No More Hunger: Revelation 21 painting series

This painting is the second in my Revelation 21 series. It illustrates the biblical text on "no more hunger." One report stated that as of June 19, 2009 there are one billion people in the world malnourished, a sixth of the earth's population. This icon reflects the hope of a different world, the world to come, where the hungry are fed and beggars no longer exist.

Racism in the Workplace

Amanda (fictional name), an African-American female, works for an advertising firm. Many of the employees feel her rise in the company was due to Affirmative Action or for simply being black. At a planning meeting Amanda offers an idea about how the firm might work at customer relations. Other members of the committee listen but quickly move on with other ideas. A few minutes later a white member of the committee offers the same idea that Jenny offered earlier, as if it were his own original idea. The idea is applauded and added to the firm’s strategies.

Racism is entrenched in institutions, even church institutions, often going without notice. At a recent meeting of an antiracism team working with a church institution I heard a number of personal stories of racism within Christian institutions from people of color that occurred without any acknowledgement by the white workers involved. It caused me to want to reflect on the need to educate employees in institutions about racism in the workplace.

I am aware of the promotion of diversity and multicultural training in the workplace. Multicultural training has its limits in addressing the dynamics of institutional racism. A focus on multiculturalism in the workplace tends to focus tolerance of diversity, respect for racial and ethnic differences, and creating harmonious relationships, but does not address the key issues of racism as a systemic abuse of power and the underlying white privileges within institutions.

Today racism is more subtle and cloaked than in the days of Jim Crow, but it is still alive and well nonetheless. And the workplace is a significant arena for racism to operate “openly undercover.” By this I mean, that racism is not blatant and is often indirect and excused as “unintentional,” “a misunderstanding in communication,” or “people of color being too racially sensitivity.”

Some questions might be helpful as a beginning place for reflecting on racism in the workplace:

Hiring/Firing

1. Are job openings posted and advertised in places where people of color have access?
2. What is the racial composition within the institution and its departments?
3. Have a disproportionate number of people of color been laid off or resigned?
4. Are dismissals performed by the same criteria and process for whites and people of color?

Orientation and Training

1. Is antiracism training a part of the orientation of new staff?
2. Are current staff members required to take antiracism training as a necessary job skill?
3. Is there ongoing training and conversation about the dynamics of racism in the workplace?

Institutional culture and interpersonal relations

1. Does the office culture create expectations for people of color to fit into white, European ways of relating (e.g., “Around here we do not openly express our emotions or confront someone personally when it comes to differences of opinion).
2. Do white people take the initiative to bring to light racist comments, viewpoints, or actions?
3. Is there a fear that a negative evaluation of the incompetence of a person of color will be viewed as racist?
4. Do white employees expect people of color to represent or be the spokesperson for their race?
5. Is race openly and non-defensively discussed in the workplace?
6. Are racial grievances taken seriously?

Planning and Decisionmaking

1. Are people of color found in positions of decision making and power?
2. Are people of color in places of power and position actually allowed to use their power and position in planning and decisionmaking?
3. Are the skills and opinions of people of color valued as highly as those of whites?

This is simply a beginning list of reflection questions on racism in the workplace. The workplace takes up a significant proportion of our lives. More work needs to be done in training staff and employees of companies, corporations, and institutions on creating an environment of antiracism within the workplace.


Resources:

Joseph Brandt, Dismantling Racism: The Continuing Challenge to White America. Augsburg, 1991.
Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. New Society Publishers, 1996.
Lena Williams, It’s the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions that Get Under the Skin of Blacks and Whites. Harcourt, Inc., 2000.
New Demographic blog site, www.raceintheworkplace.com

A Christmas Ritual: Watching Scrooge

This afternoon I performed a Christmas ritual that has been going on for a long time. I watched the musical Scrooge starring Albert Finney and based on Charles Dickens novella The Christmas Carol. The first time I saw the movie in December of 1970, when it was first released. I was 21 years old and away from home for the holidays, in the Third Army Soldier Show based in Atlanta, Georgia. When I first saw the movie it evoked many feelings, one being a longing for home.

