To Do Lists

This is the sermon that I wrote for my Preaching and Worship class.  It is based on the lectionary for the 2nd Sunday in Advent (December 9). 

"In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar--when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene-- 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. 5 Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. 6 And all people will see God's salvation.' " (Luk 3:1 TNIV)

We spend our life in a state of constant preparation- picking out the perfect outfit the night before our first day of school; nervously pacing as we wait for our first date and deciding last minute to change outfits for the fifth time; loading the car up with our favorite things from home so that we can have them with us at college; studying for exams; buying that perfect ring and figuring out the best way to tell that special someone that they are the one you want to spend the rest of your life with; the excitement of finding out that you are about to do it all over again with a little one that is your own; planning for retirement and maybe even looking for more full-time care.  As a church we are preparing our building for new adventures and preparing a new budget.  Whether we have only experienced a few of these, or all of them, we have all spent time in preparation.  In fact, many of us might even be in this sometimes stressful state right now as we clean house, bake cookies, hang lights, and prepare for family from all over to come take over our house and eat all of our food… I mean visit.  We have “to-do” lists a mile long, all things needing to be done yesterday and no time to do it today.  In fact, if I were sitting where you are right now, I would probably have a bulletin covered in different lists- alas, that will have to wait until later.

This state of preparation is nothing new- in fact it has been around much longer than our preparation for the first day of school.  We have been told to prepare ourselves since the 6^th century, BCE when the prophet Isaiah told the people to prepare the way for the Lord.  Those to-do lists that cover today’s bulletin? They were not the first to be put there- Isaiah’s call is found once again in today’s reading in Luke.  Here, we find John the Baptist moving attention away from himself and to the messiah that is to come.  'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'  This to-do list only has one thing on it though- to prepare by making straight paths. Right. So is this when we call in our city governments and have them find a way to straighten out all of our roads real quick and fill in those potholes? I know Capital Blvd. isn’t a road that is ready for anyone of any status above “common” to be on- I am convinced my car has to go in the shop every time I drive on that road.  I think it is safe for us to agree that Isaiah and John are NOT talking about the condition of their roads though, but rather about the lives that serve as a pathway for the Lord to move through.

In his commentary on Luke, John Carroll suggests that when John the Baptist announces this word from the Prophet Isaiah, John is issuing “an urgent summons for a commitment to justice”.  There is no direct situation pointed to in this call, likely meaning that John is issuing this summons to all people in a very general circumstance- essentially telling them to reevaluate their life and make any changes that would make it better. This commitment to justice does lead them to focus outside of their own selves though and to look at how they relate to others around them.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is lighting luminaries.  My appreciation for this tradition came when I was young and used to go around the neighborhoods with my Dad’s Boy Scout troop passing out fliers about the upcoming luminaries, packing the sand bags, and then delivering them with instructions of how to set them up on Christmas Eve.  Following the worship service at our church, we would drive around the surrounding neighborhoods where we passed out supplies and drove up and down the streets that were lined with these beautiful candle lit bags.  Even today at 24 years old, my favorite part of preparing on Christmas Eve is lighting the luminaries around our own cul-de-sac, a job that was graciously relinquished to me when my neighbors realized my excitement saved them some extra work.  For me, one of the most exciting parts of this tradition was waking up throughout the night as a child and peering out my window, not just looking for Santa but making sure the candles were still lit because I had been told as that we lit these candles as a way of lighting the path for Mary and Joseph as they traveled to Bethlehem and later gave birth to the baby Jesus- so needless to say, I thought it was very important to make sure they stayed lit throughout the night to make sure that Mary and Joseph could find their way (the fact that we were just a few miles away from Bethlehem did not matter to me).  This form of preparation has recently been taken on as a way to light the road of preparation in other ways- the University of North Carolina at Greensboro lights up all of campus the night before “Reading Day” as students begin their studying for final exams.  I can’t help but look to this image of the luminaries on Christmas Eve and my former nights of studying at UNCG as an example of how we should live in accordance to Isaiah’s call to his people- as guiding points along the long and sometimes dark path. 

