“The devil’s in the details:” a euphemism we use to alert one another that there might be a surprise inside if we don’t pay attention.  But I want to make the case with you that sometimes, the devil really is there, in the minutia of the details, hiding in plain sight!    

I remember back in middle school in the rebellious days of about 1970, that a class-mate, Sarah, picked up on a new term that was coined at the time, “busy-work.”  In our school newspaper, she denounced the whole system of education she had grown up in, as full of way too much, busy-work!  It was a provocative editorial.   Worthless busy-work was harmful to her, and every other student, she argued, whether it was in class, or for home-work.  It was an affront to her intellect, she made clear – and she was the class valedictorian.  But more than that, it was a whole attitude of indoctrinated mindlessness, she claimed, instead of teaching us how to think critically for ourselves. 

I respected her –  though secretly I had a crush on Gina, the girl who bent the dress code rules, and was expelled for wearing, of all things, a mini-skirt, just standard fare now-a-days!  But anyway, I backed Sarah’s call for an education system that taught us to think for ourselves, in a world of great challenges to come.  We didn’t exactly change the system, but it occurs to me now, that she was clearly against “the devil in the details,” and getting bogged down in the minutia of mind-numbing learning and scholastic baby-sitting, and demanded that education teach us how to master the details, in all we did! 

Back in Martin Luther’s day, they were copiously familiar with the devil’s work.  They saw it all around them in The Plague that snuck up on you and killed, 4 out of 10, of your family and friends.  There was no other explanation than, this was the devil’s work, which some believed was punishment for immorality, exactly like TV preachers who blame their favorite targets, whoever they are, today.  Luther mostly stayed away from the blame game, even back in the 16th century, but he did try for a time to save himself as a young monk, through self-flagellation, that nasty exercise of repeating the blows Christ took from his torturers, to somehow, masochistically escape the punishment of death.  The opposite, ironically, of how Christ came to “raise us up,” so that we might live!  But, the plague made everyone a little crazy!  And, that it might signal the end of the world, was in the back of everyone’s mind.  So, no one doubted that the devil was at work, whatever, or whoever, the intended target was.  “The devil was in the details” of every life. 

If you saw “The Dark Knight,” the second movie in the Christopher Nolan’s Batman series, filmed right here in Chicago, you saw a horrifically mesmerizing picture of pure evil.  Health Ledger, who played the Joker, and who died suddenly at the end of shooting the film, portrayed a perfect embodiment of chaos, a kind of arch-sadist, who derives pleasure out of doing others harm, and can’t be bargained with.  He can only be defeated by, The Batman.  And the Joker knows who he is and demands he take off his mask, and The Batman silences him, as best he can. At the end – and I don’t want to spoil it for you – but, in a very Christ-like way, The Batman has to almost-die – he couldn’t actually die because there’s a sequel, a third film in the works – but he, almost-dies a criminals death, to take on the sins of Gotham, and save the people. 

Just so, the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, has come to clean the evil spirits, out the house!  He comes to die a criminals death to save us, but first he proclaims the message of good news, with authority, and when the demons recognize him, he does not permit them to speak, but casts them out.  The devil has been in the details a long time, and Jesus sweeps them away everywhere he goes.  To those blind to the devil in the details, the leaders of the community, it seems that Jesus is attacking them, because they have grown comfortable living within the boundaries that the evil one has bent in their favor.  The boundaries that once gave life and were set-up to protect, had become exclusionary instead.  ‘Do not work on the Sabbath,’ was infiltrated with hundreds of detailed sub-rules.  Jesus bent, and even broke, some of those rules, based on God’s life-giving meaning behind them.  So for instance, he defended his disciples’ eating grain in the fields on the Sabbath, if they were hungry, and he dismissed hand-washing before eating, saying it’s not what goes in the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of the mouth.  But, this casting the devil out of the details, fundamentally threatened the whole system.  And after these first few weeks of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, the leaders in Jerusalem are already plotting how to “destroy him.” 

Jesus “came out” to proclaim this message and enact it in exorcisms, to change the entrenched systems of evil that had overgrown the beauty of God’s world.  The devil is in the details, because he’s in hiding from Jesus, silenced and inaudible to our ears, but at work in a new, more insidious way, than ever. 

In 1985, the film Shoah, a 9.5 hour documentary, came out, giving voice to the stories of survivors, perpetrators and bystanders.  Without even one emotional shot of actual Holocaust footage, it exposed the crime, which we have a hard time understanding, amidst the unimaginable horror of, the 6 million murdered by a single crazy man, in endless, everyday, banal details.  Three or four times longer than the average movie, the documentary engages us in such bland details as a barber telling of cutting the hair of those who don’t yet know they’re going to the gas chambers.  Of villagers recalling how they saw a steady flow of trains stuffed with people going into the camps, but returning empty, never bothered enough to tell the authorities.  Of conscripts in to the army, filing paper work, which sanitized and compartmentalized their individual, minute, piece of the operation, so that it seemed like no more than sending out invoices from mom and pop’s small business back home.  In Shoah, the documentary, the horror of The Final Solution was, “the devil in the details.”  Everything was normal; everything was slowly possessed by death, in front of their very eyes, in plain sight. 

We could look at our generation, if we dare, and ask if evil is at work!  We have recently wrapped up a war, founded on lies, that has needlessly destroyed much of a civilized country.  A war paid for, outside of the Congressionally approved budget, straight out of the national debt, while at the same time, banks, given the green light by our elected leaders, sold toxic mortgages to get rich, even faster, knowing it wasn’t them who’d be stuck with the default.  Meanwhile, more than 20% of children in America live below the poverty line, and 1% of the people own 40% of the nation’s wealth, in the midst of the deepest recession in 80 years.  It’s as if the chaos of the Joker himself, has infected us!  Does everything seem normal to you? 

But Jesus showed us how to stand up to the devil in the details.  One by one, two by two, church by church, we pray for the Holy Spirit, to organize and empower us to cast out the demons.  Today we have the opportunity to participate in one tiny action – to fight hunger.  It’s not all that deeply, an organized event or movement, but it is a much broader organization than just our congregation alone.  The Soup-er Bowl of Caring will raise over a million dollars from hundreds of churches and faith-communities today, and all we have to do is give a dollar.  It’s just one simple example of organized people and money, to stand up against the devil in the details, to make a difference. 

And so, as the church, we continue to cast out the demons of hunger, and then we celebrate it, as we do every week, around the life-giving table, where Jesus feeds us with the very bread of life, and bread of and peace.   

Our gospel today is all about exercising(sic) demons!  I suppose they have to get out and stretch every once and a while too!  Sorry, that’s all the jokes I have on exorcisms! 

