Several years ago I first saw a small sign in the very busy office of one very efficient office assistant. Her job was to track each student’s academic and financial paths on their journey through the labyrinth known as seminary…and she did it well. With her droll sense of humor, this woman managed files, talked to loan agencies, navigated the tender self-esteem of new students, and kept a faculty of Ph.D.’s working more or less collegially. Not a small feat! I remember walking into her office one day and seeing the sign…on a little white card, with stark black lettering that made it stand out from the other numerous wall decos, read the words, “Look busy…Jesus is coming.”
It is all-too-tempting to take this advice at face value…especially during Advent and Christmas. Tempting, is it not, to assume that busy-ness is our ticket to ride that heavenly express with the newborn child? Tempting to believe that Jesus will nod his head approvingly, proudly even, as we add one more party, one more parade, one more thing checked off the already long list of things that absolutely must be accomplished. Look busy…Jesus is coming.
As we read and reflect on today’s two scripture passages, the temptation to busyness deepens. The prophet Isaiah—third in a line that spans some 200 years of prophetic messages passionately delivered to Judah in general and to Jerusalem in particular—states what have become familiar Jesus-words to us Christians… “The Spirit of God is upon me, because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, release to the prisoners, liberty to the captives, to proclaim the year of God’s favor, to comfort all who mourn…” Isaiah continues: those released, those comforted, those hearers of the good news, shall become like a small forest of strong oaks, called by the name of “righteousness.” They shall be dedicated to planting, to building up what has been destroyed, and to repairing what has been ruined. That’s a lot of work! That’s a ton of busyness! For these workers are none other than those who, a generation before, were carted off to exile in Babylon. Snatched from homes and bereft of meaningful rituals, these exiles to whom Isaiah is speaking have now returned home and are trying in vain to rebuild and to restore their forever-lost lives.
With very little effort, we can imagine them filling their days with frantic activity. Shall we start with the crumbling infrastructure, or reestablish temple ritual? Shall we redesign schools and recruit teachers, or make sure our defenses are secure? Rebuilding a nation destroyed from within, after all, is a monumental effort, and it is oftentimes difficult to know where to start. Busyness, at the least, provides the people some security that something is getting done! Look busy…after all, Jesus is coming.
Quite literally…says John the Baptizer in today’s passage from the fourth gospel. This is an intriguing passage to read during this time of Advent, this season of preparation for the very coming of the Christ Child to a manger near you. For here, in John’s gospel, there are no stars beaming brightly; no angel visitors; no wise men or Herods or shepherds; no Mary or Joseph looking forlorn at the door of the overflowing inn. In this gospel there is not even a baby. Here, by the end of the first century of the Common Era, when this Jesus story was written, none of these birth narratives were considered important enough to include. Here, we encounter Jesus all grown up, and before him, his cousin, John, equally a grown up man.
And what we hear John saying as he stands in the middle of the Jordan River is quite plain, “Look busy, Jesus is coming…” Yet John’s notion of busyness is 180 degrees from what we have incorporated into our lives. John’s busyness is not the frantic action of unaccomplished tasks. John’s busyness is less focused on the micro of the moment, and more attuned to the macro of the season. The busyness of which Baptizing John speaks is, in fact, a mirror image of Isaiah’s earlier words…and it boils down to this, “clean up your culture…” “Re-form your society…” “Look up and around and, most especially, look within…for Jesus is surely coming.” As the punchline to the old joke goes, “God’s about to appear, and She is not one bit happy…!”
Yes, John the Baptizer is busy here at the banks of the Jordan River, busy changing paradigms so that they coincide more accurately with those established hundreds of years earlier by the Prophet Isaiah. The more I reflected on these two passages, the more parallels seemed to emerge with our current national context. No, I am not suggesting that we, like the ancient Israelites, have been in exile for a generation. Nor am I thinking we need a good dose of church/state theocracy to mend our ills. But I do wonder as I wander through these intriguing passages, what are we citizens of God’s realm who also happen to be citizens of this nation, what are we to do?
