Prepare The Way of Love

Prepare The Way of Love

Sermon for MCC New Haven

December 9, 2012; 10:00am

Rev. Brian Hutchison, M.Div.

You may remember from last week’s gospel reading the cryptic language about the so-called “end of the world,” which we identified as more so “the end of the world as we know it.” Since we know that various religious leaders over the millennia have proclaimed impending doom and nothing ended up happening, we can rest assured that in about a week from now, the Mayan prophecy will not come true… at least literally.

Do I wish for the end of the world as we know it? In many ways, yes. I wish for the end of poverty. I wish for the end of discrimination and inequality. I wish for the end of suffering, war, pain, and disease. Last week we lit the first Advent Candle- the candle of Hope. I mentioned special intentions for those living with HIV/AIDS in light of World AIDS Day. This week, we lit the second Advent candle- the candle of Love. And it is this principle that the gospel leads us to today.

Today’s gospel readings are both about John the Baptist, but they are a bit spread out in the text. The first reading is a poetic reading that is attributed to John’s father Zechariah. The story goes that the angel Gabriel told Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth would have a child, though they were both very old. Since Zechariah did not believe Gabriel, Gabriel kept him from speaking until his son John was born. (Don’t you wish you had that ability sometimes? ;) ) Sure enough, John was born and two chapters later in the gospel of Luke, John the Baptist/Baptizer makes his debut as a prophet. (No, he was not an American Baptist, A Southern Baptist, or a Missionary Baptist. He was indeed a Jew that probably lived in the dessert with a Jewish sect called the Essenes who practiced purification rituals by water. So baptism as we know it today is deeply rooted in Judaism).

But before we go to the second gospel passage today, let’s look closer at the selection from the first chapter. It is important for us to know that Zechariah was a priest and that the angel came to him within the temple. Zechariah represents the power of the priests within the temple system. He has followed all the laws and has lived a pious life. But as part of the predictable power structure, Zechariah was caught off guard when he was presented with something very unpredictable: not only would he have a son but his son would be a prophet.

By shutting Zechariah’s mouth, the author of this gospel (Luke) expresses his desire to stop the voices of those in power that would seek to inhibit the radically inclusive Gospel. Luke tells us that Zechariah’s mouth was shut until John the Baptist was born. And at that point, he lets out the most beautiful proclamation of what his son’s life will mean to his people. He expresses the desire to be “saved from enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” How many times do we pray this prayer in the LGBT community? Salvation for us means deliverance from those in our world who would see us harmed or dead. Zechariah declares this desire to come true soon. Can we claim this desire for ourselves too, or in fear will we continue to say, “We will never be equal; we will never be free.”?

In his outpouring of prophecy, Zechariah also tells us about the nature of God. He names God as Divine Grace, as God looks upon us with favor (and unmerited favor is a definition of grace). He also names God as Divine Mercy, as much harm could come to the people but God’s tenderness will lead the way away from harm and toward peace.

The apex of our Gospel readings today is in this final phrase in the first reading. It says that the tender mercy of God will “guide our feet into the way of peace”. This passage is a sort of mirror image of the passage I love so much from the prophet Micah 6:8, “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

These things that the prophet Micah proclaimed long before John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth were born would still ring true as the center of their ministries. In the face of a violent, angry, and fearful culture, John and Jesus would boldly walk in peace and unconditional love.

We first see this message being preached in the second passage from Luke we heard today. John tells everyone he encounters in the region around the Jordan River that they must be baptized, repenting of their sins.

Now, before we go any further, let’s break down these two scary terms: repent and sin. Repent simply means, “turn away.” It does not mean, “hurt yourself or make yourself feel bad for God.” Lord knows there are enough depressed and self-destructive people in the world already! Amen? In the words of poet Mary Oliver in her poem Wild Geese, “You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves.” I think Mary Oliver’s idea of “turning away” from self-inflicted struggle is much closer to John’s message than that of some preachers today who insist that Christians repent of things that are not sin.

A Course in Miracles teaches that “The word “sin” should be changed to “lack of love” because “sin” is a man-made word with threat connotations which he made up himself. No real threat is involved anywhere. Nothing is gained by frightening yourselves, and it is very destructive to do so.” Repeat after me: “sin” … “is lack of love.” We have been conditioned in our society to associate anything that involves pleasure with sin. Being in New England, we should know how that worked out for the Puritans of Salem. Pleasure per se is not sin. Pleasure is a gift from God. It is only when we take pleasure in lack of love that it becomes sin. Sin is acting as the Ego instead of acting as the Child of God.

So John the Baptizer’s message was to turn away from lack of love. And he invited people to be baptized so that they had a ritualized turning point in their lives. From that point forward, they would never be the same again. The past was left behind and the future was open for the Way of Christ.

See, a prophet is not a fortune-teller.  Miss Cleo was not a prophet. Prophets do not have 900 numbers. And as much as I enjoy TLC’s Long Island Medium, she is not a prophet either. Prophets don’t have special abilities to look into crystal balls and see the future or talk to the dead to predict what will happen. Rather, prophets are gifted with a fire within them to preach what is true in the face of falsehood. That is why in MCC we have called our founder Rev. Elder Troy Perry our prophet. Both John the Baptist and Troy would qualify as members of the Bear community, but that’s not their only commonality J… Troy didn’t look into the future and see what MCC would become. But he did use his God-given imagination, desire, and faith to start a church for LGBT people in a time when to do such a thing was very dangerous. In the early years of MCC (late 1960s through the 1970s), many of our churches were burned to the ground by those who hated or were afraid of same-gender-loving people. The KKK was a regular visitor at MCCs, but a very unwanted one. (Remember the line from the gospel of Luke: “…that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”)

It is not popular to be a prophet. Often, your own friends and family will turn on you for speaking the truth. And I don’t mean turning on you because you try to convert them, because I turn away when anyone tries to make me something I’m not or tries to make me believe something I know isn’t good for my spiritual health. What I do mean is speaking the truth in love and speaking truth to power.

Many LGBT people over the years have told activists like Troy Perry to “stop making a ruckus! You’re just instigating violence by being so outspoken.” I recognize those as words of someone who has been abused. “Don’t speak out against your husband, he’ll beat you!” LGBT prophets recognized fearful attitudes and tactics when they saw them and claimed courage instead. Harvey Milk of San Francisco spoke out for LGBT rights, right up until his assassination. Ellen DeGeneres came out of the closet when it wasn’t popular to do so and paved the way for many others in Hollywood to come out. And outside of our American context, LGBT prophets fight every day for basic human rights around the world. They know the danger of speaking out, but they do speak out because Spirit leads them to lives of integrity.

Folks, we will be walking this journey of Interim Ministry together over the next year. I ask that all of us can live as prophets in the process. Together, let’s watch as the mountains of oppression are made low for us and the crooked paths of fear are made right for us. Let us allow ourselves to be led by Spirit out of what at times has seemed like a wilderness into the fullness of what God is preparing for us. Today, we step forward on the right foot with the peace of God that passes all understanding and the wasteful love of God that has no bounds. Amen.