So instead, let me take a moment of introduction to say that today, the last Sunday of January, is Reconciling in Christ Sunday, a Sunday we celebrate with many other congregations across the country in our welcome of neighbors and friends who identify as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, and queer.  And we remember proudly our official Lutherans Concerned statement of welcome, that, “people of all sexual orientations and gender identities are welcome to the gathering, membership and leadership of [Unity] and encouraged to share in its sacramental and community life.” 

This is only the fourth birthday of adopting this statement at our Annual Meeting.  We have been making some good progress; gotten past the terrible two’s, and I guess that means we’re ready for Kindergarten!  Today, I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to take a moment after worship and sign-up online to be a Reconciling Lutheran.  This is an opportunity to stand up and be counted individually.  We are already a Reconciling in Christ congregation, but each of us can show our support of this Reconciling movement to the church, by signing up ourselves too. 

As you know, our Lutheran Church voted only two years ago to allow GLBT pastors to serve in “publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous same-gender relationships.”  And so, liberation, and respect of one another’s beliefs around these types of welcome, is still quite new.  And it’s important for us to continue remembering, and living into, our statement of welcome. 

Thankfully, Jesus just so happens to tackle the issue of human liberation in our gospel today, and in some ways was well ahead of his time!  “They were blown out of their minds at his teaching,” says the gospel of Mark, “for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”  At that moment, awareness dawns on them, and they were set on their own path of liberation, and eventually would write a statement of welcome too, a gospel.   But as of yet, the worshipers have not figured out who this Jesus is, or what he has come to do.  They only know that he has an authority in his teaching that is unlike any they have ever encountered.  He has entered their lives, as well as their synagogue, with a power that is captivating.  All they know is that they desire the truth that Jesus obviously holds. 

And what strikes me, is how there are three forces in this story, a triangulation of classic proportion, which work for and against each other, a triangulation that must be resolved before liberation can be realized.  Jesus is one force.  He’s entered their synagogue at Capernaum and brought this powerful and authoritative new teaching to the believers there – who are the second force.  But, as happens when Jesus walks in, the balance of power is shifted!  And Jesus shakes loose what lurks underneath, the opposite of all piety, the Tempter himself, who is party number three!  This “unclean spirit” cries out, “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?”  Or, this Hebrew idiom could also be translated: “What do we have to do with you?”  And no doubt, both meanings apply.  The demonic spirit is afraid of Jesus’ power over them, saying, “have you come to destroy us?”  But on the other hand, with their power of recognition and their uninhibited nature, they can’t help identifying him, “I know who you are – the holy one of God.”  So my question is: why didn’t he surface earlier, before Jesus entered?  Why, before Jesus arrived, was the demon content to stay hidden?

It’s curious, to say the least, that this “unclean spirit” would arise right out of the synagogue, the home and gathering of the believers.  This is the part that blows our minds, even though the amazement that the believers in the story have, is over Jesus’ teaching.  But can you imagine a possessed man jumping up and shouting out like that in worship?  What would it mean to realize we have demons in our midst?  Who or what are they?  How do they present themselves or materialize in our modern lives?  Where do they live?  How would we exorcise them?  And I don’t mean run around the block with them! 

What we do know is that Jesus breaks the triangulation.  He comes to liberate and make free, teaching the good news.  He exorcises the “unclean spirit,” the ‘they’ plural, spirit, out of the man so he can be well, whole, and saved – the definition of salvation.  “The holy one of God” is a gift that lives in our congregation as a whole, too.  But each of us have some of the good and some of the evil in us, individually.  Each of us desires the power and life giving spirit of Jesus, but we are also tempted to listen to the power of the unclean spirits, who want to let us off the hook when we shouldn’t be, to tell us it’s alright to do it our own way and blame others, or to rest on our laurels. 

And so Jesus comes to liberate us from this merry-go-round of foolishness, the triangulation that never moves us forward into the dominion of God, the realm that he brings.  When Jesus walks in the door, the “unclean spirits” are revealed.  But because Jesus is no longer available in the flesh, he has sent us “the Holy Spirit of God” to live in the Body of Christ, which is the church, which is us.  The church is the people.  We, have the power to exorcise the “unclean spirits” from our midst.  “Be silent, and come out!”  Leave us alone!  And it can and does happen when we stand up together for the same liberation that Jesus revealed, a new teaching with authority. 

This liberation is not a matter of party politics, but is part of the generative spirit of the holy one of God, a freedom from our old lives and a transformation we so desire.  We work on it individually, and pray for strength and guidance.  But for those “unclean spirits” that are many, God enlivens us as the corporate body of Christ, so that, the more we let this authority of Jesus enter our gathering, the more we stand together, a unity of one body, one soul, one mind. 

What a great time to be part of the church, as we adopt statements of welcome for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, people of all colors and ethnic identities, both male and female equally, even a welcome and new respect for all God’s creatures and the care of the earth.  We are still young and in the early days of living into such statements, so we cannot yet fully shelve the chapters of our mistakes and sins, our privilege and entitlement, until liberation is complete for all.  We know, ‘we’ve come this far by faith!’  And in our ‘songs of thankfulness and praise,’ the more we live out our statements of welcome and they become who we are, the more God’s dominion and reign blossom and grow.  We say with courage and confidence, “Be silent and come out!”  Let the liberation of Jesus ring!  

When Jesus calls, he is faithful to the end.  Again and again, beginning now, he calls, "for the time has been fulfilled."  

But when the prophet Jonah hears God’s call, he’s more like a high school drop-out!  When God calls him to go to Nineveh to prophesy against the enemy of Israel, he actually packs his bags for the other side of the world!  He rushes to the nearest shipping port, buys a ticket to sail the friendly seas, making sure to carry his passport, so as to flee the country, as far as he can possible go!  Jonah is so relatable!

Remember what happens next?  God makes a giant storm to rock the boat.  So the sailors start throwing luggage overboard to lighten the load, but God stirs up the waters all the more!  Then the sailors pray to their many and various gods for a reprieve, but to no avail.  Finally they figure out it’s got something to do with Jonah, who they discover is resting comfortably down below in the hold of the ship!  So Jonah, the reluctant prophet, speaks for the first time in this tale, and admits that yes, the God that he knows, is creating the storm, because, as a Hebrew, he “worships YHWH, the God of heaven, who even made even the sea and the dry land.”  This terrifies the sailors all the more, but Jonah matter-of-factly tells them, that in order to calm the waters, they should feel free to, throw him overboard, knowing that God is really angry, at him.  So, in the last scene of Act 1, the sailors are swinging Jonah by all fours, even as they pray now to YHWH, Jonah’s God, asking for forgiveness, before they give him the heave-ho into the deep of the Mediterranean Sea. 