Of the many movies made of Dicken's novella, this one is my favorite. At the age of 34 Finney did an amazing job of portraying old miser Ebenezer Scrooge. In 1971, the year I got out of the army and returned home for the Christmas season, Finney won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a musical/comedy for Scrooge. Not only the great acting but the music makes the movie for me. When I see the movie and hear the songs like "Thank You Very Much" I am transported through 39 years of Christmases since I first saw the film.

I have since looked at Charles Dickens novella, upon which the film is based, through a socio-critical lens. Dickens is showing the wealthier members of mid 1800's English society how to navigate the waters of a society filled with impoverishment, particularly during the Christmas season. England in the 1800's was plagued with class division. Rather than falling into guilt or "indiscrimate giving" to the poor, Dickens showed a way for the more wealthy to provide charity (rather than justice), a merry Christmas practice kept alive today during the Christmas season. 'Tis the season for charity! And Dickens portrayed the poor, like the Cratchits, in a manner the wealthy imagined the poor, since they had little personal contact with them---docile, subservient, thankful, cheerful in their lot, and grateful, like poor Bob Cratchit. The Cratchits are the idealized poor of the wealthy.

Still, I have watched the movie over the past 39 years because I love this powerful story of human redemption on a personal level, even though there is no redemption on the socio-economic level. And I will probably be watching it each Christmas for years to come, thank you very much.

No More Mourning: First Painting in Series Entitled "Revelation 21"

I have started a new series of paintings entitled Revelation 21. It is based upon the sayings in the book of Revelation that envisions a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be "no more mourning, no more hunger, no more death, no more tears, no more pain." The biblical text describes a new age in which all the brokenness of the present world is ended. The images I am creating will depict the struggles and pains of this world that will be transformed in the world to come.

The vision of Revelation 21 is not merely pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye. It is a lens through which we see the possibilities for shaping a new world here and now. The city of God provides a model for a liberated city of humanity. These icons of Revelation will serve as reminders to continue to resist the systems of death, destruction, despair and to replace them with life, healing. and hope.

In Memoriam to Bob Keane, record producer (January 5, 1922 – November 28, 2009)

Tonight I was watching on TV the old movie "La Bamba" about the 50's singer Ritchie Valens. I have seen it a number of times and everytime I watch it I think about an old friend, Bob Keane, who produced Ritchie Valens and the group I played drums for in the late 60's, Beauregard Ajax. After the movie I went to my computer and googled "Ritchie Valens" and then "Bob Keane." I soon discovered that Bob Keane died recently on November 28, 2009 at the age of 87.

Our group connected with Bob Keane through a high school friend of mine from my Home town, Oxnard California, Patrick Landreville. Bob Keane listened to our demos and invited us to LA to consider a recording contract with Del-Fi Records. Our group moved into an apartment in LA in 1968 and started recording with Bob at Del-Fi recording studios a block south of Hollywood and Vine Streets. The recording sessions were long and often tedious, but we completed most of the recordings. All was left was some fine tuning, addition of strings and other concluding work when Bob lost his studio. That was the end of our recordings. Bob kept the masters. Years later copies of those master ended up floating around in Europe. Beaurgeard Ajax split up in early 1969 and went different directions. Clint Williams, the bass player, and myself joined an 18 year old amazing guitarist Bill Conners, who later joined with Chick Corea's Return to Forever. I stayed with "Middle Earth" until I was drafted into the Army late 1969, where I ended up playing drums in the Third Army Soldier Show.

Many years later, 36 years to be exact, I googled the name "Beauregard Ajax" and to my surprise discovered that our album, first recorded with Bob Keane at Del-Fi, had been released on a vinyl record by Shadoks Records in Germany and later on a CD. None of the original band members has made any royalties off those recordings that we made as young men so long ago, but I am blessed to have known Bob Keane, to have recorded at Del-Fi, to have been able to see others from another generation enjoy our music today. Thanks, Bob, for your life story and for connecting to my life story. Rest in peace, Bob.

