Sunday, December 10, 2017

Voices Found

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ
December 10, 2017

Year B: The Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40: 1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Voices Found
            From today’s psalm, (Psalm 85):
            Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
I think I’ve mentioned to you before that I’m serving on the Search and Nominating Committee for our next bishop.
            It’s certainly been an interesting and challenging – and time-consuming – experience, but, most of all, it’s been a real privilege to serve with a lot of good and dedicated people as we seek the next leader of our diocese.
            Last week the sub-committee that I’m on had a meeting out at the Church of the Holy Innocents in West Orange.
            I tend to be early for meetings, anyway, but this time I got there early on purpose because I wanted to spend a little time in the church’s graveyard, where my friend and predecessor, the tenth Rector of St. Paul’s, the Rev. Frank Carr and his wife Lee are buried.
            Standing at the grave, I said a little prayer of thanksgiving for Fr. Carr, who was such an important influence in my life, kind of my “spiritual grandfather,” always so supportive of Sue and me, and especially supportive of my call to the priesthood.
            I’m still so thankful that he lived just long enough to attend both of my ordinations – ten years ago now – and, in fact, he had the red stole I wore at my diaconal ordination specially made for me – one of my most prized possessions.
The other day, after I said my short prayer, I took a photo of the Carr’s gravestone and posted it on Facebook, along with a few words of thanksgiving.
            A couple of people commented on it, including one woman who grew up here on Duncan Avenue and remembered how kind Frank and Lee were to children.
            She shared a charming memory of Fr. Carr gathering the children around the church’s flag pole to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and at the end he would shout out in his booming voice, “Hip! Hip!” and the kids would respond, “Hooray!”
            “Hip! Hip!” “Hooray!”
            Some parishioners here still remember that booming voice, and although I only knew Fr. Carr as an old man, I remember it too because, despite all his ailments, that big voice never left him.
            We all have things about ourselves that we’d change if we could, right? In my case, I’d like to be just a little bit taller – just two inches taller so I could be as tall as my dad – and I wish I had a more powerful voice, a booming voice like Fr. Carr.
            Because, you know, with my voice, I’m not sure I could quite pull off, “Hip! Hip! Hooray!”
            Today, on the Second Sunday of Advent, we are reintroduced to one of the central figures of this holy season: John the Baptist.
            Of course we don’t know what John’s voice sounded like – maybe it was booming like Fr. Carr’s or maybe it wasn’t so impressive, but, you know, it really doesn’t matter because we know how John used his voice. He used his voice to challenge people to change their ways – John used his voice to call people to repentance – John used his voice to prepare the way for the Messiah.
            John used his voice to name – to call out – wickedness – the wickedness of ordinary people who fell far short of God’s commands, I’m sure in pretty much the same ways that you and I fall short today.
John used his voice to name – to call out - wickedness - especially, the wickedness of the leaders of the day.
            And, although John’s message must have been hard for a lot of people to hear or accept, people did respond to his voice, a lot of people. We’re told that large numbers of people – both country people and city people – went down to the Jordan to confess their sins, to be baptized, to have their lives transformed.
            Whatever it sounded like, John the Baptist found and used his voice for good, used his voice for God.
            Today we live in a time when more and more people are finding and using their voices, too.
            It seems like every day more women are stepping forward, risking a great deal to speak about the harassment and abuse they have endured, calling out the often hair-raising misbehavior of movie and TV stars and producers and directors, newscasters, and politicians and candidates for office, not to mention the many, many more men who are not famous, but who have been harassers and abusers, too.
            It hasn’t exactly been a surprise – we all knew this kind of stuff goes on - but it’s been heartbreaking and disgusting to realize how vast this problem is, to discover the rot eating away at our society – and, it’s been so sad and disappointing when men we like and respect have fallen and, let’s be honest, it’s also been pleasing when men we don’t like and respect have been accused and fallen, too – and there may be others who we hope will tumble soon.
            I’ll never know how hard it’s been for these women to speak up, but we seem to finally be hearing and responding to their voices.
            As you probably heard, Time magazine named these brave women the “Person of the Year,” calling them “The Silence Breakers.”
            Voices found.
            And, you know, in this time of trouble, I see signs that the Church is beginning to find its voice again, too. For so long, we’ve been focused on our own little internal issues, worried about institutional survival, keeping the doors open, and yes, keeping the clergy employed.
 But, now we’re finding our voice again, and like John the Baptist and like Jesus himself, we’re calling out the wickedness in our time and place.
            A powerful North Carolina preacher named Rev. William Barber II has restarted the “Poor People’s Campaign,” a campaign started back in the ‘60’s by Martin Luther King, Jr., a movement that was cut short by his assassination in 1968.
            Rev. Barber and the others are calling for a moral revival in our country, calling on our leaders and our people to turn away from racism, turn away from blaming the poor for their plight, and turn toward fixing a system that seems purposely designed to keep so many people – to keep certain people – down.
            My hope and prayer is that our next bishop – and more and more of us – will find and use our voices to call out the wickedness in our time and place.
            Because, it is wicked to harass or abuse another human being, to reduce a beloved child of God to a thing, an object to be used for our own pleasure or gratification.
            It is wicked to be a reverse Robin Hood, taking from the poor who have so little and giving even more to the rich who have so much.
            It is wicked to be a Nazi or a white supremacist - or any kind of supremacist, for that matter.
            It is wicked to close our doors to refugees fleeing oppression and violence.
            It is wicked to mock and discriminate against other people because of what they look like, or sound like, or where they come from, or whom they love, or what they believe in.
            It is wicked to poison the earth due to our own greed and convenience, sentencing future generations to hunger and destruction.
            It is wicked for landlords to make miserable the lives of their tenants, hoping to drive them out and increase their profits.
            It is wicked that, in a country as rich as ours, the homeless still roam our streets and even more are squeezed into apartments with family and friends, hidden away from view.
            It is wicked to talk casually about war, to be seemingly even eager for war, war that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in just the first few minutes – and it’s especially wicked if we’ve never offered our service, never put our lives on the line.
            And, it is wicked for the Church to stick its head in the sand, to hide behind our doors, to just worry about our own survival, to not find and use our voices to call out the wickedness that’s all around us.
            All of us – those with booming voices and those with nasally voices – all of us - those who are eloquent and those who mumble and stutter – all of us - need to find and use our voices.
            And, like John the Baptist, we can do it - because it’s not really about our voice, but allowing God’s voice to speak through us.
            Just like for the women who’ve spoken up, it’s scary - but if we really find and use our voices, if we allow God to speak through us, then I have no doubt that at least some people will respond and repent just as they did when they heard John the Baptist and Jesus, bringing the long-ago vision of the Psalmist to life:
            Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
            Amen.