And sure enough, the storm ceases, and the sailors, in total awe of this God, pledge to worship YHWH alone, from that moment on.  And, as for Jonah the chapter concludes that, “the LORD provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” 

The two pairs of Galilean brothers that Jesus calls, who are quite familiar with the sea and its fish, show none of the reluctance to follow, that Jonah did, on the day their Rabbi invited them to “break with business as usual.” (Ched Myers)  Jesus has come in the name of YHWH, the maker of heaven and earth, to call us into the dominion of this God, which, in Jesus, “has come near.”  And business as usual is challenged already in these opening verses of his public ministry.  For example, no one’s ever thought to put these two pairs of brothers together in the same boat!  It’s significant, you see, that Peter and Andrew actually have no boat.  They are the 99% who live a subsistence life, working each day to bring home the bacon, or in their case, the carp and mackerel, enough to feed family their “daily bread.”  James and John, on the other hand, have a boat, a family business passed down from their dad, Mr. Zebedee, and capital and pay roll enough to hire servants.  That puts them, not quite in the 1%, but, in the rare, in those days, middle class. 

And so, as Jesus gathers disciples, we find they will be from many walks of life, different economic, ethnic, gender, sexual and social classes.  But what brings them together, is their response to the good news of God in Jesus, above everything else.  “Business as usual” was disrupted as soon as the dominion of God moved in!  The brothers turn around from their old ways, and “come after” Jesus, “immediately.”  Something new is being created: your kingdom come… on earth as in heaven. 

When Jonah’s three days of solitary confinement in the belly of the big fish are over – preserved but not pickled, apparently! – God has the fish spit Jonah up, literally throw-up, on the beach, on the “dry land,” God’s created safe space, “made” for us.  And then, “the word of the LORD came to Jonah a 2nd time.”  You didn’t think God was giving up, did you?!  Turn around from your defiant disobedience, says our persistent God to Jonah!  I heard you on the boat confessing your faith in me!  Do not be afraid to go to Nineveh, your enemy, and say what I ask you to say. 

Now Nineveh, was the elephant in the room.  This is the story of going to your enemy and telling them they are wrong.  Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the country that had conquered Israel brutally, and was known for torture and being, well, merciless.  Jonah didn’t want to ask them to be forgiven, not to mention he was rightly afraid for his life, if he even showed up there! 

Nineveh was a massive metropolis, three days walk across, was the claim.  Jonah walked for one day and figured, close enough!  And he “cried out” what was the shortest message of any of the OT prophets, saying simply, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Instead of arresting Jonah, as he feared, it was worse yet.  The evil Assyrians “believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small,” repented.  And even the cattle, and the goats, and the sheep, were said to, “put on sackcloth!”  And they prayed loudly and movingly to the God of Israel, renouncing their terrorist ways, turning around and “going after” now, the sovereign God of Israel. 

What an odd and funny story!  A fish saves a disobedient prophet by swallowing him for three days.  The evil torturous Assyrians act like ladies and gentleman, dressing up their herds of animals in sack cloth and ashes to repent along with them.  And, God changes God’s mind!  Is God clueless or just terribly irresponsible?  How can justice be served in the face of such mercy?  How on earth can human beings hope to make sense of such a God?  

Jesus is odd and funny in his own way too.  ‘Business as usual’ is broken up.  “The call of Jesus,” as Ched Myers said, “disrupts the lives of potential recruits, promising them only a ‘school’ from which there is no graduation.”  Which is good news, of course, because now we begin a new life with him, that is forever.  The invitation is a free turning around from all that enslaves us, to enter the gates of mercy and the power of love. 

So how does this affect us?  Where are we in the story?  Sure, we are Jonah, sometimes reluctant to answer the call and follow, taking a doomed cruise ship just like the Costa Concordia, running dangerously ashore.  But we are also the brothers and sisters of diverse backgrounds that want to go after Jesus, with all our hearts and minds and strength, leaving our small boats behind.  And, we are the Ninevites, who turn around and trust God to pardon and forgive us. 

In God’s story, we are the chosen ones, here in Andersonville and Edgewater.  A unique diversity of every kind, which God has made – the people that God calls into one boat – Jesus does not let us drop out!  Rabbinic schools, much like our universities today, let their students self-select who they wanted to follow and enroll with.  But Jesus does his own calling, knocking on our door, calling us by name, insistent that we follow.  He calls us: the lost and the lonely, the rich and the poor, the outcasts and winners.  He turns us around from what we were doing, and makes us into that bright shining beacon, an Epiphany Star, so that others will see him, in us, and together we leave ‘business as usual’ to make a difference in God’s world, to live in the joy of divine dominion.  

Sometimes it’s hard to go home.  Other times it’s hard to leave home.  I remember when I came home from my senior year abroad.  I was full of new perspectives and wild-eyed romanticism.  I was in debt to the government, and my parents, for 4 years of student loans.  And I was still waffling and wavering about whether or not to go to seminary.  I was still full of wanderlust from my European journeys, reading Herman Hess’s “Steppenwolf” and smoking filter-less cigarettes.  That nasty habit didn’t last long, thank goodness!  And neither would my wander-lust!  Though finding home is always somewhat more tricky! 

My parents were very tolerant people.  They had supported 3 of 4 children to that point, going through very good liberal arts college educations, and trying out different majors, like so many hats in a fine shop.  But now it was decision time, and when they asked me what my plan was, I said that I thought it would be nice to get a motorcycle as transportation to some temp job, until I could decide on a real career. 

This, wasn’t the son they recognized!  I had normally been hard working, earnest, and truly a son “without deceit,” much like the disciple Nathaniel.  But, I had lost my direction.  Though I was living at what had been my home my entire life, I had no idea what home meant any more!  I wanted to see the, “greater things than these,” that Jesus promised to Nathaniel, but needed a swift kick in the butt to get there! 

When Jesus is baptized, John the Baptist gives his disciples a swift kick in the back side!  “Here is the Lamb of God,” he told them when Jesus came by.  They leave home and become followers of Jesus, no motorcycle for them either, no place to lay their heads, practically penniless.  First Andrew follows, and then his brother Peter, the Rock on whom Jesus says he will build his church. 

The next day Jesus found Philip, who was from the same home-town as Peter and Andrew, and he called to him, “follow me.”  So Philip left home and became a disciple.  Three for three!  Jesus is building a team of committed followers.  Things are falling into place.  Philip then invites Nathaniel to join them – because they’ve found the one whom all of Israel’s been waiting for.  He just happens to hail from the little berg of Nazareth, down the road a piece.  Nathaniel blurts out, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  So Philip drags Nathaniel along rather reluctantly, and when Jesus sees him and pays him a compliment, identifying him as a standup, honest guy, with “no deceit in him,” Nathaniel, a bit too pridefully asks, “Where do you think you got to know me?” 

What happened to just following when Jesus calls?  Will he break the streak of 3 for 3?  But Nathaniel’s questions and his doubts also break through his calling story so that we learn more about both him, and Jesus.  Jesus is a visionary who sees the goodness of Nathaniel’s soul, “truly an Israelite without deceit,” but Jesus the miracle worker is not the be all and end all of his mission.  When Nathaniel suddenly confesses Jesus is the Son of God, and King of Israel, Jesus answered him, “Do you believe because I said I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than these,” he tells Nathaniel.  You will even see the dream of Jacob’s ladder between heaven and earth become a reality! 

