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.
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