Make Ready

Zephaniah 3:14-30
Luke 3:1-6

Zephaniah is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. Within the writings of the prophets we find a three part pattern which is extremely well articulated in the testament of Zephaniah. First, the prophet brings the “woe to you” proclamations, then we hear the message that judgment will be visited on all the other nations of the world, and finally following the predicted world catastrophe, we hear words of comfort for Judah. Within the final words of Zephaniah, we hear that “the king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst.” Now, we Christians understand that to be one of the many predictions of the coming of the Christ into the world.

Now we come to that New Testament proclaimer, Luke. Biblical scholars have posited two possible identities for Luke. While there are some who believe that Luke was one of the seventy disciples who followed Jesus, others believe that Luke was not a Jew, but was a disciple of the Apostle Paul and was brought into the faith by him. It is generally noted that Luke’s Greek is purer than that of any of the other gospel writers. According to S. MacLean Gilmour, “Luke was eager to stress the fact that Christianity was a world religion that recognized no racial limitations.” Luke recognizes non-Jews in many important roles: the Samaritan woman at the well was the first to proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah to her friends and neighbors, Peter’s first non-Jewish convert was a Roman centurion at Caesarea, when Jesus healed ten lepers, the one who returned to express his thanks was a Samaritan, And let it be noted that nowhere in Luke do we hear Jesus give a command as in Matthew, “Go nowhere among the gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans.” No, instead, Luke tells of a risen Christ who proclaims that the good news should be preached to “all nations.”

In this morning’s gospel lesson, John, known as the baptizer, speaks an important word to the many who have followed him into the desert. John calls the multitude to repent and be baptized so that they will be ready. And for what is it that they are to make ready? The writer of Luke tells us that this time was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

In a recent issue of the “Christian Century,” Andrew Finstuen wrote an article entitled “This American Mess” and subtitled “Where is Reinhold Niebuhr when we need him?” Reinhold Niebuhr, born in 1892 was a German Evangelical pastor and theologian. He graduated from Eden Theological Seminary as did our own Thomas Perl. Niebuhr was a pastor, a faculty member at Union Theological Seminary, and a regular contributor to the “Christian Century” up to 1939 when he separated himself from the magazine due to its antiwar position. Niebuhr felt strongly that it was important not to separate oneself from the world. In his editorial, John Buchanan tells us that “Niebuhr wrote theology for the church and for preachers (of which he was one), always with an eye on culture, the nation, and the world.” Both Buchanan and Finstuen in their separate articles make note of where we, as a nation, are today. Our economy is in the dumpster and we are embroiled in war in other nations. We have engaged in nefarious acts, most notably in the Abu Ghraib prison. When our own Jeremiah Wright attempted to call us to accountability, the media and many clergy, vilified him.

Zephaniah’s position, John the Baptist’s position, Niebuhr’s position, and Jeremiah Wright’s position is that we need to make ready. We are sin filled humans full of greed and arrogance. We believe that we only are right and what is right for us is right for the whole world. We are willing to dictate to others how they should behave without examining the mote in our own eyes. We are willing to deprive others of their culture, their values, and their way of life while imposing ours upon them. And, often we do this in the name of religion. But we are being called to make ready. Make ready for the Lord.

Zephania, John the Baptist, Niebuhr, and Jeremiah Wright have all warned us of the dangers of failing to perceive the condition of sin in our misdeeds. The gospel lesson for next Sunday has John the Baptist saying “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come?” This is the warning brought to us by the prophets of many ages. And with this warning comes the expectation that we must repent, we must turn around, we must change our ways.

On October 28, President Obama signed into law an expansion of the federal hate-crimes law to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories. Following this signing of the revised Hate Crimes Prevention Act, our UCC officials noted that this action was called for back in 2003 at our general synod. At that time, the gathered body also decried “the use of scripture to generate hatred and the violation of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender persons.”

When our new president, Geoffrey Black, was asked about our political positions, rather than using the term liberal, he replied, “I would use the terms progressive and unabashedly Christian.”

I am proud to be UCC. I am proud that we were the first denomination to ordain blacks, women, and openly gay people. I am proud that we are welcoming into our community, many congregations with ethnic origins that are not just European. I am proud that we recognize that God is still speaking. But, does this pride not bespeak danger, the danger of arrogance, the danger that we will be so content with our correctness that we will no longer be able to hear God’s call to repentance.

Here we sit, First Congregational Church, in the midst of a community in need. We do invite our neighbors into our thrift shop, into our food pantry, and into our bread distribution, but do we invite them into our congregation to worship with us? Are we willing to reach out into the community around us, or are we only willing to share our worship with those who are already in our midst? We say we want to be open and affirming, but are we? We say we want to spread the good news of the gospel, but do we? We say we want to do as Jesus would have us do, but how do we behave?

Elizabeth Myer Boulton is the minister for discipleship at Old South Church in Boston. She speaks of the difficulty of discipleship. She compares the challenge with that of childbirth. When my daughter was pregnant with her first child, I was privileged to be in the delivery room with her. As her labor progressed, at one very difficult point she screamed, I don’t want to do this! This is too difficult! Christian discipleship is not easy, and Boulton says that “There will come a time when we find ourselves taking hold of John the Baptist by his camel hair collar and saying, ‘It is too hard! I can’t do it.’”

Nicholas Walterstorff has spent most of his life teaching philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids , Michigan. And, in September of 1976 he was sent to a conference at the University of Potchefstroom in South Africa, not far from Johannesburg. He relates his observations of the interactions among the participants at the conference. He tells us that the Dutch were very angry with the Afrikaners over apartheid and the Afrikaners were angry with the Dutch for being so angry at them. Shortly into the conference, the blacks and coloreds from South Africa began to speak softly about the effect of the system of apartheid upon them. They spoke of being demeaned and humiliated daily. Wolterstorff then tells of what was to him the amazing response of the Afrikaners. They explained that it was not a question of justice, but of love. They further shared how they exhibited charity toward the blacks and coloreds. They gave Christmas gifts and passed on used clothing to the children and families living in their backyards. They asked, “Why can’t we just be brothers in Christ and live in love?” Wolterstorff then says, “Scales fell off my eyes. What I saw as I had never seen before was benevolence being used as an instrument of oppression. I felt called by God, in the classic Protestant sense of call, to speak up for those wronged and suffering people and to speak up for justice.”

And then, merely a year and a half later, Wolterstorff again found himself at a conference, this time on the west side of Chicago, this time on Palestinian rights. And this time, Wolterstorff tells us, the 150 Palestinians present “poured out their guts in flaming rhetoric—rhetoric too hot, … for most Americans to handle. They too spoke of ways in which they were daily demeaned; they spoke of how they had been dispossessed of their land in 1948 and of how that dispossession was continuing. … Again I felt called by God to speak up for those wronged and suffering people and to speak up for justice.”

When my husband was alive he always was there when I preached. His common critique of my sermons was, “You didn’t have a conclusion.” And here I am again, and I don’t have a conclusion. The cycle of prophecy leads us through “Woe to you” and on to the catastrophe that comes upon the world and finally to the promise of God in the midst of us, calling us once again to make ready. I don’t have a conclusion, because I don’t know how to conclude this cycle. It is a cycle that has repeated over and over again across many generations. We are sin filled humanity. We are in need of God’s grace. I believe that it is with God’s grace that we can turn around to make straight the path. How do we do that exactly? I am not sure. I would encourage each of us to keep listening, listening to one another and the hurts that we have experienced. And maybe as we listen we can learn how to live without hurting one another. Amen

Rev. Kathryn Obenour
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
December 6, 2009