Today, January 15, is the commemoration of Martin Luther King.  He would have been 83 today.  In his Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 Martin delivered a powerful argument for his non-violent civil disobedience, and with just a touch of tongue-in-cheek sermonizing, a message still relevant to us today.  It includes the now famous phrase: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  He went on to say, “we know from painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given up by the oppressor… Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” …but, “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”  And after detailing the daily humiliations endured by the African-American community, laced with personal examples, he asked with a bit of irony, but not a drop of pleading, to move beyond the waiting: “I hope,” he concluded, “you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.”   Four months later, from the Washington D.C. Mall, in his “I Have a Dream” speech, he would call this “the fierce urgency of now!” 

I am no expert on Dr. King.  I am not African-American, and have no personal experience of suffering as a minority.  But in the gift of faith given, I feel the call to be a disciple that we all have, to know what it is like to leave home and be focused on becoming a follower of Jesus, a divine demand that pulls us beyond  romanticism and takes us on a journey of transformation.  Martin, on his journey, went literally all the way to the cross.  How far are we capable of going? 

So, there is one thing that intrigues me today about Nathaniel.  When he asked Jesus, “Where [in the world] did you get to know me?”  And Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree [long] before Philip called you.”  No one is completely sure what in the world the fig tree means here!  But one good explanation I like is that it refers to 1 Kings – where the magnificence of King Solomon’s empire is lauded: vs. 25 says, “During Solomon's lifetime... Israel lived in safety, from Dan [the farthest northern part of the kingdom] even to Beersheba [the farthest point south], all of them under their vines and fig trees.”  This quote is picked up again in both the prophets Micah and Zechariah, where “living under the fig tree” becomes a kind of code word for the future hope of restoration for an Israel trying to find itself again, and go back home.  But it was taking that privilege of the good life under the fig tree for granted that was also at the root of Israel’s demise. 

So, Jesus is trying to pay him a compliment perhaps.  To live under the fig tree would mean to be a part of that promise of restoration about to come.  But Nathaniel, like all of us from time to time, confuses the romanticism of that good life with the real thing.  He’s kind of diggin’ the privilege of sitting under that bountiful fig tree.  And that’s when Jesus gives him his Letter from Birmingham Jail speech.  We are not at the mountain top yet, my followers!  The real journey is just beginning.  And the real wonder of Jesus’ ministry is yet to be revealed, when “heaven will be opened and you will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” 

Nathaniel would like to stay home and have this pretty vision without leaving the fig tree.  But Jes us calls him out!  There’s a “direct-action campaign” that lies ahead for Jesus’ disciples, and it entails carrying our own crosses, and confessing our own prejudice and privilege.  There is no pretty motorcycle to carry you there, but only the epiphany of the beautiful ascending and descending light of Christ which indeed blows our minds, and transforms our lives, like nothing else can.  Only together, are we truly enriched and “find” the kingdom of God, which is abundant life and joy and peace.  Until we all meet under the fig tree, no one can live under the fig tree!  Waiting there is not an option!  Jesus too long delayed, like justice, is Jesus denied!  Come and see!  

Leftover “Bethlehem 2000” merchandise lay dusty in the West Bank souvenir shops in January of 2005.  In the five years since the Pope’s visit to the Holy Land, the anticipated millennial year tourists had vanished, due to the worsening political climate and escalations of violence during the Intifada.  Bethlehem had been spiffed up for the arrival of the nations – the star was a symbol of this pilgrimage – but even now, after the shelling had ceased, the crowds were slim and the gift shops that were a large part of the economy, remained nearly deserted.

I bought a camel from a sad-eyed Palestinian boy in the streets. Then I bought a whole caravan – which was described as a lead donkey and three camels – this time from a thin man hawking them by our solitary tour bus.  We had been discouraged from “encouraging” these vendors by our tour guides, who understandably didn’t want to be distracted from leading us.  But it was hard to resist the pleas of fathers who spoke of hungry children at home.  It was hard not to notice the dust, disappointment and desperation.  It was hard not to connect with the hope that lit up these faces when we appeared.  Perhaps they’d have enough to eat tonight.  Perhaps tourism would pick up.  Perhaps Americans could do something.

Back home, we ended up giving the lead donkey to our godson Joey.  His younger brother Daniel got the sad-eyed-boy’s camel.  At bedtime, when we presented these far-away gifts to them, we talked about the Magi who followed the star, and their caravans – the single file pack animals banded together to cross the desert with spices and treasures.  In the morning, we noticed Joey had emptied his bookcase!  With the donkey proudly leading the pack, he’d lined up every animal in his room to form a eclectic caravan that switch-backed through the shelves.  Plastic horses, stuffed bears, wooden giraffe, a ceramic piggy bank, an onyx whale, all on an expectant, single-file, upward march, toward… something wonderful, surely. 

Today’s good news begins: “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?  For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage’.” 

So begins the Epiphany text we know so well!  But who really are the players?  Who are the leaders?  And who are the followers?  Sad to say, even our preferred NRSV translation fails us here!  Magi have been translated as “wise men.”  And worship, as in worshiping God alone, has been translated as, “come to pay him homage.”  I love the poetry here, but it somewhat misses the mark. 

There are wise men in this story, but it’s not the Magi who come from the East.  There is a king in this story, but Herod, whose title was: “King of the Jews”, who was a well known tyrant ruling Israel at the time, doing the bidding of Rome, wasn’t God’s anointed.  Herod thinks of himself as king, of course.  And so he is understandably “frightened,” as Matthew says, by the bold claim of the Magi, that a new king has been born!  Herod’s smart enough not to kill the messenger, and plots how to use them to get to his rival.  And so Herod consults the chief priests and scribes, literally the real wise men in this story, trained in theological interpretation of the scriptures and its Messiah’s and Kings, to play along with the Magi.  ‘The prophet Micah foretold of a ruler,’ his wise men report.  ‘A Shepherd-King, to be born in little Bethlehem, the city of David, just a few miles down the road.’ 

In our 1st Reading, Isaiah shouts for joy, “Arise, shine, for your light has come”!  The light of the star, lights the way to, the Star of Bethlehem, Jesus: little child, the Son of God, and Light of the World!  It seems like all the nations are in motion to find this gift!  Only, the wise men of Jerusalem, and King Herod, are content with the way things are, holding on tightly to their positions. 

These feast day texts set the stage for a Season of Epiphany that recognizes we are a people of God on the move.  And so Matthew’s gospel begins with this wonderful story of foreign nations, represented by the Magi, who come to worship the true Shepherd-King.  This gospel begins with the inclusion of, us, the Gentile nations.  Just like Israel had been, we too are a people on a journey; Diaspora is as fundamental to the Magi, as it is to the Abrahamic faiths.  In these days of global migration, as millions are displaced, does the church of Christ migrate, and when it comes time for resettlement, resettle?  How can we be more nimble and ready to mobilize?  Can we be those in waiting, as well as the caravan?