LA Times story on Bob Keane: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-bob-keane1-2009dec01,0,2711217.story

Let it be: An Advent Meditation on Luke 1:26-38

Florentine artist Fra Angelico painted an interesting fresco of the annunciation. during the Renaissance. The painting contains the figures of the angel Gabriel and Mary. They are under the arches of a building. Their heads are hallooed in circular disks. The folds of their robes are the delight of every Renaissance artist. Gabriel and Mary are colored with the kind of pastel pink and blue you might see in a nursery awaiting a newborn. The painting is divided in half by a Corinthian column. Each figure is separately framed within the arched openings of the building. On one half is the bowed figure of the angel Gabriel with rainbow colored wings and arms folded across his chest. On the other half is Mary looking toward Gabriel also with her hands folded across her chest, a traditional artist's symbol of her submission to God's will.

The artist has captured that moment when the angel Gabriel announced earthshaking news to the virgin Mary. She will have a child by the Holy Spirit. His name will be called Jesus. He will be the Son of the Most High God and reign on the throne of his ancestor King David. Will Mary accept the calling to be the messiah’s mother? It is not a done deal. The angel awaits her response. In the painting there is naturally no movement. Everything is as still as death. No flutter in the angel’s wings. Not one eye blinks. The soft folds of their garments hold as if starched. The moment is frozen in time. As if the world had stopped on its axis. As if time itself were hinged on the answer of Mary. You can almost feel the question that hangs in the still air: "What will be her response?" In this motionless moment heaven and earth hold their breath.

Let's go back to the beginning of the story. The angel Gabriel was sent by God to Nazareth, a town in Galilee. Sounds similar to what happened in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" doesn't it? An angel is sent at a turning point in someone's life. A life-saving message needs to be communicated. So God sends an angel. The biblical text talks about angels as if they were as common as houseflies. Gabriel shows up out of nowhere and greets Mary as if he were your typical mailman. The angel's voice probably didn't sound like Charlton Heston speaking in King's English as if inside a cavern. Although in centuries to come the words, "Hail Mary, full of grace" will be uttered in prayer by millions of the devout, those words roll off the angel's tongue with an earthiness as common as "Hi, Mary, you lucky lady." But Mary is more perplexed by what might be behind such a greeting than she is about an angel showing up on her doorstep.

The angel says, "Don't be afraid." Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel once said that whenever an angel says "Do not be afraid" then you can bet you’re in for a big assignment. And what was Mary's assignment? Oh, not much. Just to be the Mother of God's Son! Talk about big assignments! Mary does not break out in a deep belly laugh, like Sarah did at the idea of giving birth to a nation while still in a rest home. Instead, Mary has a question to ask. Just a little question. If you were Mary, you would have at least one question, wouldn't you? "Just how is this going to happen, Mr. Angel, seeing that I’m a virgin, duhhh?" Mary is no naïve teenager. She knows the facts of life. What the angel tells her must have sounded just as incredible to Mary as did Sarah's news of giving birth in a geriatric ward. Mary's child come to be through the Holy Spirit. Mary must have been thinking, "What other impossible things are you going to tell me." Could the angel Gabriel have overheard what the angel of the Lord said to a giggling Sarah near the oak trees long ago? For the final words of these two angels are practically the same: "Nothing will be impossible with God."

In the world of the Bible nothing is impossible. Angel's buzz around like flies. A nation is born from a barren womb. Seas part before God's people. God steps into the world clothed in human flesh. Water turns into wine. A few loaves of bread and a fish feed thousands. A dead man comes to life again. Nothing is impossible with God. With his otherworldly message spoken the angel Gabriel awaits Mary's response to God's message.

Let's stop the action between the angel's last word and the first tremble of Mary's lips. Freeze that moment in the text between the words "God" and "Mary", like the moment frozen in Fra Angelico's painting. Let's brush into that small space in the canvas of time a hypothetical question. What if Mary said, "No"? I'm not being facetious. I'm serious. What if she refused to be the mother of God's Messiah? What if she didn't fold her arms across her chest? It was a real possibility. She had the freedom and the will. What if Mary told the angel, "Forget it, Gabe. Go ask some other teeny bopper"? What if when God spoke to Isaiah and said, "Whom shall I send and who will go for me", Isaiah responded, "Lord, you gotta be kidding. That's just too big of a job for me."

