[Propertalk] Sermon for St. John the Baptist, Luke 1:57-80

[Joe Parrish]

Below is a draft of our sermon for our Anniversary Sunday, based on Luke 1:57-80.
A final version will be posted on our church web site by Monday, God willing, on the Worship tab of http://sjnj.org

Peace and blessings,
Joe

St. John's Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
The Nativity of St. John Baptist
June 21, 2009
DRAFT
A Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish
The Holy Gospel according to
Luke 1:57-80
     The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.  Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.  On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father.  But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John."  They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name."  Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him.  He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John."  And all of them were amazed.  Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.  Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea.  All who heard them pondered them and said, "What then will this child become?"  For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.  Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.  He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.  Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.  And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.  By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."  The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.  
 
     Help us serve you more dearly, day by day, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
     There is some speculation that Zechariah was struck dumb so his complaining would not disturb his wife, Elizabeth, during her pregnancy.  But the Spirit of disbelief was the reason the writer of Luke's gospel gives as the reason for his temporary nine month muteness.  Sometimes our language of disbelief is more than the Spirit of the Lord can tolerate.  We can play the role of the skeptic or critical thinker easier than we can be creative thinkers.  It takes more energy to come up with constructive ideas than to stand back and criticize the positive suggestions others make.  And in our time of recession, it is easier to come up with ideas of how to spend money unwisely than it is to discern how to save money, without sacrificing quality or impact; and our challenge sometimes may even be to spend money in order to make an investment that will end up saving funds.  
     Scholars note that the people of Israel in the late first century B.C. were probably greatly disheartened by being the slaves of the Roman state and under the scrutiny of Roman authority.  The Israelites were no longer in control of their destiny, or so they thought.  But suddenly the good news of the impending birth of the Messiah in broke and set tongues a twitter.  The long expected one had finally become real enough that a forerunner was to be born, John the Baptist.  And John's mission would be to clear the way for the Coming One.  John would be in the wilderness, able to hear God's voice clearly, able to discern what God was calling John to do, and would have the stamina to do it.
     Rome had usurped control of the Temple, it appears, and the high priest and his family had likely gotten their appointment politically rather than through the historic religious means of making this most important selection.  Thus every decision of the people's religious future had been sealed off by this disgraceful intrusion into the sacred place of the people of God.  And the corruption which followed reached down into every village and town of Israel.  The Pharisees took charge of the synagogues, and carried out their personal aggrandizement at the expense of the people, and the Sadducees took over the Temple precincts, turning the place of prayer into a market place and supporting the corrupt High Priests of the time, Annas and Caiaphas. 
     It was a dark time for Israel.  But the Dawn was coming!
     The prophecy of a forerunner the likes of Elijah was clear in the writing of the Prophet Malachi, who foretold the coming of one like Elijah before the glorious day.  And in our reading from the prophet Isaiah today we hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness to "make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
     I saw an interesting video from the Church of England who has been challenged to open up some of their church lands for agriculture, for community gardens.  One church I have visited there, St. Mary the Virgin in Harmondsworth near the Heathrow Airport, had a back plot of vacant land with piles of various debris and unkempt borders.  But the person spearheading the English vegetable garden concept saw the land and noted about forty garden plots for vegetables could be grown in that one empty piece of land.  Indeed, the soil appeared dark and fertile, and very good for planting crops, although the parish had never looked upon the plot as something which could become something useful to the surrounding community.  And apparently in the London Diocese alone there were dozens of acres that could be put to agricultural use.
     Several years ago, some immigrant farmers from Somalia came to the American city of Seattle, Washington State, and saw opportunities galore within the Seattle city limits.  They keep petitioning the city government to let them use some of the government owned property for gardening, they succeeded in their efforts, and now several acres of crops are being grown with a few miles of the state Capitol building!  Beauty, the agricultural kind, is in the eye of the trained beholder, it seems!
     At the coming of St. John the Baptist, God saw the wonderful potential to begin a strain of greatly reformed Judaism-which in time assumed the name of Christianity, and which would be so broad that Gentiles could join, without having to become Jewish converts.  The impending destruction of the Temple would mean the temple-centric Jerusalem worship would cease, and the constant offering of animal sacrifices could no longer occur, the Passover pilgrimages would cease, and the people would be mired in their unforgiven sins as a result.  The Solution, of course, was to have a single sacrifice that would end all sacrifices; a perfect lamb, Jesus, would be killed on a cross, hung up for all to see, the Lamb of God that would take away all sins for those who put their trust in him.
     What an incredible calling for John the Baptist-to become the forerunner of the Christ of God!  Yet that would be John's task.  John was ordained from birth to be his kinsman's harbinger.  John's ability was to see things from their most basic vantage point.  Where had the Jewish society turned from God and become so similar to the Roman captors that there was nothing to distinguish believers from non-believers, Jews from anyone secular?
     The renewed religion of God would be open to any who believed on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and who would follow his commandment of love.
     The challenge we have here is that new believers don't have the economic means to keep these big buildings of St. John's Church whole and repaired.  Here has become our 'squeeze'.  We are successful in the basic way of the Lord, but in this building and in the others we are not successful in meeting our financial needs.  Thus we have all these new ideas of how to make out land more 'productive', yet we don't have agricultural land as they do in Seattle, but we do have land that could become more economically productive, or could be so with a certain amount of investment. General Seminary in New York has leased its property for 99 years and has received over 30 million dollars as a result.  Our calling as stewards is more complex than winning souls for Christ; it has become winning money to keep buildings repaired in order to keep our worship space whole.  But our challenge may be actually what was facing the Temple authorities in 26 AD, when selling pigeons, and farm animals and money changing had taken over the religious function of the sacred building.
     The result, of course, that had happened by the time the gospel of Luke had been written was that there were no more buildings to repair and upkeep.  The Jewish rebellion against Rome had occurred; the Temple and the City of Jerusalem had been completely destroyed; and the population of Jerusalem had been scattered to the four winds.  It would be decades before Jerusalem would be repopulated.  And the writers of the New Testament were absolutely necessary to cast a vision of how the sect of Christ followers could hold together, now in total exile.
     Though a scary idea, such a disaster could befall us here, though none would be willing to foretell it in a way that would be even remotely believable.  We are of course within the fallout range of New York City; a nuclear blast there would empty out Elizabeth and the rest of northern New Jersey.  And even though we have constant alerts to be certain such an event cannot possibly occur, there is always that remote chance that it could happen.  And we would be left to face the future much the same way Christians in the first century after 70 AD had to survive.  Some became cave dwellers in the Catacombs near the precincts of Rome.  Others scattered in various directions throughout the world.
     I am sure God has a plan for us, but I certainly hope nuclear death and destruction is not it.  So we continue to seek other avenues to maintain our ministries in this place.  Right after this service we will host another congregation who will be worshipping here from time to time, one who is seeking to be accepted into the Episcopal Church.  Unlike most of the rest of the Episcopal Church which is loosing congregations, we are close to gaining one!  Maybe this is God's plan for us, we'll see.
     In any event, what God began at the time of John the Baptist, God continues to carry out in our time and in our place.  The will of the Lord will not be diverted.  We may be the harbingers of the future, when believers from all over seek safety and solace here.  Our task is to remain faithful stewards, keeping our pledging growing, becoming tithers, and continuing to become for Christ the loving congregation that cares for the last, the least, and the lonely of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and the world.
     Happy 303rd Anniversary, St. John's!
     Amen.  
 
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