In my first call in Michigan, I considered it a high compliment to our congregation when Beth, who worshiped only occasionally, traveled to our church service because she felt welcome and alive there.  As an outdoors person, she described the feeling she had when coming up to our church doors.  It was as if she was on a hike in the woods, she said, and came upon an encampment of people along the trail!  They were gladdened that she had appeared, but not surprised to look up and see her.  They smiled as though they were expecting someone they didn’t know, and appreciated that she had gifts to bring.  They were happy to be camped together, and in that joy, shared a meal and whatever they had, with all who came along. 

That’s my favorite description of the feel of our communities of faith.  Provisional, like an encampment, with opportunities to gather and worship.  We look up, to see who’s coming, and in them, see God’s glory on the horizon.  Our assemblies ebb and flow, but has a core, a heart, and a hope in Jesus, our guiding star.  

For at our best, we, the church, are a sent people.  “All diasporas are different, and often difficult — but every diaspora also holds the possibility for us of leading new and transformed lives, filled with much hope.” (Francisco Lozada, The Bible as a Text in Cultures: Latinas/os, The People’s Bible, (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2009)

So, who’s leading and who’s following?  We follow the Magi, who followed the star – and don’t follow the wise men, the scribes, for the truth “will not be revealed to the wise and intelligent,” Jesus tells us.  But we also, like the Magi, become leaders and bring others to the manger, to worship the true King, the Christ-child, on bended knee, as servant-Magi, that we may give and receive, the peace and love of Christ.  We are a diaspora people.  We continue to follow the star, and we settle only for a time, there by the manger, encamping with other believers, before going out to find other followers once again.  

Here’s a good game.  I’ll bet you played this for New Year’ Eve last night!  The Garland game!?  It’s a popular old singing game, or at least it was in Germany in the middle-ages, probably played in the local pubs there at the time.  Young men would sing the garland refrain to the women, which went like this:

(Sung to the tune of 
Good news from far abroad I bring
Glad tidings for you all I sing,
I bring so much you’d like to know,
Much more than I shall tell you though.

And then they’d add a new verse, a riddle they made up, singing it to a young woman of their choosing.  If she couldn’t answer the riddle, she had to give her garland to the singer!  And around and around they’d go, taking turns singing and trying to solve the riddles, and exchanging the garlands around their necks.  It reminds me a bit of the old tradition of giving your college ring to your sweetheart, except the Garland Game is more gender-free than this American tradition. 

Anyway, Luther liked the tune of the song and used it, as he did with a number of popular Pub songs in his day, and made it into a hymn for church.  He wrote a whopping 14 verses, and he used the riddle format, you could say, in that, the name Jesus is not revealed finally until verse 12!  Today we sing it as our Hymn of the Day, but we won’t make you sing all 14 of the verses! 

Luther is credited with rewriting the music, and is the one we have printed in our hymnals.  It’s a catchy tune, and even Bach used it in his Christmas Oratorio, and at least seven other of his works. 

It’s not the kind of name-game we choose to play today.  But the melody is easy to learn, and the verses aren’t bad either, for the Christmas season! 

Names!  They have intrinsic meaning, as Paul Tillich, a great theologian of the 20th C. used to say.  Spoken words carry meaning within them so that they point to the thing which they represent.  For example, Jesus is the Logos, or word of God, as we learned last Sunday, reading from John’s Prologue.  Jesus was “with God” in the beginning, and indeed “was God,” the word of God, which is exactly how creation came into being in the Genesis story.  God spoke, and it was. 

In our gospel reading, the new born child, only a week old, is gathered up by his parents from his manger in Bethlehem for his first journey just up the road a piece, to the Temple in Jerusalem.  “After eight days had passed,” Luke tells us, “it was time to circumcise the child.”  A, matter-of-fact bit of information!  But also a reminder that Mary and Joseph were fulfilling the equivalent of the baptismal requirements of the day, and that Jesus was brought up according to the Jewish laws that all children were.  “And [on this day] he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel…” 

Normally a first born son would be given the name of the father.  We already saw this come up in Luke’s story in the naming of John the Baptist.  There was a controversy over his christening!  Should he be named from heaven above, or from the culture below?  When Elizabeth and Zechariah brought him to the temple on the eighth day, and when the priests were about to name him Zechariah, Elizabeth said “no,” the angel told us, “he is to be called John”.  But they didn’t believe her, and went running to Zechariah, who was still struck dumb by angel Gabriel, unable to speak – and he had to write it on a chalk board, and show it to the priests: “his name is John.”  And immediately Zechariah’s “mouth was opened and his tongue freed” to speak again.  Names are important! 

Just so, Jesus was named, not after his father Joseph, but was given a name from heaven above, “given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb,” the name Jesus, which means, God saves.  So, the Jesus story contains a double whammy!  First of all, at least from the perspective of the culture around him, Jesus is not named in the tradition of his family, raising more questions, no doubt, about his unwed parents.  And secondly, this child born in a manger, a feeding trough, is to be called: God saves?  Really?!  A bit presumptuous, don’t you think? 

The date of this feast day has shifted back and forth over the years.  In the fourth century, when Christian pilgrims kept coming to Rome on January 1st, St Augustine greeted them one year, and is reported to have said, “I see you have come here as if we had a feast today!”  And sure enough, as Christians were want to do in those days, they transformed the pagan celebration, in this case New Year’s, a time of widespread license and wild debauchery, and turned it into a Christian holy day.  At first, to offset the pagan partying, it was more like a Lenten day of fasting and solemnity.  Augustine said in his sermon that day, “During these days when they revel, we observe a fast in order to pray for them.” 

But as times changed, so did the commemoration day.  By the 7th C. Pope Boniface called it “The Octave of the Lord,” like the eight days of the Easter Feast, and it became a joyous and celebrative festival. 

And eventually, calling today, the Name of Jesus has come to win out over, the Circumcision of Jesus.  The Jewish tradition was to combine both together, of course, but the gospel emphasizes the naming of Jesus, and made circumcision optional.   

As Jesus grew, he received many different titles, in an attempt to define all that he was and is:  Son of God, Son of Man, Emmanuel, Christ, Prophet, Rabbi, High Priest, Name above every Name, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, Light of the World, and Bread of Life, among others.  But none was more apt than Jesus, meaning, God saves. 

Jesus is both a riddle and the most well known name there is.  From heaven above he comes, though he’s born of a woman, here below.  He is savior of the world, but he also empties himself taking on our sins.  He is innocent, a man peace, but he dies a criminals’ death.  He was a poor wandering teacher with no where to lay his head, but he debated the scholars of his day and was raised up by God as our king.  He holds both heaven and earth together in one miraculous whole, a riddle we struggle to apprehend.  But as every Sunday School child knows, the answer is always the same: it’s, The Name of Jesus, “the name given by the angel, before he was conceived [in the womb].”  