Or what if Nikos Kazantzaki's novel idea were true, that Jesus could have refused the way of the cross and lived out an everyday life like everyone else. In the movie, based upon the novel The Last Temptation of Christ, at a crucial moment on the cross time stops. An "angel" appears to Jesus and he is presented with the choice of coming down from the cross, getting married, having children, growing old, and dying a natural death. What if Jesus had not chosen the way that eventually led him to the cross? What if Jesus had not folded his arms across his chest before God's way, which would eventually lead to spreading his arms out on the dying pole? Now, in that frozen moment between the angel's announcement and Mary's response we ask, "What if Mary had said 'No'"?

Maybe we don’t face momentous decisions of such great significance as Mary faced. But maybe at times we do. Maybe our responses to God come in small steps, but added up they change our lives and destinies in indiscernible, yet significant ways. Our messages from God may not come from the lips of angels, but they come to us nonetheless. And we’re called upon to respond, to act upon that word. There are moments when God's message comes to us as clear as a bell on a Sunday morning and we can go one way or another.

Let's take some of those moments and freeze frame them. Paint on the canvas of your mind a man, named John, sitting in church on a Sunday morning in Advent. Beside John is his wife, who has a look of contentment on her face. She feels at home. In his childhood John was taken to church sporadically, but always on the holidays. Unlike his wife, church had never become much of a habit for him. Out of a sense of family duty he would show up with his wife on special Sundays to see his children perform or at Easter and Christmas services. John didn't tell his wife, but he thought church was for women and children.

Over the years John sat through quite a few sermons out of respect for his wife and children. On this Advent Sunday, though, something happened. During a moment in the service it seemed like time stopped. It was as if the preacher were speaking directly to him. No, it was more than the preacher. It was as if the preacher were merely a messenger conveying a message directly to him. The preacher was talking about people needing to have a faith of their own and not a faith of their parents or family. It seemed as if she were speaking in slow motion as she was inviting people to commit their lives to Christ and to be baptized into the fellowship of the church. John knows it would be a life changing decision. It would mean living a different kind of life, a life for Christ.

John’s wife, who sits next to him in the pew, is unaware that her husband is frozen in an eternal moment, which has broken in upon time. John is struggling with this life-altering commitment as if he were wrestling with an angel. An unseen finger is gently tapping him on the shoulder. He thumbs through the hymnal trying to avoid thinking about it. He folds he arms and bows his head. It's one of those moments that you feel you finally have to settle with a "yes" or a "no" answer. John opens his eyes and looks up. He must decide. What will be his response?

Fill in the details of this pencil sketch. Joan is very talented. Her skills of leadership are evident to everyone where she works. If she comes across a problem, she will meet it head on and with real creative solutions. There was no problem too big for her to wrestle. Her skills have caused many promotions and raises to come her way. Everyone at the company adores Joan, or maybe I should say, they adore her performance. She has it made. Or so you would think. Yet, when she's done with all the meetings and comes home to her empty, twentieth floor apartment, there is a hole inside her soul. Something's missing from her high-powered lifestyle. She goes to bed, clicks off the light, and stares at the red numbers on her digital clock until she falls asleep.

This morning a printed piece of paper sits on her desk waiting for Joan to arrive. She walks into the office and pulls back her desk chair. The plain piece of paper catches her attention, even amidst the piles of flashy, multicolored advertisements. She lifts the paper to her face. Where did this come from? Printed on the paper are the words: "City project for the homeless needs new director." Now, in her world of high rise and high finance, she was not one to think about such issues, except those found on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. But there she was with this job opening stuck to her hand like flypaper. She couldn't put it down. Something deep inside her seemed to be pulling. It was as if the plainly printed words on the paper had been inscribed in gold with an angel's pen. If there was ever the right person to creatively tackle such a problem, it was Joan. She looks out her office window at the skyline of the city as if searching for someone to help her make a decision. What will be her response?