When looking to these passages as guides on our own spiritual journeys, it is all-too-tempting to assume that we are to be the liberators, we are to be the good news bringers, and we are to turn the keys in those prison cages to set the captives free. It is all-too-tempting to imagine that we are to be that voice crying in the wilderness, imploring those around us to straighten up and fly right. But look closer, friends. Those tasks are not ours to do. In both Isaiah and in John, we are the crowd, not the liberator. We are the masses, the oaks of righteousness (to use Isaiah’s poetic language). This designation does not mean that we are without purpose. Isaiah assures us that we are the ones, who, as a group, are commissioned to build up the ancient ruins and to raise up the former devastations and to repair the cities ruined by the actions of many generations. We are the ones, who according to John the Baptizer, are to follow the Christ, not be the Christ.
As a relevant aside, reading through our annual covenants this past week, has shown me that, we in this congregation see our congregation with increasing congruency. Like our founders before us, we share a deep gratitude for the values of justice, learning, growth, and acceptance and honoring of diversity. Ours is a vibrant community that expects and applauds spiritual growth. Our covenants for 2009 reveal among us a high level of commitment to volunteering, and a creative list of new areas for thoughtful and fun ministry, including having an equality task group, a pastor’s cabinet, an “Out and About” socializing group, a congregation-wide sacred conversation on race, and a visioning committee to help us manage our continued growth in numbers and in spirit. There is, in the covenants, and to my delight, a growing consistency among us to describe this congregation as a loving family of traveling pilgrims. Who we are and who we are not—as revealed in our annual covenants and within these two Advent passages we’ve heard this morning—could not be clearer. Knowing our identity in this Advent season will, I believe, assist us in clarifying our tasks and negotiating our own busyness.
Two weeks ago, John and I received our first of the season holiday card. That distinction nearly always belongs to the same person—an old friend from my early ministerial days. Rev. Ruth Kinsey and I met while we were serving as Associate Ministers in Whittier—she at the Quaker Meeting House and I at the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We became fast friends. Her annual holiday letter marks, for me, the season really is upon us!
This year’s letter from Ruth included a newsletter article that she had written just after the national election last month. Her words help illumine and deepen our understanding of who we are and what we are to do. Ruth writes,
“I watched on election night as thousands of people gathered in Grant Park in Chicago. As I watched my mind kept turning back 40 years to the summer of 1968. That summer I sat in my parents’ living room watching the National Democratic Convention in Chicago. We watched as we saw what was happening inside the convention hall. Then [the cameras] would take us outside to see what was happening in Grant Park and the streets [surrounding it]. There were thousands of young people about my age who had come to Chicago to witness and demonstrate for peace…As my parents and I watched the TV we saw police in riot gear attacking the peace demonstrators, beating them on their heads and torsos with batons. It was a seminal moment for me…1968 was a painful year in many ways. It was the year that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. It was the year that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. It was the year of the race riots in Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and other places. America seemed to be in flames.
“Now, 40 years later, here are thousands of people gathering in the same Grant Park that was the place of those peace demonstrations. Only now, the people were coming together [with] tears of joy. In awe at what America had accomplished. Through the democratic process a person of color had been elected president of the United States.
“According to scripture,” Ruth continues, “40 years is a generation. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for a generation. They wandered for 40 years. It is a generation since those police in riot gear attacked the peace demonstrators. It is a generation since that summer of the race riots. It is a generation since people of color were truly given a voice. And today the president-elect is a person of color. Look what can happen in a generation.
“With all the challenges that face us in these days, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic meltdown, the problems of hunger throughout the world…and more, I feel a great sense of hope for the future. A lot can change,” my friend Ruth concludes, “a lot can change in a generation.”
That “macro view” of our tasks is one I find immensely hopeful and helpful. Both Isaiah the Prophet and John the Baptizer implore us to see ourselves as moving our society ever closer to God’s justice and God’s righteousness. This is not a task to be completed in a season, but in a generation, for it takes all of us working together over the long haul to bring this kingdom to reality. In this picture of holiday busyness, there are no saviors needed, save the One who has already been born among us. So lighten up, the world is not on your shoulders any more than it is solely resting on mine. Lighten up and turn around; there is work awaiting us that needs us all for its completion; work that will rebuild and restore and repair and Jesus would not miss it for the world… Looking busy, friends, yes, we are!