Part of the magic of Christmas morning when you are young is the not knowing what to expect.  There is great anticipation for the surprise of the presents under the tree.  What will be inside the wrapping paper you’re just dying to rip off?  The world is a very large place at that age, and Christmas confirms that there is something bigger than yourself in the world that is wonderful and exciting. 

One of the gifts of this season, for the rest of us who are past the childhood stage of Christmas, is the gift of the end of the Iraq war and return of its soldiers.  Though such a controversial war is hard to celebrate, still it is a relief to see families reunited, joined to one another in hugs and kisses, and tears of joy.  Let’s hope the gifts they unwrap this year will be surprisingly wonderful and full of life.  For some, of course, there are certain to be difficulties down the road.  Re-integrating into civilian life will include a wide range of successes and failures. 

A soldier from the war that NPR has followed for some years, Josh Apsey, who at 19 was still a teenager when he enlisted, is now home from Afghanistan once again.  He said he was very idealistic when he first went, excited to be part of something bigger than himself, and, to face the evil that brought down the twin towers.  But by his second tour of duty, he lost that romanticism, and his major motivation became survival.  Between those two tours, he was promoted and put in charge of other Marines, and that responsibility also weighed on him, and he became attuned to the dangers that threatened all their lives.  And then, getting married state-side, he began to appreciate that this was a job that could bring home a paycheck. 

And so when that 2nd tour finished, everyone noticed, Josh was a changed person when he came back – his wife, his parents, and even himself.  Josh feels lucky that since he returned, he’s working at Quantico, Virginia, training other Marines.  And, he bought a house in the country where he lives with his wife and two dogs.  But he’s not the same.  "Sometimes I just feel like I'm a robot,” Josh told NPR.  “I'm just going through all the motions but I'm not mentally and emotionally there,” he confessed.  And Josh says he’s noticed that he's lost the ability to care.  I don’t feel like I’m part of anything bigger than myself.  I used to feel like I made a difference. 

After worship last night I visited briefly with the Hamen’s about their Christmas plans for today.  Their two grandsons from Madison were coming for a traditional Christmas at grandma and grandpa’s house, and I teased them a bit about not spoiling them.  But the fact is, there’s something wonderful about experiencing Christmas through the wide-eyed excitement of children. 

For those of us still seeking the wonder and joy of Christmas, even though we’re past that wide-eyed excitement of childhood, where do we turn?  Well, today we turn the page from Luke’s gospel to John.  We move on from the innocence of Luke’s story of the child born in a manger, surrounded by Shepherds and angels, cattle and donkeys, and we read this morning from John chapter 1, the Prologue of his gospel.  And unwrapping John is a surprise and a delight in another way.  Inside is the gift of the incarnation again, but packaged now as a more complex and rich gift for adults, a theological and poetic masterpiece. 

Like re-opening the book of Genesis, and starting all over again in the creation story, we discover that Jesus was with God “in the beginning,” and indeed without Jesus nothing could have been created.  Jesus the human, is divine too, and “not one thing came into being” without him.  Jesus is the Logos, the Word.  Just as when God spoke and things came into being each of the six days of creation, so Jesus is the word God speaks when life is created out of nothing – light from darkness, land from water, plants and animals, and so on.  And the “life” that Jesus brings, is “the light of all people.”  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  And so, Jesus is our sun and moon, a bright shining star, that leads the way! 

Instead of little Jesus in the manger, his humble parents Mary and Joseph, the cloistered and somewhat chaotic chorus of the animals and angels, John’s Prologue waxes boldly of a universe spoken into existence by Jesus, the Word of God, created for us “who received him.”  And believing, having faith in him, he gives to us the gift of life, new and abundant life, a gift we are still unwrapping and newly delighted with.  Now we too are the chosen people. 

This is a gift for your “second tour of duty,” in this life.  One to help you see and believe that there truly is something bigger than yourself, something to enable you to care again, to hope and love again.  Here is a God that gifts us, with a surprise that we can’t wait to rip the wrapping paper off! 

And receiving it, we know we can make a difference again – make a difference here in this world, which we see through our all too old eyes that have experienced – the loss of loved ones, the disappointment of separations, the hurt of addictions, the insensitivity and hate of discrimination and injustice, wars, poverty and natural disasters.  Yet it is here, it is precisely here, that Jesus empowers us to be agents of grace and truth.  God is an incarnational God, and God can work in and through us, even though we don’t feel up to, or feel worthy, of it.  Something bigger than us has come very close to us, has shown us favor and loves us, and gives us permission to “make a difference in the world”. 

Where will you make a difference in the world in the coming year?  Do you know that experience in your life?  Or are you still seeking that deeper, richer meaning?  Where will we, as Unity Lutheran Church, make a difference in the world this coming year? 

Some of us have done tours of duty beyond what we ever imagined, and we might like to hang it up!  But the one who is bigger than ourselves does not let us go.  The little new born child in Bethlehem, is also the Logos, the Word who is with God, and who is God, and who has chosen us.  Jesus lights up our lives whenever we open our eyes to this miracle. 

As John’s Prologue says: “And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”  

The angels announce the joy and peace of a new born king, a savior, who is coming to occupy his rightful place in the world.  It took place in Israel, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, under Emperor Augustus.  Only- the emperor has no clue it’s taking place right under his nose!  How is it, if it is true, that the 1% can be so impotent to the blessings born into the world of the 99%? 

“This will be a sign for you,” the angel tells the frightened shepherds.  “You will find the child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in [a feeding trough, called,] a manger.” 

Out in the shepherd’s fields the angel is suddenly joined by a heavenly host of angels, and, beaming down in the wilderness, the glory of the Lord shone around them.  In that enlightened moment, the Shepherds, and even the sheep, are more aware of God’s presence – and present to the world – than Augustus is!  Jesus will occupy the whole world, animal kingdom and all, everyone and everything. 

For Jesus is not king like the rulers in Rome.  Jesus will rescue even one sheep who strays away from the 99, so that none are lost.  Jesus is born with the 99%.  Why would… Emperor Augustus, or Governor Quirinius, be aware of a child born in a manger in Bethlehem?  Who cares? 

The handlers, and campaign managers, the Vice-Presidents of Development and Public Relations, working day and night to keep Augustus, or, Wall Street for that matter, happy and in power, were not looking in backwaters like Bethlehem for the next contender or politico, the next protestor or prophet.  The shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night” weren’t on their list of contributors that they kept in their breast-pocket, just on their list of outcasts: poor, unwashed, dreamers. 

