O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Amen.
So today is an interesting Sunday. The third Sunday of Advent is full of history and tradition. One such tradition is that of gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word which means “rejoice!” Historically, Advent had been a season of fasting and introspection as we approach Christmas. Our readings the last two Sunday have been challenging as we heard about the coming of the Son of man, and then last week we met John the Baptist who calls us to repent. Gaudete Sunday began as a break from the rigors of Advent. This is why we light the pink Advent candle this Sunday, as pink is lighter in intensity than purple. And though this tradition started in a different place and for different circumstances, we too need to hear the words of “rejoice!” this morning. We are at the half-way point in Advent; two weeks in, two weeks until Christmas. Are you rejoicing, or are you coping? Do you end you day with a smile as you reflect back, or do you let out a stressful sigh? Let this Sunday be a reminder to us to remember what this season is about, the coming of our King, and for that, let us rejoice.
The other piece of history is that today is also called “Stir-Up” Sunday. Our Collect today begins “stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.” Traditionally, most Sundays leading up to Christmas had the Latin word excita in the Collect. Excita of course is tied to the word “excite.” As the story goes, pudding was always prepared for the Christmas season, you know, figgy pudding, and it had to stand for a few weeks before being served. So some say that the use of the words “stir up” were also a reminder to cooks and servants that they needed to be stirring the pudding so it would be ready for Christmas. But there is also a spiritual meaning to it. Stir up is a call to wake up and focus, it’s our half-time pep talk as we go through Advent. Maybe the first half of Advent has been great and full of spiritual meaning for you, maybe it hasn’t. Either way, let today be a reminder to let the excitement of the coming of our King stir up your hearts and minds, your hands and feet.
These tones of rejoicing and excitement are found within our readings from both Isaiah and John. This portion of Isaiah comes from what scholars denote as Third Isaiah. Chapters 1-39 are written before the Babylonian Exile, chapters 40-55 come from Israel’s time in Exile, and 56-66 are written after they return to Israel. So at this point, the people have returned to their homes, and they are joyful. There is good news to share with the oppressed. The brokenhearted will be bound up, or better translated, made whole. The captives will be set free. The prisoners of darkness will be released. The year of the Lord’s favor will be proclaimed. And those who mourn will be comforted. Scholars also see this passage as one of the Servant Songs. The Servant is seen as Israel’s Messiah. Now there is a danger in reading Jesus into Isaiah, but it is acceptable to read Jesus in the light of Isaiah. Afterall, Jesus saw this passage as essential to his self-identity. In Luke, when Jesus begins his ministry in the Temple, he reads this passage. The thing which we are to be excited about on Christmas is this sort of good news, and this is a good reminder to us of that message of hope.
This passage from Isaiah is also a favorite of liberation theologians. Liberation theology has its roots in the 1950s in Latin America, where government abuse, human rights violations, poverty, and social injustice were spoken out against. Liberation theology calls for Christianity to transform our world, to change our politics, our personal actions, and our prejudices so that justice and equality might thrive. It realizes that Christianity has become the slave to money, to success, to power, to prestige, and that it has ceased to be the radical and counter-cultural movement which it once was under the leadership of Jesus the early disciples. Liberation theologians called attention to the fact that the Church was not transforming our world, the Kingdom of God was not coming on earth as it in heaven, at least not through the Church. Instead, culture was transforming the Church. The Church was more interested in self-preservation and its growth of power and influence. And they were right. Christianity should be odd, not the norm. Christianity should be transformative to our world. So this reading from Isaiah is an invitation for us to consider our own issues of liberation and transformation.
One of the great things about the Advent season, about all of these readings about the coming Messiah is that we are reminded that we need a Messiah. If any of you do not need to be set free from something, if you don’t need a Messiah, then I’m not sure why you are here. We need to be redeemed. So the first question in considering our liberation is- what enslaves you? Is it work? Is it some image, either self-generated or from others, of what you should be instead of what you are? Is it addiction? Is it the need for revenge? Is it doubt? Is it fear of not having enough? Is it watered down religion? Is it guilt? Is it fear of death? I know it’s not easy to think about these things. These are the sorts of things we all try so hard to forget, the pains, the rejections, the stereotypes, the mistakes, the prejudices.
One thing that the Republican nomination process has shown us is that we all have skeletons in our closet. Isaiah speaks of the coming of the year of the Lord, which is also known as the jubilee year. It is a deeply Hebraic and Biblical idea of liberation for all people. The jubilee happened every 49 years, and it was mandated that all stolen property be returned, all slaves be set free, all debts be forgiven, all fields will rest for a year. Isaiah is proclaiming the ultimate jubilee year, a time where we all are set free from our debts, our enslavements, our crises.
