CAdvent2

Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 16/Song of Zechariah; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

December 6, 2009

 

I, the Lord, do not change.

In the oracle of Malachi these words stand distinct

among many questions and answers

about how God’s people need to change.

I, the Lord do not change.

 

Our old God. Our very old unchanging God

– has always been there, has always been here;

Eternally, before this creation he breathed to life.

Our ancient God – never changing.

Yet, whose lively, present love we can experience new every morning.

Ancient newness is one way our God can be described.

Never changing, always new.

 

It is we who must change, who are changing

with every day and every generation

as we grow in our awareness of and our communion with God.

Our God who is never changing, but at the same time,

always revealing God’s self anew to us.

 

We thought long ago, and some still think,

that every tribe has its god.

It is the god who delivers the tribe from two things:

Death and enemies.

Priests have always been around to perform sacrifices that deliver us from death.

Kings have always been around to raise armies that deliver us from enemies.

 

You might say that is a narrow view of the need for a god.

To deliver from death and from enemies.

Yet, isn’t it so, that it is when we feel most vulnerable or most afraid of

death or enemy that we most robustly engage our god?

 

There was a time when we the Hebrews thought our god

was among many gods, but, of course, was the greatest god.

Then, through our journeys, our successes, our victories,

our troubles, our defeats, our deaths

we began to change our understanding of God.

God, our old God, didn’t change. We needed to change.

We began to understand that God is not limited to tribe.

That God is not one god among many gods,

or even the greatest among many.

We began to understand that indeed there is only one God.

One God and creator of all.

This was a huge step for us!

But living into the belief of one God and creator of all happened gradually.

At first even though there was one God who created everything there is,

we would still think of our all mighty God as our own tribal god.

God must be on our side to deliver us from death and enemy.

And, if on our side, then certainly God would not side with anyone else.

We are the chosen, the favored ones God will protect.

Our priests are God’s chosen priests and can deliver us from death.

Our kings are God’s chosen kings and will deliver us from enemies.

And then our prophets reasoned that

if there is only one God, then there can be only one tribe, one nation, one people.

And so, for there to ever be peace,

for everyone to be delivered from enemy and death,

there can only be one side.

Everyone must come over to our side or be left outside without God.

And so rules are made about who is in and who is out.

And people began to worship the rules as their deliverer from enemy and death

until a messiah comes who will serve as both priest and king to deliver us.

 

Then, Jesus came. He came to his own.

He came as an insider, from among the chosen.

And he taught that the outsiders are not outside at all.

 

That if there is nothing outside what God created,

then everything that exists is God’s chosen!

Every part of creation and certainly every human being is God’s beloved!

God the creator of all - loves all.

Jesus told us we needed once again to change

if we are to experience the ancient newness of God

he came to reveal.

 

And so – who can be delivered from death and enemy?

Is not death part of God’s beloved creation?

Is not our enemy part of God’s beloved creation?

 

Jesus challenges us to the biggest change we have ever

had the opportunity to make.

 

The ancient newness that Jesus unveils

is not another reinterpretation of who is in and who is out.

Of who can deliver us from death and who is our enemy.

 

In Jesus our old unchanging God speaks anew.

It is not enough for us to appease gods

who will send their priests and kings to deliver us.

It is not enough for us to claim our god as the almighty one

and launch out in his name to conquer the outsiders

and either bring them in or kill them.

For then we, too, are someone’s death and someone’s enemy.

 

Jesus came among us because it’s time for the cycle to stop.

We must be created anew.

We must begin again as a new humanity

recreated in God’s true image.

And it is not we who can do this.

We’ve been applying old bandages to new wounds far too long.

God, our old unchanging God, that ancient newness

must finally let us die and then breathe us into life again.

And so Jesus.

As he dies us out of a world of death and enemies

and lives us into new life.

And we are indeed changed.

 

A refiner’s fire? White hot flame that melts our old ways –

Old ways compressed hard like carbon within us and among us.

Melts our old ways and brings out the impurities.

Fuller’s soap? That bleaches out the stains

from eons of running from and striking out at death and enemy.

 

Who can endure it? Can we?

No! Thanks be to God.

We will not endure this change.

We must die to the old ways of sin and death

and we will rise to the new life of the beloved.

 

So, come Elijah, come John,

Make the path straight.

Fill the valleys, level the mountains.

Straighten the path and make it a highway for our God

to come to us anew in the person of Christ.

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.