So, feathering their own nests and hob-knobbing with the rich and famous, they missed the chorus: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among people of divine favor.”  Dreamers!  Likely story!  Yet Jesus was born, occupying his rightful place in the world – a manger. 

Occupy Wall Street came into our lives this Fall.  Born of some illegitimate step parent, occupying a city park that turned out to be private property.  And yet, in the beginning, no one noticed as they slept there.  Banging their drums by daylight, the 1% barely batted an eye.  Unwashed, unemployed, dreamers!  But quickly the slogan, ‘we are the 99%,’ began to catch on, all across the country.  People recognized that something had been born into our world: a hope, an answered prayer, an understanding that things have gotten enough out of control, and needed to be put right again.  A gift had been unwrapped, beyond politics, and certainly beyond politicians.  There is a 1% that’s taken control of more and more of democracy’s decisions, and they don’t seem to care who we are, or what our lives are like. 

It may be hard for anyone, including us Christmas worshipers, to love the shepherds.  But their message, when it comes from a heavenly host, cannot be denied: after seeing the child lying in the manger, “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God” and “they made known what had been told them” and what they saw with their own eyes, “about this child.” 

It’s the message, not the messenger!  Jesus came as an outcast, born of a virgin, an unwed mother, born in a feeding trough, a manger, surrounded by an entourage of lowly shepherds.  Jesus remained poor, unwelcome by those learned scholars he regularly outwitted, and the priests he eagerly spoke the truth to about their hypocrisy.  Jesus was called a friend of sinners and tax collectors.  He was a stumbling block to insiders, the stone the builders rejected. 

Yet, we love this story!  We welcome the message of Jesus love, and ponder it in our hearts!  Jesus came to occupy the whole world, not by force, as kings do to countries, not by the nepotism of religious privilege as priests do, or by the economic exclusion of financial systems as the 1% have.  Jesus came to occupy a manger as an innocent baby, to be baptized in a river by John and anointed with the Holy Spirit, to be led out into the desert, standing up for us to the forces of evil, to heal and make whole the lowly, the 99, and to be lifted triumphantly on the cross for our salvation, obedient to God, who lifted him up from the grave. 

Jesus’ occupation has many Titles: Savior, Prince of Peace, Healer, Wonderful Counselor, Deliverer, the Bread of Life, Redeemer, the King of kings.  He comes to occupy his rightful place in our world – to occupy our lives and our spirits with his Holy Spirit. 

We love this story!  And with the outcast shepherds, and all the 99%, God sends us out again to live our lives as a people, occupied by the Messiah, the Lord, with joy and thanksgiving.  

The days were short and overcast; the nights long and dark.  The long awaited savior-king was hidden in plain sight, tucked safely away, far from royal palaces and jealous emperors.  The world hoped for deliverance from the darkening days of December, daring to anticipate new life, and perhaps even a rescue for an occupied people.  God had promised.  And now faith hoped for the unseen to appear. 

The plan was basically to turn the world upside down with a little innocent baby.  Luke’s picture of God begins by lifting up the lowly, choosing a maiden as mother of our LORD, naming her, ‘most highly favored lady.’  She was engaged to a great guy, they hadn’t even lived together yet, and still she was to give birth, because the “Most High” God would provide the seed.  It was to happen quietly, in the little town of Bethlehem, the city of David, in the shadows of Jerusalem.  The royal greeting party would be poor disdainful shepherds, not princes, but perhaps ancestors of David, who himself had roamed those same Shepherds Field’s centuries earlier.  The holy couple barely made it in time, traveling a long distance from Nazareth – there should have been a sign there, “Emergency Parking Only,” for the last available spot the pulled into.  Mary would lay the new-born king in a manger, a rough hewn feeding trough for barnyard animals, so that, in addition to the coarse and cursing shepherds, even the donkeys, camels and sheep would testify to creations’ redemption by the Prince of Peace. 

This, is the gospel good news – and, a story no publisher would touch for decades!  This was a crazy mixed-up, upside-down story!  It took a community of faith, not the usual chosen ones, to get it. 

Mary herself was unconvinced at first, confused really, since she was a virgin.  The why, the how, the where and when, none of it, could really be explained.  But then neither could the pregnancy of cousin Elizabeth, who, well past menopause now, was 6 months pregnant.  And the angel Gabriel would only tell Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy, he will be called Son of God.  …For nothing will be impossible with God.” 

So why did God choose to come into the world in this way?  Was God some kind of rabble rouser?  Did God want to change things up just for the sake of change?  Why not come as a real King, like Emperor Augustus?  Or be born in the Temple or in Rome, instead of in a manger, surrounded by the livestock of poor laborers?  Why come to a virgin not yet married, and to her guy no one knew, living far from the house of David, who himself was trying to make it as a carpenter?  Why?

Last week, as I passed by the “Our Lady of the Underpass” shrine driving home in the steady rain, I could see a woman kissing the concrete wall.  Her two teenaged sons stood on either side of her.  She must have been very devout, or perhaps there was a service of some kind?  I haven’t seen that many flowers in a while!  Maybe there had been a Los Posadas gathering?  I go by from time to time, but not usually so late, or after dark.  But the lights, twinkling from many Guadalupe candles that grey December evening, were attractive and warmed the spot of much devotion amidst the cold concrete of its surroundings. 

The apparition of Mary first appeared in 2005 at this Fullerton Avenue underpass of the Kennedy expressway, a perfect image of the praying icon of the Mother of Our Lord!  Though others saw the Virgin of Guadalupe, or thought it was connected with the election of the new pope at that time.  A sign next to the image reads: “Emergency Parking Only!”  It’s a site reserved for crash investigations – and, now also for appearances of the holy family!  Except for those bouquets of flowers and twinkling lights, it is not a pretty place, by any standard.  It’s also a regular corner for panhandlers, as cars coming off the freeway wait forever for the stop light to change.  And homeless beds, made of sleeping bags or blankets, regularly come and go. 

“Our Lady of the Underpass” describes both a well revered shrine for the ardent faithful, and a tongue-in-cheek moniker for a pointless dripping on a public industrial wall, created, most likely, by an abundant use of salt one snowy winter.  Perhaps just another reminder of the polarized society we live in? 

Yet, like the church itself, it’s not the permanent shrine that we worship.  The church is the gathered assembly of the people who understand that God can and does take human form, and by the Spirit, calls us to common purpose.  God lives and breathes through faithful believers.  It is the people who are the church, the shrines come and go. 

Why would God choose to come into the world in this way?  Why would God send an angel to announce the birth of the Messiah to Mary, or draw a salty image of her on the Fullerton underpass?  Why would God choose a virgin, an unwed mother, in an out the way village, to be the God-bearer?  And why would God choose to appear in a dirty, noisy accident investigation site with the panhandlers and homeless, next to a sign, “Emergency Parking Only?” 