While our own individual lives should serve as their own pathway and even vehicle for the Lord, I can’t help but think how much easier it is to see on a dark, cold night in December when there is more than one single luminary.  When we drove down the streets that were lined with bags, we almost didn’t need the street lights overhead.  As a college student on UNCG’s campus, I could have studied by the light of the couple-thousand candles throughout campus.  However, the only reason that the multiple luminaries are as bright as they are together is because each light is holding its own individually.  As we look at our own lives, we should find ways to make our own light shine brighter whether that is big or small, and then continue to find ways to shine brighter as we go further down our own paths.  Once our lives are shining brighter, we can then look to our relationships with others and find ways to make the multiple lights shine brighter together.  This is when we find the pathway full of light and it is ready and prepared for the Lord.

It is not always about preparation though- preparation leads up to something, otherwise there would be no point to it.  Isaiah assures us that our preparation of a straight path for the Lord leads to the valleys being filled and mountains and hills being made low, crooked and rough roads being made straight and smooth.  Just think- if you didn’t make to-do lists, spend time choosing outfits for school and dates, setting up a nursery for the baby on the way, or planning for retirement what would happen when the big day finally came? What if we didn’t take the time in session meetings to go over changes to our budget a hundred times? Well, you would be late for school or that date, the baby would never make it out of your room because you definitely wouldn’t have time to set-up a nursery once it arrived, you would be without a job and nothing else to do, and we would have no idea how much money we have or what can be done with it. We prepare so that when the big day or event comes, nothing goes wrong.  We prepare so that we can enjoy.  The valleys are filled and mountains made low so that we can easily maneuver and see better what is happening thanks to our preparation.

To me, the greatest point of all in John’s recount of Isaiah’s words is what happens after we prepare- all of humankind will see salvation, a point that is unique to this Lukan account.  All of humankind.  Not just the Disciples that followed Jesus on his journey to the cross.  Not just those hearing Isaiah’s or John’s voice at that time.  Not just Presbyterians, or Baptists, or Methodists, or Lutherans- ALL of humankind.  This is the point when everyone hearing these words probably realized that whoever was coming was much more than they could ever imagine if EVERY human would see salvation when they came.  Throughout the last few weeks we have spent time talking about how we relate to others that may or may not be like us- well, this assurance is exactly why that is important.  ALL of humankind will see salvation so it doesn’t matter what it is that we think about others because they are in this mix as well, whether we like it or not.

I am sure that all of us remember the excitement of getting ready for a big day- the world seems to be moving faster and there is not enough time, your palms might be sweaty, your mind is racing, you double check every last detail to ensure that it is perfect.  The craziest thing to think about is that in this time of Advent and preparation, we are not just preparing for family to come visit or for the new Church budget year- we are preparing our lives and our hearts for the one who will be born, the baby that did and continues to change the world.  We all know that babies don’t stay babies for long- sometimes it even seems like they are only a baby for one short day, and it is as this baby grows up into to the man that we know as Jesus Christ that we see the valleys filled, mountains made low, and crooked and rough roads made straight and smooth.

So, take a moment and think about how you can make your own life’s path a little straighter… how can you make the pathways of your relationships straighter?  Maybe this means that we relax a bit more, or become more aggressive in the way we take things on.  Maybe we need to spend more time focusing on ourselves rather than everyone else, or maybe we need to spend more time focusing on others than ourselves.   These changes can be any number of things for any person, but what is important to remember is that we all have our own light burning right now, we just need to continue to make it burn brighter. The brighter each individual light, the brighter the pathway as all of the lights come together. Because sometimes you can't make the path straighter until it is lit enough that you can see the bends.

All thanks be to God, the one who gave us our only to-do list and lit our candle so that we could see it and prepare appropriately.  Amen.