Turn Around!

We very politely summarize them in the order for public confession at the beginning of the Liturgy: We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

None of us can claim otherwise.

--The person who tells one lie then has to tell another to cover up for the first one.

--Another family member was crabby at you and by golly you are going to be crabby right back.

--A synod treasurer (not in our synod) recently was convicted of embezzling over $1 million of the church's money. How could he do that?

One little twisted decision leads to another, and another, and soon the path is so convoluted that there seems to be no way back.

--When I was young, one of the most terrifying stories that I read was the portion of Tom Sawyer where Tom and Becky get lost in the twists and turns of the cave.

One decision led to another and another, and soon they were in serious trouble.

They barely make it out alive.

Twisted ways, outside and inside ourselves...

This is the time when many folks begin thinking about a Christmas tree.

I remember seminary years when we decorated a little Norfolk pine that we had growing in the window and called that our tree,

and a few times that we went to one of those sad lots in town and got one,

but the best times have been when we have gone out to the hills and selected the tree .

The selection process...oh my!

One year there was a tree farm that took the family up the hill on a wagon with hay-bales for seats.

Running from this one to that one:

--this looks good...no there is a bare spot.

--what about that one...no too short.

--this one?...too tall, too fat, too prickly, not the best color, wrong variety....

and so it goes until a decision is finally reached.

We have a photo of the kids with arms raised in triumph, having decided that the right tree for that particular year was the one the closest to the top of the hill and the farthest away from the car.

But the path to get there was all over the hillside as they had examined so many others.

Then last year we had the opportunity to introduce Esteban to this whole process, since he is from BuenosAires and the seasons are reversed in Argentina.

And so, with him we tramped all over the hillside looking for just the right tree.

I see the crooked path that we took on that hillside as a model of the way we look for what is true, ultimately true.

We wander around, checking out this idea and that proposal, thinking how it would fit into our lives.

It might be a very long process, and it might meet with failure.

If one chooses a hemlock, the needles will fall off in short order, leaving the hopeful person with bare sticks.

If one chooses a blue spruce, the needles are so stiff that they are quite painful to handle.

If one chooses the worship of money and other possessions as the chief things in life, then the current financial situation threatens not just your bank account but also the very foundation of who you are: when the stock market takes a nose dive, one is in effect left with bare sticks.

If one chooses to worship one of the empty philosophies, the results may be needle-sharp and hurtful.

I heard this week about a group of atheists in the state of Washington who, right next to a creche scene, have put up a billboard deriding Christianity or any faith.

What joy is there in that kind of emptiness?

It is a very special moment when one gets the baled tree home, stood upright in the tree stand, and fastened...

and then the string is cut and the tree branches gently unfold into position.

If we have chosen well, the tree is shown to be just the right one for that room.

It reveals what it always was...the perfect tree for our family and life.

We didn't make it, we happened upon it.

We didn't invent it; it was already there, waiting for us.

The people in The Way process this year are doing what we all do, wandering over the hillsides of life in a crooked path.

Sometimes we make choices that turn out to be poor ones, and have to back out and try another direction.

But in The Way we have but one focus, the Lord Jesus as way, truth, and life, as John's Gospel puts it.

It has the goal in sight, its nature is being revealed, and we are to act and react in accord with that goal.

First of all, John the Baptizer gets everyone's attention

--with his clothing that reminds us of the prophets, and that the Messiah will not come as the typical conquering general.

--he appears in the wilderness, that place where big things happened to Israel in the past.

--he leads people through the Jordan River, recalling God's saving actions through water in the Exodus.

--he has no power of his own;

his mission is

to get people to stop their wandering around looking for something,

to insist that they repent of their false choices,

to urge them to remember what God has done in the past,

and then to raise his bony hand and point to Jesus, the one coming after him,

and announce the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that is, the true connection we have with God is by means of this Holy Spirit, God in the present tense, God revealing himself to us now as we open his Word and celebrate his sacraments.

South of Catawissa as the highway crests one mountain, the driver can see ahead to the next mountain and where the highway reaches the top there.

The driver starts down the mountain, always remembering the goal ahead.

No matter if there are curves in the road, one is still moving toward that particular goal.

Augustine was a brilliant man.

He dabbled in all sorts of philosophies and religions in the late 4^th century.

He was well-trained in rhetoric; he could argue any side of any question.

But in all of his running from here to there and trying this thought and that idea, there was a dissatisfaction.

It was not until he began reading Paul's letter to the Romans, and read, “The just shall live by faith.” that he finally found the perfect tree,

the tree that had been there all the time, just waiting to be revealed when it was the right time for God to grab hold of him.

He tossed away all of the other things in which he had been dabbling, and focused on the gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As the old spiritual says:

           Dark midnight was my cry
             Give me Jesus
You may have the world
             Give me Jesus.

That is what he came to believe, and teach, and live.

Augustine summarized his earlier life in a sentence that is true for all of us:

You have enlightened us, that we should delight to praise you, for you have made us for yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in you.

Turn around; look here!

No more searching, no more anxious fretting.

The goal is in sight, the perfect tree is here in front of us.

And the irony, the mystery to be explored is that the perfect tree is the tree of the cross.

Come, let us walk this way,

our Lord will make it clear;

In every hill and valley

A level road appears. Amen

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.