“Weirdos on the Way” - Advent 3A

Isaiah 35:1-10
Saint Matthew 11:2-11

For two long months I sat on the board of a specialized ministry for young people in a college setting.

The meetings were regularly  three hours long and dealt mostly with how to raise money. [Read: Get blood out of a turnip.]

It was the same old stuff I had spent most of my ministry dealing with. How do we get more money from the same pool of donors?  How do we increase our pool of donors?  Every church member who has ever served on a committee can feel my pain.

The ministry was mostly to students and could never be self-sustaining.

Then somebody suggested that we open the ministry to the neighborhood and not just to the students.

I thought the idea was genius! I thought of real people I knew.

The couple with three children, two of them twins, struggling to get the brood in the car for the ten minute drive to church.  I thought of the woman with the broken hip who couldn’t drive yet but could probably make it three doors over to worship. 

I thought it would be great for college students to worship with children around and a few older folk to take care of.  It would help them see the larger church being a place for others.

The pastor didn’t see it that way and asked: “What if the people who come are weirdos?”

I was stunned. Had the pastor ever rode on the CTA?  Had the pastor walked the streets of a downtown in any major city?  Sooner or later one should, I think, meet a weirdo or two.  If you don’t want to walk around looking for a weirdo, come over to my house, I might be home and you can meet one.

Weirdos are everywhere.  As the hymn says about saints the same thing could be said about weirdos:  “You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, in church, by the sea, in the house next door; they are saints of God, whether rich or poor, and I mean to be one too.” 1

One of the most eccentric of all Biblical weirdos is John the Baptist - aka. Saint John the Baptist.

As I said last week I wouldn’t have gone across the street much less into the wilderness to hear John preach.  He’s a beatnik with a bad attitude.

His outfit is bizarre.  Now you can buy a camel’s hair blazer from from Ralph Lauren for around $200.00.  John’s wardrobe was straight from the camel and I can’t imagine that his leather belt was a fashion statement either.  It probably didn’t even match his shoes.

Fad diets are all the rage for us and while there is nothing like wild, fresh from the hive honey, the locusts might prove to be a plague for even the most iron stomached of Iron Chefs.

His message, as my pastor Shannon Kershner said last Sunday, has a “turn or burn” quality to it.  “Turn from your sins...Turn to God...For the Kingdom of Heaven is coming soon.”2

And when it comes, look out.  “He will separate the chaff from the grain, burning the chaff with never-ending fire and storing away the grain.” 3

Yipes.

For three Sundays we have to deal with this guy, two in Advent and one on the Second Sunday after Christmas - the Baptism of our Lord. Fortunately you can now move the feast of the Epiphany to that Sunday and get rid of John altogether after today.]

Yet, we cannot deny the fact that people came from far and near to listen to John preach.  Was it his weirdness that drew them or his message? We’ll never know while people left what they were doing and went out into the wilderness to hear John preach.  If we have learned anything from this year it is that weirdos have a way of drawing crowds. 

I think the crowds are what caused John to overplay his hand and wind up in the clink.  I think they emboldened him to speak out about sin and judgement wherever he found it, even if he found it in the king’s palace.

What landed John in jail was not his preaching but when, as they say in the south, “he stopped preaching and got to meddling.”  John called King Herod’s adulterous affair with his sister-in-law into question. That he even spoke of it out-loud wasn’t such a good idea. 

Herod didn’t take kindly to John’s scandalizing his private life so he had him jailed and sentenced to death.

Locked behind prison doors John had to be wondering: What happened to the fire? What happened to the judgement? Herod was chaff and John was wheat. What happened to the vision?  Maybe this isn’t the guy we have been looking for after all.

Jesus doesn’t give John a direct answer to his question but rather tells him to look at what he is doing.

“Go and tell John what you see and hear -—that blind men are recovering their sight, cripples are walking, lepers being healed, the deaf hearing, the dead being brought to life and the good news is being given to those in need. And happy is the man who never loses faith in me.” 4

That is a coded message that John’s captors would never understand but John and John’s followers would know by heart.

Dr. John Buchanan paraphrased it this way.

Remember, John, as you sit there, in that cell—- cold, hungry, thirsty, waiting for your inevitable execution - remember the promise that came to our people at the darkest, most frightening moment in their lives, the worst moment in our history, when a cruel and powerful enemy was about to attack and kill and defeat and imprison and exile. Remember

They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. . . .Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear!" 5

Fear is what makes us want to keep the “weirdos” at bay.  Fear is what confuses.  Fear is what separates us one from another.  This year was filled with fear.  Fear of the other.  Fear of people who are not like us.

Herod and his kind only add to that fear. They play on it. Their rhetoric starts us staring at each other with suspicion. They start us blaming each other and distrusting one another.

Yes, my brothers and sisters, even in places that are supposed to be the most loving on earth there is distrust at the highest levels of anyone who might be weird.  No wonder people look at the church and say “if these are Jesus’ followers there must be another way.”

There is!  It is the way of Christ and not always his church!

Dr. Mike Lindvall wondered

Does it work, Jesus’ way?  Does it work, his way of love and compassion?  Does it work, his way non-coercion and kindness?  Does it work, his way of service and sacrifice?  In the short run, sometimes.  In the long run (maybe the very long run) always.  That’s the promise of the gospel. 6

It’s the promise of all of scripture.  There is another way “it shall be called the Holy Way and it shall be for God’s people; no travelers, not even fools, shall go astray.” 7

God could not have said it any stronger? God could not have given directions any better.  God could not have given us a map more clearer.

Christ is calling us: “Hey! Follow me! Down this road! Follow me and I promise that no travelers - be they fool or weirdo - will go astray.”

Thanks be to God who comes in this season and every season makes this so.  Amen.

_________

1. Lesbia Scott, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal. (Louisville: Westminister/John Knox Press, 2013), #730.

2. St. Matthew 3:2. (TLB) [TLB:The Living Bible]

3. St. Matthew 3:12. (TLB)

4. St. Matthew 11:4-6. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS= The J.B. Phillips Translation]

5. John Buchanan, “Fear Not” Sermons from Fourth Church, Chicago, IL, December 16, 2001), http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2001/121601.html

6. Michael L. Lindvall, “Shall We Wait for Another” (sermon, Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, NY, December 13, 2013),  http://www.brickchurch.org/Customized/uploads/BrickChurch/Worship/Sermons/PDFs/2013/12152013.pdf

7. Isaiah 35:8. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]