Not the messiah”) “He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”
This whole passage from John the gospel writer revolves around identity-who Jesus is, who we say he is-and who are we.
There’s a movie out: “Cowboys and Aliens”. In the movie a famous outlaw, a man who robbed, stole, and murdered is abducted by aliens and afterwards can’t remember who he was or what he ever did. Everyone keeps coming up telling him how evil and mean he was, however he can’t remember. Eventually he has to make a decision to either go back to what he was, or to become the person people need him to be.
The town preacher has faith in him. As the preacher is dying he saysto Lonergan, “the people need you to lead them, and Lonergan replies, “I’m not a leader, I don’t help people.The preacher’s last words to him, are these: "God doesn't care about who you were. He cares about who you are."
Advent is the season when we can turn around. We can stop worrying about who were we, and begin thinking about who we are going to be. Advent is the 4 week season when we can look ahead and point towards the light that we’re heading for. Advent is a short time just before the coming of the light, that we can reimagine who we are and who we want to be-regardless of our baggage. John the Baptist keeps saying in today’s reading-“I’m not the one-but I can show you who he is.”I’m not the messiah-but I can lead you to him.
There is a new documentary out called “Serving Life” (Oprah’s network showed it last summer). This is from a review of that documentary by Reverend Dr. James P. Wind “Serving Life takes viewers inside Louisiana's notorious Angola Prison. This maximum security prison has the reputation of confining within its walls "the worst of the worst"-rapists, kidnappers, and murderers. The average sentence for its inmates is more than 90 years. 85 percent of the people who enter the prison will never go anywhere else.
[We] are first to the prison and then to a group of inmates who have just volunteered to serve in the prison's hospice. … we get a view of prison life-and of human transformation-that is very rare.
The film follows the four new [prisoner hospice] volunteers into the difficult but strangely beautiful work of caring for the dying. …. what the [documentary] offered viewers was a close-up view of a powerful process of human and community formation, where people became more than they were before …Viewers confront the fact that under some circumstances, contract killers and drug dealers can surprise us with an unexpected grace and humanity. The prisoners in Angola have something to teach us about redemption and compassion. How many of us accompany the dying so well?
There are deeper treasures in the film, if one looks closely. The inmates play cards with and tell jokes to the hospice patients. They sing, read Scripture, and pray. They make quilts to keep the dying warm. They make funeral palls with open hands and butterflies embroidered upon them. They take four-hour shifts keeping vigil as patients near death. ….There they were with their worlds of difference working together in one community of compassion.
….." Somehow in the midst of the deepest human despair, hatred, and suffering imaginable, a group of dying patients and life-sentenced prisoners become a community of reciprocity, a congregation if you will, that teaches people to reach beyond their own needs and care for others.
….. Under certain circumstances, even the people we give up on can change and do amazing things. The most elemental human practices-caring for the dying, reading texts, keeping vigil, singing, feeding, bathing-can do so much more than we imagine. I was stunned to watch hardened criminals soften as the film unfolded. As they became a community of compassion, they began to talk about the terrible things they had done that led them to Angola, to take responsibility for their lives, and to seek to repair the worlds that they had made and dwelled in. ….. Sometimes we need to step away from all the familiar distractions that complicate our lives and our communities of faith and go to a strange place like Angola to get our bearings.
The hospice workers of Angola are not the light-but they bear witness to it. John the Baptist was not the messiah-but he led people to him. We are not the light, but our lives can point towards it.
This is Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday, Stir up Sunday. It is not Christmas, but it is a good day to “ begin to talk about the things we have done that lead us to where we are, to take responsibility for our lives, and to seek to repair the worlds that we have made and dwell in.” We aren’t the light-but we can be a reflection of it.
One preacher I was reading said, “this is the day we should tell everyone to “lighten up”.