We could fill a gallery with portraits of people who have been greeted by angels unaware and have been called upon to make crucial decisions. A voice speaks from a conference newsletter calling us to build a relationship with a church in another country. Images of working with people in an inner city ministry get painted on the ceiling of our brain. A service opportunity for retired persons somehow lands in our lap. An announcement at church, as common as a housefly, buzzes in our ear, “A teacher is needed for the fifth grade boy’s class.” And you thought someone called your name.

God speaks to us in many and diverse ways-----through the words of a sermon, through the reading of the scriptures in a quiet place, in the wind through the trees near the lake, in the comforting words of a friend, in the gravel voice of a gap-toothed man on the street, or as we stare off into the awe-inspiring life of someone named Jesus. God speaks. We can freeze those moments in time, when something, someone bigger than ourselves and our agendas calls us. What will be our response?

Let's go back to Mary. Let's unfreeze the moment held fast in Fra Angelico's painting. Let's read a little farther in the gospel story. Mary has heard the Word of God from the angel. What will she say? Put your ear up close to the Bible and listen. We know what she will say, even before she speaks the words. With arms folded she replies, "Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be... according to your word." Let it be. Mary has spoken the words of a true disciple. Let it be. This is Mary’s “Amen” to God’s call. As the Beatles put it, Mary is “speaking words of wisdom...Let it be."

We who sit here in this church building far away from Nazareth, beyond the shores of Galilee, on the far side of the cross, and the other side of the open tomb, can thank God that Mary said, "Let it be." For in her decision the divine and the human embraced in a earthshaking, history-making moment. In that moment when she said, "Let it be," God was also saying "Let it be." As in the beginning, when the womb of space was an empty void and God said "Let it be" and it was. Now, through the child born of Mary, God says to a world needing to be reborn, "Let it be." The world is born anew through our many responses of “Let it be.” When we say “let it be” to God’s call, the divine and human embrace.

The divine and human embrace when someone says “yes” to follow Christ. The divine and human embrace when a friend is forgiven. The divine and human embrace when a woman enrolls in seminary. The divine and human embrace when someone takes a trip to a foreign land to serve people who are suffering. The divine and human embrace when wounds from harsh parents are healed. The divine and human embrace when a child is adopted. The divine and human embrace when new possibilities are born. When we say, “Let it be,” to God’s word and will the divine and human embrace. And we come closer to the birth of a new world.

God calls each of us to go where God sends us, to do what God asks us, to be that person God has uniquely created us to be, to share in the birthing of a new world. What will be our response? That crack in time between God's Word to us and our response may be this very moment, when human words become the Word of God. God may be speaking a Word to you, calling upon you to be God's instrument of new life in some small way, in this still moment, frozen in time..... To God's call the true disciple responds, as did Mary, "Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be."

waiting for god knows what: a poem by Leo Hartshorn

Where is god when you need him?
Lost in traffic and won’t ask for directions?
Too self-absorbed in all those praises
arising from around the world to notice me
killing time in the alleys of my patience,
sitting nervously with angst in my pants?
Maybe he’s so caught up in finally putting an end
to war, famine, hunger, disease, death, and destruction
that he doesn’t have time for my petty petitions.
Or could it be that the god of nuclear physics
has forgotten me amid all the facts and faces to remember?
Possibly I have slipped his mind or it’s the onset of divine Alzheimer's
or a just a case of old age; god is getting pretty old, you know.
Probably walks with a cane, needs a hearing aid, has back problems,
forgets where he left his compassion last night.

