Ending Up with John the Baptist...

John the Baptist is crying out - 

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"

And this, as they say today, drew the crowds.  People from all over came to hear him, to see him, as he preached “a baptism of repentance.”

In other words, he was indicting the people who gathered, telling their sins and sinfulness, yet also preaching hope for restoration and healing of each individuals’ and the whole community’s relationship with God.

To restore the people, one at a time, into right relationship with the God who had long ago named the nation and people of Israel as God’s Chosen People.

Have you ever been really steeped in Sin?  Just knowing that you were really on the wrong track, that if anybody knew what you really did, are really doing or what you really thought, well, the “jig would be up” 

Covetousness, outsized anger, abuse of alcohol or other drugs, plagiarism, cheating, the use of pornography, infidelities to promises made, cynicism, resentments, gossiping, and the rejection of hope of second or third or more chances…

“You've had your last chance, the scheme or deception is revealed or foiled.”  

And in our colloquial language we have an expression for that….

How I “ended up.”

You know how we tell it: “I did such and so and told so and so and then this happened and that happened and so ‘I ENDED UP HERE.’

Its’ all in how we frame it, how we tell it, even how we understand it.

But it is an incomplete, awkward, and honestly silly way to see it.

I want you to imagine you are having a boring weekend in Jerusalem 2000 years ago and so you decide to go to Jordan River to hear that guy everyone is talking about.  He is preaching not just the forgiveness of Sin, but the very idea of indictment of you as a sinner… It might be interesting, exciting, good… We could all use that…

You pass King Herod’s retinue on your way.  So there’s that, too.  All the best people are going to see and hear John.

And so, there you are, with hundreds, being hectored, yelled at  and lectured by this man of God who comes off as both really astute and somewhat crazy.   Look at how he’s dressed, look at what he ate for lunch. Bugs. He’s ccccrrrrraaaaaazzzzzyyyyyy…

But like the Woman at the Well who meets Jesus way later in the Gospels, we can’t help but feel and deep down know that “He told me everything I’ve ever done…”  Even in the bad stuff, the embarrassing stuff, the shameful stuff… 

And in that moment, feeling very vulnerable and indicted, you look around at the faces of all the others there, with wide eyes and flushed cheeks, you hear Hope, even in the face of all that… knowing our deepest and darkest.…

Hope of Restoration, Hope of New Beginnings, Hope of a Clean Slate and a Fresh Start.

Now guess what you’d probably say in telling this story later….

Blah da de blah blah, and I ended up at John’s River baptism...

The language and framing is wonderful at getting us to think about it wrongly:

Let’s see how this would play out:

Adam & Eve: “We ate that one fruit we weren’t supposed to, and so we ended up getting thrown out of the Garden.”

Moses: “We were on our way to Freedom, but we ended up at the Red Sea, with Pharoh’s Army approaching… So all is lost!”

David: “I was out in the fields, and the Prophet Samuel wanted to meet my family. So I ended up being made King.”

John the Baptist’s father Zechariah: “So I met an Angel, a real angel in the temple, and didn’t believe him, so I ended up losing my voice…”

Joseph: “My betrothed is with Child.  I was going to quietly divorce her, but I had a dream and a prayer, and so I ended up staying with her.”

Mary: “There was no room at the Inn that Joseph picked out, so we ended up in this stable…”

Jesus: “I met a lot of wonderful people, but I ended up picking these 12 to be with most of the time.”

Saul: “I was on the road to Damascus, and I ended up blinded by light and heard the voice of Jesus himself…”

I could do this all day, and I bet you could as well.

And we know that every one of these “ending ups” was really just the beginning of a Great Adventure with God.

Just about Two years ago, I “ended up” here at Immaculate Conception.  And it’s been a great adventure.

And you, where have you ended up?  And more importantly how many times have you though you “ended up somewhere, somehow, with whomever.”  

But each time that was really just the beginning of a Great Adventure with God.

***

I don’t know if it is still taught in schools, but in early colonial American History there is an important figure in religious American History named Jonathan Edwards.  In certain circles he is famous for many things, but most folks learn about a sermon of his from 1741, six hours long, given one Sunday at his church in Enfield, CT.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.  

Back in my day, we read it in school, maybe you did too.

It’s a tough read; we are, Edwards posits, indeed Sinners in the hands of an Angry God.  And this has roots in John the Baptist’s preaching, too…

But the central image he uses is actually quite beautiful.

We are like spiders, Edwards says, and God has us by our silk holding us over the flames.

If you hate spiders, it might be hard to appreciate that image, but bear with me.

Here’s the thing you learn when you visit Edward’s Church:

His desk, where he did most of his writing abuts a window.  And just outside that window, on the sills, were frequently spiders, building webs, leaving eggs, catching other insects and eating them…  He wouldn’t let anyone touch them…

When you’re writing anything, do you jockey with other widows on your computer and kind of take a break for a few minutes?  I bet you do.  Edwards did too, watching the spiders’ adventures.

He loved watching these spiders, admiring their handiwork, and their role in creation, even praying to the Creator God for them in nature…

The silk, you see, comes from inside of them.  That which produced the web was constitutively part of the Spider.  The web did not come from anywhere but inside them.  You take the silk away, the spider dies.  The spider can’t be without it…

So… hear me out…If we are like a spider connected to the hand of God by our silks, then that connection, that, link comes from inside of ourselves.  Our great link to God, that which connects us is constitutively part of us.  Psalm 100: “He made us we belong to him…”

God is holding us by that silk that is part and parcel of us.

Romans 8: “I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.”

So today is December 4th, and you, who are a saved sinner who is constitutively connected to God,  have indeed ended up here at Mass at IC.  Or You’ve ended up participating via livestream.  Put a pin in this moment, for that means, 

That a new adventure in your life with God has a new beginning, starting about 20 minutes ago.

***

Take another listen to the fist part of our second reading:

”Brothers and sisters:

Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction, that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That we might have hope!