Memorial United Methodist Church
White Plains, New York 10605

Blue Christmas in the Wilderness

A Sermon by Joe Agne, Pastor
Based on Luke 3:7-18
December 13, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)

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Heading to the Wilderness

This is the day we get real about the fact that not all of us are as merry about this season as some of the advertisements say we are. There are some things that make us blue. We miss Viola Lull and Janet Hayes and wish peace to their families as they mark their first Christmas without Vi and Janet. Among us, and our friends, are people who are losing their homes and their jobs. Some of us experience an up-tick of our struggles with mental illness in this season. We long for peace for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and all the soldiers and their families. We try and fail to find ways to settle differences without resorting to violence. There are persons we wish would call us, but they won’t. There are people who, in some ways, we want to call, but we don’t. We have illnesses loose in our bodies and we are struggling mightily. We have offered love to another and been rejected. We have fended off love offered to us. We know the story of the prodigal child as we have wondered off and become lost. We have refused to celebrate when a lost one returns. We are approaching retirement and have no idea what to answer when one asks, “What are you going to do.” We want to try something new in our lives and we are afraid. We want to connect with a new person and we won’t take the risk. We are worried about our children and we are worried about our parents. We want everyone to have lodging, food, work, health care and all the human rights they deserve and we don’t know what to do to make it happen.

We are prime candidates for the wilderness where we hope everyone is welcome, no matter how blue this Christmas may promise to be. And so we go to the White Plains Bus Depot and get on the bus that says “Wilderness” on the front and head out to meet John the Baptist. We have heard that he blesses people in a way that is life-changing and that our encounter with him could really matter. We arrive at our destination and John the Baptist jumps on our bus and says, “Welcome to the Wilderness, you brood of vipers.” We know we didn’t slither out to the wilderness and we wonder what he could possible mean. He says, “Don’t come out here to escape.” Rather, come out here to change – to make a U-turn. We are hurting and he wants us to repent? Why doesn’t he go and tell the people who are hurting us to repent? We tell John a little about our ethnic heritage, about our faithful involvement in the church, about our memberships in the correct justice groups. He listens and he says that is doesn’t matter if Abraham is our grandparent, many times removed, or if our life heritage includes Plymouth Rock, Malcolm X, Billy Graham, Dr. King, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Harvey Milk, Jane Adams, Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, or any other person we might hearken to in order to claim our own validity. He mumbles something about God being able to give birth from stones if that is what the creation needs.

What Should We Do ?

We see a crowd of people outside our bus. They appear poor, unlike us. They look at John and are shouting something to him. We listen and hear their question, “What should we do?” We decide to listen to John’s answer as this is our question also. He says, “If you have 2 coats give one away. If you have food, share it.” In the crowd there are tax collectors, or is it IRS persons, and they ask the same question, “What should we do?” He says, “Don’t exploit your position. Don’t claim any more than the amount to which you are entitled. Make sure you don’t get rich at the expense of others.” A third group, mercenaries, speaks up and asks, “What should we do?” He says, “Don’t extort from anyone. Don’t use threats. Don’t make false accusations about anyone.” Then John says to the mercenaries or to the whole crowd, we can’t be sure, “Be satisfied. Get clear about what is enough.”

We talk among ourselves on the bus and we try to summarize what John is saying. This is what we come up with, “Share, be fair, don’t bully, and stop complaining.” While we wonder if this is any more than we learned in kindergarten, we discover the crowd outside, including the poor people, the tax collectors and the mercenaries seem impressed with what they have heard. They are convinced they have heard good news. They think John is the Messiah they have been awaiting for centuries. We are still wondering what he has said that is so earth-shaking. As we talk about it we wonder:

*What would have happen if no one hoarded the resources of the earth and all shared with the whole human family?

*What would happen if no one exploited anyone in our human family?

*What would happen if their were no bullying in our schools, in our work places, among nations, in our families, and in our global and national economic decision making?

*What would happen if all of us decided that greed does not fill our emptiness and we figured out what is enough in our lives?

We listened to John some more as he talked to the crowd and he was talking about someone soon to be born. He said, “I can only teach you how to live in a way that will really make a difference. One is coming who can give you the power to live in this way I have described. This sounds really good to us as we are not sure how to make the U-turn John has been talking about.

The power to do it

John says that he baptizes with water but one is coming who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. According to Rev. Canon Gray Temple Jr. (textweek.org), John soaks us in water and Jesus soaks us in the spirit. When we come up from John’s soaking we come up clean. When Jesus is done with us we come up transformed. Canon Gray asks us to imagine how our lives would be if we “got soaked in a vat of God’s own substance, like (we) were a bolt of cloth being dyed God-colored.” Canon Gray finds that the power to be transformed comes when we understand that Holy Spirit within us is like:

*A seed that brings crops beyond our imagination.

*A mustard seed that becomes a tree of shade by noon.

*Yeast that rises in us to bring us to new ways of being.

We turn our bus around (a U-turn) to head back to our lives and to get ready for the birth of the one John says is greater than he – Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the one who lives for the sake of others, like John taught. He also gives us the power to live in the same way. We can share, be fair, and refrain from bullying and complaining. We can work to help our institutions and nations to do the same. It can matter in our lives. It can matter in the world. The reality has been planted in us. Will we let it grow and rise? I think we will.

This year may be a blue Christmas. It is true. A trip to the wilderness and an encounter with John the Baptist tell us that what is doesn’t have to be so forever.