It’s not like I haven’t had to deal with god’s senility before.
Waiting on god, tapping my foot, drumming my fingers,
humming a tune, glancing at my watch, yawning,
marking another day off on the crooked calendar.
But this delay is getting old, as old as god,
lost on the back roads of my heart, caught up in his perenniel
“big agenda” items that never seem to get checked off the list,
scratching his hoary head trying to remember something……..
Oh, yeah, me, over here, in the silence, forever waiting,
on this bleak landscape beneath a barren tree
like Estragon waiting for god knows what

Prepare the Way: an Advent sermon

The senses come alive during this holiday season. The smell of burning candles rising into the air. The lights of the Christmas tree shimmering in the darkness. The warmth of a crackling fire while sipping a hot cup of chocolate with small marshmallows floating on top. Ahhhhhh… and the hushed silence of snowflakes gently falling on the…PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD! MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!!

John the Baptist enters the Advent season like a bull in a china closet. Amid the jingling of bells and carolers singing “Joy to the world,” we hear a cry that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard. The grating voice of the Baptist disturbs our tender thoughts of a cooing baby in a makeshift crib. His ragged message of repentance seems as out of place as a wild eyed soup box preacher interrupting a presentation of Handel’s Messiah. John the Baptist brings strange gifts to our Advent table. Instead of a golden brown turkey, we get locusts with wild honey dip. In place of a new night robe and warm cotton lined slippers, we get scratchy camel’s hair with a leather belt.

Even so, if we are going to welcome the good news from the sweet voices of angels from on high, we will need to first listen to the raspy voice of John the Baptist crying out down there in the wilderness.

Listen…listen carefully to that distant voice crying out in the wilderness. The Baptist cries out for us to prepare the way for Christ’s coming. His voice echoes through the wilderness canyons. His apocalyptic cry has political overtones. In John’s day there were other prophets, like the one known as the Egyptian and is referred to in the book of Acts, who called the people of Israel out into the wilderness. It wasn’t because these prophets thought the desert might be a good place to spread their message. They cried out in the wilderness in a type of ritual reenactment of Moses’ deliverance of the slaves from Egypt through the wilderness and Joshua’s crossing the Jordan river in conquest of the Promised Land. Wilderness and river represented places of liberation from their oppressors and the possession of their land.

This may be the background of John’s prophetic wail in the wilderness. As Israel moans under the heavy weight of Roman imperialism, John the Baptist calls her out over the wilderness and through the river, the places where Israel was once liberated from the bonds of Egypt and took the land as their own. His cry in the wilderness may have been heard as an anticipation or preparation for liberation from Roman domination as the beginning of the coming reign of God. The symbolism of the setting was probably not lost on the politicians of the day, particularly king Herod. It wouldn’t be long for Herod to end a dinner date with John’s head on a dinner plate.

Words like “politics” “oppression,” “imperialism” and “liberation” are not words we necessarily want intruding into our Advent meditations. Who wants to hear the harsh voice of the Baptist howling, “Prepare the Way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!”? We might more readily welcome his words if his announcement was akin to “O, you better watch out. You better not cry. Jesus Christ is coming to town!” You know what, when the words John quoted were first uttered, they did come as welcomed words. John was quoting the prophet Isaiah, who first spoke those words in the days of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. The imagery Isaiah uses is from the practice of clearing the pathway of a potentate or god in preparation for the ruler’s procession to the city in order to be inaugurated as the sovereign of the people.

Bumps were leveled. Potholes were filled. Rocks were removed. Weeds were pulled up. Crooked places were straightened for the ruler’s procession to his people. Isaiah uses this imagery to proclaim a word of hope to his people sitting with drooping faces and arms limp at their sides in Babylonian captivity. “Prepare the way for God, who comes to liberate you and lead you across the wilderness, where God will reign among you in your own land,” cries the prophet Isaiah. Now, that’s a welcome Advent message.

John uses Isaiah’s imagery to tell his people to prepare the pathway for the One who comes bringing salvation and liberation to the people. Prepare the way! Remove the injustices and inequities that block God’s pathway. Lift up those valleys sunken by despair and despondency. Knock down the haughty hills of pride and prejudice. Prepare the way for God, who comes bringing justice and liberation through the messiah.

