Heralds

Yes, I know that it is the beginning of the chapter, and indeed, the beginning of this particular section of the book of Isaiah, but still, there is a problem.

We cannot really start out with “Comfort, comfort my people...” because there are so many things that come before we get to “comfort”.

It was C.S.Lewis, the great Christian thinker from the 20^th century, who observed that although the Christian faith is “a thing of great comfort,” it does not begin in comfort , but in despair and grief which must be encountered first.

In Israel's situation, there was much disobedience, flouting of the Sinai covenant, adopting the worship practices of the surrounding peoples, mistreating of their own people with injustice and self-centeredness.

All of it led, as the prophet's had quite rightly foreseen, to personal and national disaster, foreign invasion and exile into distant lands.

Psalm 137 is a lament that begins:

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.... How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

It is in the depth of that situation that the prophet speaks his words of comfort and hope.

There were no shortcuts to get there.

They needed to understand the gravity of their sinfulness before the offer of a new creation could be perceived as an important and life-giving contrast.

It is in that tradition and with that same order of diagnosis and then amelioration that John the Baptist appears in Mark's Gospel today.

Mark, ever the brief and direct evangelist, limits his description of the prophet's preaching to this line:

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And contrary to what we might think, Mark reports that the people were not resentful:

And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him , and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.

even granting a bit of hyperbole in the phrase all the people of Jerusalem, it is still an arresting thought that numbers of persons were responding positively to what some would term bad news -- “you are caught up in sin, and need to be turned around;

Get washed up, have your sins forgiven, get ready, Messiah's coming.”

It is not our usual perception of good news, is it?

Most of the time, folks will call good news something like winning the lottery, or achieving the 15 minutes of fame in the public eye.

In the church there are people who will claim that good news is being told that you are basically a nice person with good intentions, and that is all that counts.

And the TV preachers gush “God is just thrilled to know a person as nice as you are.”

That is not genuine good news, and we know it.

Truly good news is not about us, but rather, about God.

Good news is to hear that God's mercy is wide enough to include even me.

Good news is to hear that God is willing to forgive even the miserable things that I have hidden from public view.

Good news is to hear that God will see to it that things don't always remain in the same mess in which they have been in your life and mine.

John stands in the long row of prophets who had been speaking the harsh truth: “Wake up, people, you have acquiesced and participated in evil.

Wake up, and be changed!”

This week in Morning Prayer we have been reading the prophet Amos, and it has been painful.

He is unrelenting in the scathing denunciation of the way things were going.

He called the women who dressed in excessive finery “fat cows”, and called for the destruction of the men who take a bribe or turn aside the needy.

We can imagine John seven centuries later fitting right in with these prophets and their denunciations.

But this time, the people were listening and not turning away from all the bad news, but embracing it as the opportunity for something new to happen.

We're here this morning not to hear the easy line that the world wants to give,

but to hear the truth about ourselves and the new possibilities that Jesus will make in us.

We know that we have not lived as God wants us to live.

We have made mistakes and done wrong.

We have thought, felt, and been wrong.

We have broken the relationship which God wants to have with us.

In short, we have sinned.

But by the grace of God there is a new start.

John with his life and preaching, points to Jesus: The one more powerful than I is coming after me.... I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

And what happens?

When Jesus begins his work, the crowds move right over to him, ready to be called to faith and then to action.

Jesus is not intending to do everything himself, but sends out 70 heralds with a message of repentance and fresh beginnings.

And they see Satan fall,

that is, they successfully reach still more persons with the good news of Jesus, the news that starts out like bad news for the old comfortable ways of living and being.

It is not Amos alone, or John alone, or the pastor alone, but all of us who are to be heralds of God's news.

Jesus need heralds, 100 heralds in this room,

heralds that will be persistent, and patient, and true to the task.

We're here this morning to hear the heralds from the past,

to get hold of that proclamation and to practice it with each other,

in preparation for using it the rest of the week .

A herald is to perceive the truth of the situation and let everyone else know about it.

One person said, “The church is one of the few places where I go during the week where there is the likelihood that someone will care enough about me to tell me the truth.”

And there is one more aspect of this:

What we cannot say is “Yes, Pastor, I hear you calling for heralds, and I agree that we need heralds, but that is for someone else, not me.”

I'll put it this way: either you and I are heralds for the kingdom of God, or else we are heralds for something else.

There is no fence on which to sit; there is no way to be just along for the ride.

Either we have the Good News of Jesus at work in our words and actions, or else we are the tools of some alien power that wants to negate what God intends for us and for the world.

The British theologian Nicholas Lash says that people come to his class thinking that theology is one compartment of life, easily divisible from the rest.

He thunders: “No! Theology is about everything.

It is God's world, and theology is about all of it.

I keep trying to get people to read the world theologically....” and give people the words to describe that relationship with God.

Our hour here together each Sunday is an extended struggle over the question of who gets to name the world, what's going on here, and what it all means.

Is it God's world? or our world, which really means Satan's world?

Are we in congruence with the will of God? or are we rebelliously wishing our own ways?

You and I simply are heralds of one or the other with everything we say and do.

Dr Haussmann helps us to manage our bodies.

Becky Miller Pryor helps young minds to begin to organize the pile of information about the world.

Gary Weber helps us to treat each other equably in legal matters.

Lois Smith helps us remember those who cannot be present here today with arranging visits with Word and Sacrament of Holy Communion.+

Michael Ochs is forever needling us about some part of the care of creation.

Bob Jones and Mae Thaljah are not just concerned with offering a certain number of calories in the restaurant, but with hospitality.

And we could continue around the room with each and every person.

Will we make it to the glory of God or the glory of the self?

You and I simply are heralds of one or the other with everything we say and do.

“But Pastor, that means that I have to be thinking theologically all the time!”

Right!

“But that is hard work!”

We have no choice.

Either whatever we say and do is helpful or else it is hurtful to God's intentions.

And that makes it a matter for deep confession here in Advent.

Then what is the Good News of the day?

God has claimed us as his heralds in our Holy Baptism, and there announced his intention to make use of us, despite our failures and limitations.

In solemn joy and relief,

let us all say...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.