Advent Prophesy Sermon

When I started this blog, I looked up other blogs done by clergy and clergy-types.  Most were just an excuse to post their long-winded, ideology-driven sermons.  I told myself, no sermons.

Then I started the "sermon in a bottle," to force me to post weekly (ha!), to use what I had developed in my own sermons that weekend, and to be concise.  This past weekend I offered this sermon, and so many parishioners said they thought it was good, startling me, that I thought I'd write it up.  (For the record, I almost never write out my sermons.  Some weeks I have a few scribbled notes, mostly I have an outline in my head to follow.)  So here is the sermon I have in my head, which may differ in a few words from what I spoke three times in St. Vitus Church, New Castle, on Sunday, December 16, 2012.


Third Sunday in Advent - C.  "One mightier than I is coming."

Talking about the Christmas stories is easy, because so many Catholics know all the characters.  The young unmarried Virgin Mary.  Joseph the just.  The archangel Gabriel.  The newborn Jesus.  Shepherds and sheep.  Magi and camels and strange gifts.  And John the Baptist.  But sometimes knowing the story and the characters too well prevents us from seeing them as the evangelists intended.  We know the plot, how it turns out, and it's all warm and cuddly.

Take John the Baptist.  As a prophet, he was anything but cuddly.  He is given a God-announced birth, to a woman beyond her child-bearing years.  He lives in the desert with distinctive odd clothing and food.  He's not afraid to speak his mind, speak truth to power.  For his trouble, Herod the king throws him in jail, and Herod lops off his head.

Prophets, whether John the Baptist, or the Hebrew prophets from 700 or more years previous, were full of sandpaper, rough, speaking truth to power, a minority report easily ignored at the time, but later recalled for their truthtelling.

Being prophetic was to be political too.  They looked around at the ruling elite and customs of the people, didn't like what they saw, and said, if you want to follow God's law, things will have to change.  Here's how, whether you want to hear me or not.

Throughout the history of the Christian Church, this prophetic dimension rises and falls.  Most of the time it's not brought into the present.  But that's what I'd like to do, adapt it for today.  Let me offer three examples of the prophetic dimension today.

The first relates to the terrible, horrific events on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.  It is beyond our  imaging that a madman would take three high-powered automatic weapons, kill his mother, and then for unknown reasons break into an elementary school and shot defenseless, innocent children and their teachers.  Yet it's not a unique event.  Such slaughters happened two months ago in Oregon.  Last year in Colorado.  A couple of years ago on the campus of Virginia Tech.  And back in 1995 there were the two American terrorists who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 Americans. 

A prophetic stance addressing these terrible, terrible acts of violence would say, we have to do something about the number and size of guns in our country.  Our country is the largest possessor, and maker, of guns in the world.  We are swimming in a world of guns and weapons, most of them legally bought and sold.

Now, before too many of you have your blood pressure hit the ceiling, and think I am going to suggest we recall the Second Amendment, I am not.  I'm not even sure that "gun control" is the proper word for the change I am suggesting.  One commentator I heard said that it would be better to talk about "gun safety."  We need to ask, who has the capacity to handle guns, and who has no business having one or many guns in his hand.

Let me offer an analogy:  alcohol.  Back in 1919 our country passed the 19th constitutional amendment, outlawing the mere possession and sale of alcohol.  The temperance movement won.  But it quickly became clear that the law created far more illegal behavior that it was intended to stop.  Within 12 years another constitutional amendment was passed recinding Prohibition.  But what happened?  States drew up laws that set sensible limits on the use of alcohol.  Alcohol -- whether wine or beer or mixed drinks -- can be enjoyed by many adults.  I enjoy an occasional drink myself.  Maybe you do too.  But not by those under the age of 21.  And not on the job.  And not when you are driving, or operating heavy equipment, or caring for children or the elderly.  A few adults know they cannot consume alcohol and restrict its use voluntarily.  Lines were drawn -- which are still violated, but nonetheless still sensible -- for the proper use of alcohol.

I suggest that we as a country need to do the same for guns.  Do those having them know how to use them safely, to keep them away from those who will do harm?  Does any ordinary citizen really need automatic weapons, which are only to be used in war?  Our country needs to have a very serious conversation about gun safety, to try to prevent more massacres like Friday's.

Second example.  Maybe becasue I am a Catholic, or because I make these connections, but I was struck by how many commentators said, not just 27 deaths, but 20 little children were killed.  We all in our gut know that killing innocent children is even worse than the domestic dispute between adults.  If that is so, then in this world of American violence, why has no one made the connection  between the killing of school children and abortion?  For 39 years the killing of children -- by definition, innocent, defenseless children -- in the womb has been legal in our country. 

Our country is unfortunately split right down the middle on this issue.  About half are adament that voluntary abortion is and should be a protected right.  And half are pro-life and anti-abortion, seeing it for the act of violence it is.  How we help to move this opinion, or to change laws, is beyond me.  But 1,000,000 deaths of children a year is too, too, too many.

The third example of prophecy takes us back to John the Baptist.  Prophets, in the Christian tradition, really didn't want to merely make political points.  The essential prophetic job, done so well by John, is to point the way to Jesus Christ our Savior.  In today's gospel passage he says, "I am not worthy of loosening the thongs of his sandals."  In another gospel he says, "I must decrease, he must increase."  John pointed his disciples to Christ. 

We are all followers of Christ, or we wouldn't be here in church for Eucharist week after week after week.  But do we really commit ourselves, every aspect of our life, to Jesus Christ?  This is the core prophetic call.  Because if we do draw closer to the teachings, the life, the death and the resurrection of Christ, and we change to become more like him, then our world changes too.  It draws closer to one of peace, justice and freedom.  Following Jesus also gives us the strength to proceed through loss, pain, and the darkness of evil.

May we hear the call of the great prophet John the Baptist today with greater urgency, and pray that this Christmas, and throughout the new year, we might grow closer to Jesus the Christ as his disciples.