I remember picking up an edition of The Marketplace, a Mennonite business magazine, and seeing on the cover a roadway full of poor, barefoot Haitians clearing stones from a dirt road. With hoes and hands they removed rocks, filled in holes, and knocked down bumps in the roadway. These roadways are the only route for bringing in food supplies, gaining access to medical facilities, and transporting products to market. The new smooth roads are a vein pumping life blood to some of the poorest people in the world. These roads are highways of hope. Mennonite business people have been about the business of preparing the way. They have helped the Haitian people fill in their valleys with fruit trees and improved springs of water. They have assisted them in smoothing out the rough places of 125 roads and 5 dilapidated bridges. The glory of the Lord has been revealed in the form of food, livelihood, and healing medicines coming down those smooth roadways. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!

This may not be the Advent message we were hoping to hear amid the consumerist clamor. It is the season to buy and consume, not to care for the poor and hungry. ‘Tis is the season to be jolly and to trample someone to death in order to be the first to get a bargain at the department store! We don’t need no sermons on liberation and caring for the poor, preacher. It’s not something we like to hear. Even my 4 year old grandson, Gavin, knows that. What we need is a more cheery message during Advent.

One evening coming home from school my wife our grandson, Gavin, if he had a good day at school. Gavin cheerfully said, “Everyone in the world had a good day.” Iris responded, “Well, not everyone had a good day. Some people are poor and don’t have anything to eat. You would’nt want to be without anything to eat, would you? Gavin came back, “I don’t need no sermon talk!” In other words, “Don’t preach to me your pious moralisms!” 'Tis the season to be jolly! Who wants to hear “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!” during Advent? I don’t need no sermon talk.

Many did not want to hear this kind of “sermon talk” from another Baptist of our own day---Martin Luther King, Jr. We resisted his prophetic words, because it meant changing our way of life. And it still does. Martin used the very words of Isaiah in his I have a Dream speech in at the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. (Get the symbolism of the setting?) He was not there just to create a warm, fuzzy Kum-Ba-Yah moment with blacks and whites holding hands and singing in harmony. His speech was both a sharpened prophetic vision of the reign of God and a concrete political and spiritual call for an end to white racism, discrimination, and segregation.
Like the prophets Isaiah and John, Martin stood in the wilderness of racial inequality and proclaimed:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
Every hill and mountain shall be made low,
The rough places shall be made plain,
And the crooked places shall be made straight
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed
and all flesh will see it together.
I have a dream…

And for the messenger, like John the Baptist Martin would end up with his head on a platter, so to speak. Prepare a way for the Lord! Make his paths straight! Do we really want to hear this harsh message during Advent? Do we want to listen to some cranky old voice denouncing racism after we have heard the joyful cheers around the world as Barack Obama, an African-American, was elected to the highest office in our land? Is the old sad song of antiracism what we want to hear when white racism seems to many people to be an anachronism, a thing of the past? Aren’t we now a post-racial nation?

Did we really need an open letter from Jim Schrag, Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA, going out to congregations during the 2008 Advent season about racism? Isn’t it just another “sermon talk,” pious platitudes amid the joyful sounds of “peace on earth, good will to all’? Doesn’t it sound too political? Doesn’t it just leave a sour taste in the church’s mouth? Isn’t Jim just “preaching to the choir”? Listen to this voice crying out in the wilderness of Mennonite Church USA:

Whether you voted or not in the recent election, or who you voted for, is not the issue about which I am writing. The issue is that the election of an African-American brings hope to our nation with its past record of discrimination and racism. At the same time it brings danger to our president-elect in threats of harm based on the color of his skin. People of color throughout our nation, some who may be our fellow church members, close neighbors, are experiencing new harassment and threats from some whites who are fearful, resentful or feel threatened by the election of President-Elect Obama.

Now we face a time when we must give witness to what we have said we believe. We are not dependent upon the political process to witness for justice and equality; these are not mere ideals of our nation, they are part of our witness of faith in Jesus and the power of His Gospel.