Perhaps there is a little bit of the rabble rouser in God!  Not to promote change just for the sake of change, of course, but in order to announce restoration to the poor, to bring healing to the sick, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and lift up the lowly and disdained.  To make ordinary and lowly people into favored and royal people, and to empower us to be God’s hands and feet, and souls, in the world. 

The urge to build shrines goes at least as far back as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who built altars to the living sovereign God upon first entering the Holy Land at Shechem, Hebron, Jerusalem and many other locations still revered today.  Who knows how long “Our Lady of the Underpass” will endure, but it is not surprising that God would choose to appear there or that thousands would flock there to pray, give thanks, and hope for God to act in their own lives, to be lifted up and raised to new life.   

I suppose in a way that is our prayer in Advent, that God would come and rescue us – our lives, our lost society, our greed and entitlement, our sorrows which seem out of control and un-listened too – that our prayer is that sign, Come into our world and into our lives, Lord Jesus, right here next to us!  Here, we have put up a sign, “Emergency Parking Only” reserved for you, the God for whom “nothing is impossible.”  

_Out of all the candidates in all the debates, after every pundit had written him off, John the Baptist, had suddenly surged, and was leading the polls in the race for Messiah.  Most of the candidates had taken turns leading the pack at one time or another, while the man from Galilee stayed steady, waiting.  They didn’t know yet that John had made a backroom deal with cousin Jesus, to become the Anointed One, and that John would soon throw all his weight behind him. 

 

So John called a press conference on his home turf, the banks of the River Jordan.  It was down near the wilderness where the Israelites first entered the Promised Land.  Moses had passed the torch there to his protégé Joshua.  All John’s followers gathered, along with the Press Corp and the lawyers of every candidate, of the priests and Levites.  John felt more like Moses than Joshua, understanding at last that his ministry of baptism was preparing the way for the Anointed One.  So John, “a man sent from God” all agreed, to be as clear as possible, called a press conference, as the national campaign for new leadership was in full swing.  And so the writers and reporters from Jerusalem trudged all the way down from the capital, over to John’s open air headquarters on the Jordan River.  And he was a good speaker.  Electric!  He could draw a crowd.  John had modified his stump speech.  He was “a witness to the light.”  “He himself was not the light,” but “he came to speak about” that one, and point to him. 

 

This was an audience that could help get the message out, he felt, and help him clearly point to his successor.  There is one “who is much greater than I, who is coming.”  It’s not about me, John told them, but “so that [you] all might believe”. 

 

But the very first question was, “Who are you?”  You’re the One, aren’t you!  John took a deep breathe, realizing this was not going to go well.  I know what you’re trying to ask, you want to know if I’m the Messiah, the anointed one.  So let me say this as clearly as I can, “I am not the Messiah.”  I am here to baptize with water, to cleanse people in preparation for the Messiah to come.  Think of this river as one big giant Mikvah, like the purifying baths you use in Jerusalem in preparation for going to Temple, except this is a font for the whole people of Israel, to get ready together.  I’m preparing the way, that’s all, for a new recreated Israel, a new Temple, a new Joshua, Jesus of Nazareth!  He will lead you on the right path. 

 

Okay, let’s try another question.  You there from the Jerusalem Times, go ahead.  “Mr. Baptizer, if you’re not the Messiah, are you Elijah?”  Okay, listen, “I am not Elijah,” John said.  You know very well that Elijah’s return would be the same as admitting I was the Messiah.  I am not! 

 

But the whole press corps was in an uproar, “Well then, who are you?  What’re we going to tell everyone back at the Capital?”  Tell us something about yourself we can print, preferably something juicy! 

 

Okay, write this down, said John, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”   The press corps was atwitter now: isn’t that a direct quote from “the prophet Isaiah”?    I thought he said he wasn’t a prophet?  But we could definitely spin a story with that. 

 

Today, there are many Biblical Scholars who think John was, at one time, every bit the ‘player’ Jesus was.  He probably had Messianic pretensions of his own.  He had a large following.  His ministry of baptism was his signature, his campaign platform.  But after being arrested, and shortly thereafter beheaded in prison, is likely when he was written into the story of Jesus who had an even greater following.  John’s execution came to foreshadow Jesus’ own, but the postscript and heavenly crowning, which confirmed Jesus’ anointing as Messiah, was totally unlike John, or any other candidate, in that time, or since, a resurrection as the first-fruits of the dead, bringing light and life to all.  John’s ministry of baptism prepared the way, and pointed to the true Light, “the light shining in the darkness,” the “Light of the world.” 

 

‘Listen,’ said John, if you guys don’t want to get baptized, that’s up to you.  But I can tell this, “among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  Believe me, you’re going to be doing a lot more interviews with him, in Galilee and Jerusalem! 

 

At the Nazareth Lutheran Church in St. John, V.I., where I was last Sunday, Pastor Carlyle Sampson entered the ambo, to preach from Mark’s gospel about John the Baptist.  His modest open air church a block from the banks of Cruz Bay was full.  The people, rich and poor, native born, tourists and other resident main-landers, listened with rapt attention.  Now, I have to tell you, Kim and I heard him preach last year when we were there, and we introduced ourselves as fellow pastors in the Lutheran Church.  So when he called us this past winter from the Lutheran Center here in Chicago, we were happy to join him for dinner and get to know him and his ministry a little better.  Speaking from first hand knowledge, I can tell you Carlyle Sampson is nothing if not a fiercely simple and upright man, a model of humbleness.  And so when Pastor Sampson described the straight forward and humble ways of John the Baptist last Sunday, how he lived in the desert and single-mindedly was preparing the way for Jesus, I felt he could have been describing himself, and that he knew of what he spoke.  Pastor Sampson wants nothing more than to point to the true light, the one who is coming, the one we all want to meet, who we all crave to know, and have found in some way to be the answer to our deepest questions, and who is the salvation and healing for all our longings in this life, for he is the anointed king, the one who’s the redeemer of our lives. 

 

“I baptize you with water,” said John to the Press Corps, as you wait with anticipation for the Messiah.  But do you know he is “standing among you” already!  Why are you coming here to listen to me if you’re not going to get baptized?  If you will not be baptized with water, surely you won’t be able to be baptized with the Holy Spirit! 

 

Who am I, is not the right question, says John.  Who is the Son of God, where is he, and what is he up to now?  That’s what you should be asking.  “He was sent to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor…,” a jubilee year, as the prophet Isaiah said!  

 

Like John, our mission is to be voices and pointers to the anointed Messiah too.  We point to the Jesus born in a manger to undocumented, unwed parents, as the savior king.  We point to Jesus, friend of tax collectors and sinners, healer of the outcast, the marginalized and scapegoat-ed.  When we are pointers and voices to the gospel, we are re-created and chosen to be a community and support each other in this ministry.  We don’t have to be the Savior, but we are ‘elected’ none-the-less, to be witnesses, who point to him. 

 

Call a press conference; alert the media, for, He is coming soon!  Christ the new born king is coming soon.