Streams of Living Water: The Social Justice Stream
Rev. Nancy Gowler Johnson
Puyallup First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

December 17, 2006
 

We are in the midst of a great time of anticipation

• For children
  • 8 days until Christmas
  • So much excitement and anticipation… presents
  • Family… food… celebrations galore…
• For adults
  • Shopping lists
  • Cookies still to bake
  • Wrapping to do
• Worries for businesses
  • Was Black Friday big enough?
  • Controversies over Blue Laws in South Carolina conflicting with all those last minute Christmas Eve shoppers.

In the midst of all the tinsel and the twinkling lights, and it seems everywhere around us the sounds of “Have a holly, jolly Christmas” are playing… the church comes together and listens to the strange, rough voice of John the Baptist.

He appears out in the wilderness… dressed in a cloak of camel hair… fasting in the desert… eating locusts and honey.  A strange sight to behold.  “Jesus is for Christmas," a preacher once said, "but Advent belongs to John the Baptist."[i] And you can't serve locust and wild honey at a Christmas party.

It seems a bunch of religious folk had followed this wild man, John out into the wilderness, to the river Jordan, to watch the show - to hear him preach and to see the people dunked under the mighty river.

John looks at the crowds pressing in around him, and shouts out, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

And a Merry Christmas to you too, John.

The crazed prophet doesn’t mince words.  He looks at the crowds, and summons up his scariest voice, “You’d better get ready.  And it’s not because Santa Claus is coming to town. Time is short.  You can’t trust in the old ways anymore…

Repent… and receive a baptism of forgiveness.”

Repent… the Greek word metanoia, means a complete turning around; not merely an emotional feeling sorry for doing something wrong, but a change of life.  “Repent,” John says, “Stop what you’re doing and turn around now.  Don’t wait another moment.  Can’t you see the axe is at the root of the tree?  And everything that is not bearing fruit will be thrown into the fire.”

Several years ago, President Bill Clinton was speaking at a prayer breakfast when he said, “I don't think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned."  And then he read from a book called Gates of Repentance. 

Clinton read this passage from the book: "Now is the time for turning.  The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange.  The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south.  The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter.  For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively.  But for us, turning does not come so easily.  It takes an act of will for us to make a turn.  It means breaking old habits.  It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy.  It means losing face.  It means starting all over again.  And this is always painful.  It means saying I am sorry.  It means recognizing that we have the ability to change.  These things are terribly hard to do.  But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday's ways."[ii]

The people take John’s words of warning to heart.  Someone in the crowd yells out, “What then should we do?”

They recognized that the repentance John calls us to is no mere changing of one’s mind.  What John is asking for is nothing less than a new way of living.

“What then shall we do?” they asked John.

John’s answers are practical, to the point.  “He who has two coats, let him share. …He who has food, let him do likewise.’’ Not, pray more, fast more, sing more, come to worship on Sundays… but share what you have…

John gives the crowd tangible ways of living.  To the tax collectors gathered there, he says, “Be a good and fair collector, take no more than what is required by law.”  Don’t cheat, don’t extort, do your job and do it well.”

And to the soldiers in the crowd, John doesn’t demand that they put down their swords, rather he tells them, “Be satisfied with your wages.  Don’t use your power and influence to steal from others.”

For John the Baptist, true repentance is seen in the lives of the people, lives forever changed.  “Live good and upright lives,” John says, “Be satisfied with what you have and share, share with those who are in need.”

That is true repentance.

Part of John’s instructions involves open your eyes to the world…According to one study a few years ago, if the entire world’s population were reduced to a village of 100 people, this is what life in that village would be like:

• 57 inhabitants would be Asian, 21 European, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, and 8 African
• 70 would be people of color, 30 Caucasian
• 70 non-Christian, 30 Christian
• Half of all the wealth would be in the hands of 6 people and all 6 would live in the United States
• 70 would be illiterate, 30 literate
• 50 would suffer from severe malnutrition
• 80 would live in sub-standard housing
• only one person would have a college or university degree
• no one would have a computer (The percentage of people who have a computer is so low that it doesn’t even equal half of 1 percent of the world’s population.)[iii]

It’s at this point that someone in the crowd yells out, “What then should we do?”

John Bell in a poignant prayer for the Book of Common Prayer puts it this way.  “Here is a gaping sore, Lord: half the world diets, the other half hungers; half the world is housed, the other half homeless; half the world pursues profit, the other half senses loss. Redeem our souls, redeem our peoples, redeem our times. Amen.”[iv]

Our spiritual tradition this Sunday is the Social Justice stream.  Too often we think of those involved with issues of social justice as only a select few:  Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mother Teresa, and in our time Bono.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, the word of God came. When Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, the word of God came.

When Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, And Lysanias ruler of Abilene, the word of God came.

During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came.

It came not to the great Tiberius, son of Augustus, divine ruler of the Roman Empire in the power centers of Rome.

It did not come to Pilate busy keeping the peace between the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman occupiers in Jerusalem,

The word of God did not come to the Herod brothers, sons of Herod the Great up in Galilee, or even to Lysanias down in Abilene - not Kansas - but Lebanon, now known to us as Bekka Valley a flat, dry land with over 240 days of sun a year, boasting prize-winning vineyards near the Syrian border.

The word of God bypassed the religious leaders Annas and Caiaphas busy dealing in the backrooms with the Roman occupiers.

In the midst of all of this human power, political, economic, and religious power - with all of its trappings and its political intrigues, the word of God came.  Not to Rome, not even to Jerusalem.

Instead the word of God came down into the world to a lonely prophet wandering about in the wilderness.

As we think of John the Baptist, we see that all of us are called to be advocates for God’s justice in real and tangible ways.

We are and should be involved in acts of charity

• our giving tree
• monthly missions
• Lunch with a Friend
• Freezing Nights

Richard Foster writes, “We practice the social justice tradition when “we feed the hungry. We help the helpless.  We reach out to the orphan, the widow, the weak, the shoved aside.”

But let us not stop there.  Let us learn to become voices like John’s voice in our world.  Not only giving those less fortunate a hot lunch once a month, but asking the question of our elected officials, “In a country as wealthy as our own, why could over 35 million people not afford enough food for themselves and their families last year?

As we open our church building to those who do not have a warm place to sleep at night, we should be asking our local officials, “Why are there no shelters in our community?  Why must those who are homeless travel to Tacoma to find a place to shower and a warm place to sleep?”

In both big ways and small ways, the voice of John the Baptist continues to call each one of us.  Standing at the banks of the river Jordan he cries out for us to stop and change direction. 

Sometimes bumper stickers can be better than any sermon could possibly preach.  I saw one recently that sums it all up well:

“Humankind:  be both!

God of comfort, hope and peace, as December days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, come quickly to our aching souls.  Prepare a new path in our tattered lives.  Turn us away from the mundane and meaningless.  Open our ears that we may hear your word, that with humble and repentant hearts we might look with joy to your advent among us.  Amen