We are called to give witness that the healing of nations comes when Christians live up to the teachings of Christ in our daily lives. Now in this historic time of opportunity and danger, we must speak and act in witness of life, not fear and death. When we see oppression born of fear, we will speak against it. When we observe racist behavior, or hear racist language or stories, we will not silently ignore it, especially when we see and hear this among Christians, even in our own congregations. We have an active role to play in our congregations, community, at our places of employment, and in our social interactions. We can help to turn around a conversation from something negative and frightening by witnessing with our positive listening and speaking.

We are all created in God’s image. We will live our lives in witness of this truth from scripture. Now is a particularly important time to offer this clear and certain witness for the “one new humanity” in Christ.

Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! It’s seems such an intrusive message into this Advent season.

What makes the message so intrusive is that it calls for us to change. Repent! For the kingdom of God is at hand! Change the direction of your lives! It sounds so guilt-producing. It seems such a negative message for Advent. In our seeker-sensitive-megachurch-consumer-oriented-self-absorbed-war-is-okay-until-it-becomes-inconvenient-culture words like “sin” and “repent” and “redemption” go over like a lead balloon.

This attitude is reflected in a Doonesbury comic strip. The “Reverend” is explaining to a couple inquiring about church membership about the basic approach of his Little Church on Walden:

Reverend: I like to describe it as 12-step Christianity. Basically I believe we’re all recovering sinners. My ministry is about overcoming denial, its about recommitment, about redemption. It’s all in the brochure there.

Wife: Wait a minute---sinners? Redemption? Doesn’t that imply guilt?

Husband: I dunno, there’s so much negativity in the world as it is.

Wife: That’s right. We’re looking for a church that’s supportive, a place where we can feel good about ourselves. I’m not sure the guilt thing works for us.

Husband: On the other hand, you do offer racketball.

Wife: So do the Unitarians, honey. Let’s shop around some more .

There you have it--- John’s abrasive message for Advent. Do we have Advent ears open to hear what he is really saying? Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand! The dominion of heaven is near! The age of God’s reign is just around the corner. The time is coming when God will cut down the trees of self-centeredness and injustice at the root. The season is at hand when peace and hope will bud and bloom. The day when war and violence shall forever cease is upon us. The hour when we will be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character is at the doorstep.

As the streets are decorated with wreaths and fake snow is sprayed on windows, the time is close at hand. As we make our shopping list and check it twice, the kingdom is coming! As we decorate the tree with lights and get out the Christmas recipes, the reign of God has a foot in the door. So, prepare a way for the Lord! Make his paths straight!

If we’re going to prepare the way for the coming reign of God, we better get started now. Grab a hoe. Get a shovel. Fill in a pothole. Level the road. Pick up a rock. Pull up a weed. Volunteer to feed the hungry. Work on a project for peace. Dismantle white racism. Let go of some of your privileges and possessions. Welcome a stranger. Visit a prisoner. For God’s dominion has already begun. God is coming down the highway of this wilderness world. Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!

The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas reminds us that the coming reign of God we prepare the way for is already here:

(Jesus’) disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying, ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is.’ Rather the kingdom (of God) is spread out upon the earth, and (people) do not see it.”

From the baptismal waters John cried out, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!” It was nearer than even John could imagine. But, thanks be to God, he had Advent eyes to see. For the road sign pointing to God’s reign stepped into the muddy waters of the Jordan river right next to him. He opened his eyes and looked at Jesus, stepping into the muddy Jordan river and said, “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The Messiah of God’s dominion has come. Do we have Advent eyes to see even now God’s reign is spread out across this wilderness world?

Look. An older man kneels in the front to the church to be initiated. He has just found faith. The water drips from his head. His smile is brighter than the Advent candles. Look. Soldiers are packing their camouflage duffle bags in Iraq and unloading their weapons. An army airplane hums outside their tent. It’s taking them home. Listen. The chatter of people waiting in line sounds like a Christmas carol. A doctor is spooning some stuffing into the plate of a homeless woman at the shelter. He does this every year during his vacation time. Listen. Children shout and laugh as water gushes from a newly built pump just finished in their village.

Listen…listen closely…can you hear it? A distant coyote is howling in the wilderness and a faint voice is crying out…Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight.