Third Advent, Year A, 2004:

This is “Stir-up Sunday” in the Episcopal calendar.  That title comes from the Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent:  “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us.”  I suspect God is always stirring up God’s power and making that power available to us.  We just have too many folks who want no part of the recipe.  And sometimes we have folks who just don’t understand the question.  Kind of like the woman who went to the Post Office to buy a 100 stamps for her Christmas cards. “What denomination?” asked the clerk?"

“Oh, good heavens!  Have we come to this?” said the woman.  “Well, give me 50 Catholics and 50 Baptists ones.”

This is a great time of year if you are a people watcher.  That is especially true at malls and stores.  Some shoppers have smiles on their faces and others appear to be in serious pain.  For some people this time of year is a joy; for others it is a thankless chore.

This is also the time when people have heightened expectations.  Certainly, children are hoping this will be the year of the bicycle, or the right video game, or the outfit that is just the rage?  But, adults also have great expectations leading up to Christmas.  Will this be the year of the new car, or watch, or ring?

This is a time of great expectation for people and for the church.  Perhaps this will be the Christmas that the church begins to do what we each think it should be doing?  Maybe the rector will finally see that such-and-such is a great idea and we will begin to do so-and-so?

Times of great expectations are not new.  John the Baptizer was a man with great expectations.  He had expected the Messiah to be an earthly king, one who would restore Israel’s greatness and lead the nation back into a right relationship with God.  His cousin seemed to be just the opposite.  Remember, John did not live to see how much God love the world or to see that the Kingdom his cousin would usher in would not be ruling from an earthly throne, but the throne of love and justice.  That throne would sit in the human heart.  John did not get to see the cross upon which his cousin would die.  John did not experience the resurrection or see the word spread beyond Jerusalem like wildfire.  John did not get to see that evidence of the extent of God’s love for each person.

So, John sends some of his own disciples to ask his cousin, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  In response to Cousin John’s questions Jesus issues the great Christian imperative.  That truth hurls its way as much into our own time as when he first said it.  “Go and tell…what you hear and see.  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.”

The Little Town Players recently did a performance of The Miracle Worker.  It is the story of the early years of Helen Keller, leading up to the miracle of understanding for Helen when she knows that words identify realities.  That final scene is, for me, one of the most dramatic in any play or movie I have ever seen.  “She knows!” Annie Sullivan tells Mr. and Mrs. Keller.  “She knows!”

Later in her life, Helen was taken to Philips Brooks, the Bishop of Massachusetts, for religious instruction.  The kindly bishop patiently told her about the message of God’s love.  He explained about God sending the Son into the world to bear our sins and to save us from self-destruction.  When he finished Helen spelled to her translator, “I knew all along that there must be one like him, but I didn’t know his name.  Now I know!”  And so do we and we, too, must go and tell.

What is it that we are to go and tell?  The most effective evangelism of “kindled-heart people” is to share with another this life in Jesus the Christ and what it means to us personally.  We do that with the three C’s of the Christian faith.  We do it with our conversation.  We do it with words, but much more than just words.  We do it with our witness.  We cannot be very influential if we claim to be a disciple of the One whose birth into our world and into our hearts we are preparing to celebrate again in a few days and bad-mouth and complain about what the church is doing or not doing.  If we have complaints we are instructed to go to the person with whom we have some issue and talk it out.  We cannot witness to the claim upon our time, talent, and treasure that this one named Jesus the Christ exerts and think we can hold the church hostage by withholding our gifts of time, talent, and treasure.  Providing an excuse to another by acting in such a way places a stumbling block in the path of faith of the one who is watching.  Jesus taught his followers that doing that was dangerous, both now and into eternity.  What we say and the way we say it reveals the depths of our life in Christ.  We need to remember certain characteristics of Christian conversation.  It must be trustworthy, honest, free of rumors, gossip, or repeated falsehoods, and character assassination, and speaking positively about our mission and ministry, even when we have questions about it.  Christian conversation always remembers that new language that Jesus the Christ has given us and that is the language of love in power and action.

Our behavior, our conduct, especially when we don’t think anyone else is watching is a powerful witness to who is that sits on the throne of our hearts.  Others may not always listen to our words, but they will look at our lives.  It is an awesome responsibility to realize that we may well be the only Bible another reads.  The style of life, the manner of daily living is what ultimately wins people.  Do we show by our behavior, our conduct that we care about the least, the last, and the lost?  Look at the works of mercy Jesus gives in today’s Gospel.  The blind see, the lame walk, the diseased are cleansed, the deaf hear, the poor are ministered to, and the dead are raised.  The effective witness of the church today are deeds of mercy and service to the poor, the handicapped, the oppressed, the outcast, those in prison, the strangers in our midst.  It is profoundly true that the world will know we are Christians by our love.

The community we choose to join will also say a lot about whom we follow.  It is a contradiction in terms for one to say they are a Christian and not be a part of a worshipping community.  Those who say God is found everywhere are correct.  But, if we do not seek God in particular we will probably not find God in general.  If we do not seek God’s will for us in community we run the risk of not finding it.  Be clear in what I’m trying to say.  I’m not saying that people should come to church because they feel guilty, but because they are forgiven and loved, needed and wanted, important and cared about.  It is that feeling that will witness to others that the church community is a joy we share and not a burden we bear.

Remember that we are to “go and tell.”  God has great expectations of us.  Amen.