But the interesting thing about this concept of being liberated, is that we have to let go. God can only free you if you let loose of the chains. If you continue to define yourself by your mistakes, by your shortcomings, by your fears and doubts, then you will never be liberated. Your faith will never transform you. We hang onto these things because we think we can control them, because we’ve hidden them so deep in our mind that they’ve taken root in our souls. Advent is a season about preparing for the coming of Christ the King, and this King will liberate us from all of these things, but we have to let him.
One thing that desperately holds us back from doing this during Advent is Christmas. We need to be liberated from Christmas. I’m not talking about the celebration of the birth of Christ, I’m talking about Santa, shopping, and sentimentalism. I really don’t mind the commercialization of Christmas. Shopping helps the economy and giving is not really a bad thing. But the sentimentalization of Christmas is a major problem.
I recently read an interview with the author of a new book- and I love this title because it is so straightforward and truth-telling, the book is called Christmas Is Not Your Birthday. And isn’t that true? Christmas morning seems like a birthday party on steroids for each of us. People are starting to realize that what we do during December is unhealthy and unchristian. There are big movements online right now called “Advent Conspiracy” and “Occupy Advent,” which urge us to spend less, give more, and love all people. And they have some truth to share. Americans spend $450 billion on Christmas. Some analysts suggest that global hunger could be eliminated with only $30 billion a year. And remind me, how is that dichotomy helping us to celebrate the coming of our King? Is it Jesus’ birthday, or ours? This isn’t to mention the fact that we spend over $500 billion a year as a nation on making war. For every $1 that Americans earn, we spend, on average, $1.22. I forget that part about spending beyond your means in the Sermon on the Mount. How would Greensboro and our world be different if for every dollar you spend on gifts, you also donated a dollar?
Or how about the ethics of Santa? We teach our children that Santa brings toys to good kids and coal to bad ones. What about a generous and loving God who gives grace and salvation to all people? How about our Christmas outreach? We adopt a family by spending an extra $50, which is a nice gesture, I’m not trying to diminish that. But is $50, or even $100 really a sacrifice? Wouldn’t the bigger sacrifice be to live in such a way that poverty didn’t exist?
I really don’t mean to be raining on the Christmas parade. It’s just that Christmas has the potential to be truly transformative, Christmas has the ability to change our world for the better, but not in its current form. It is sentimental and devoid of meaning or sacrifice. I want to reclaim Christmas for Christ, the King of the outcast, the champion of the poor, the spokesperson for the oppressed. If Martians landed in America today and did a study on Christmas, what would they think it was about? I don’t think Jesus would be on page 1 of their report. Let’s change that, let’s liberate Christmas and thereby transform our world.
What we must ask next in our survey of liberation is- who is the oppressor? Now, I’m not encouraging you to scapegoat here, a lot of the problem is with the person in the mirror, but there is injustice that needs to be spoken out against, this is what’s going on with the movements of the Arab Spring. It’s also what Isaiah was talking about. When he speaks about the captives being set free and the oppressed getting good news, he’s talking about the abuse of the poor. When the Israelites returned home, the rich people became gluttons for power and money. They reclaimed all of their old lands, and grabbed up land that wasn’t theirs. There was a system that kept the poor under the heel of the rich, a system that kept the outcasts outside. And folks, I don’t think I have to say it, but these systems are alive and well today. Isn’t this what the Occupy movements are all about? Now it doesn’t matter where you fall on the political spectrum, and I don’t fully agree with all that Occupy stands for, but you can’t deny the absurdity of the top 1% owning 35% of the wealth and bottom 80% owning only 15%. That’s simply not the Kingdom of God.
In considering liberation, we must realize that we are liberators sometimes, sometimes we are the enslaved, and sometimes we are the oppressors. Yes, in the US we are the 99%, but compared to the rest of the world we are the 1%. In fact, an annual income of $40,000 would put you in the top 97% of the world’s wealthy. There are a lot of ways to address this. We can live more simply, we can buy local to cut down on carbon emissions, we can avoid products that are made by slave labor, we can give more to charity. But I’m just wanting to do is to remind of ourselves of this fact- we are the 1% and we are the 99%. But neither of those are our calling as Christians. Instead, our task is to be the agents of God’s liberation for all people. Our mission is to stand up for justice, to stand up for better regulation, to stand up for the Kingdom of God.
And the final thing for us to consider in liberation this morning is-who is the liberator? Let’s turn to our reading from John. People really didn’t know who this John the Baptist character was. They could tell he was important, that he was proclaiming God’s vision, but was he the Messiah? Was he Elijah the prophet? And he says “I am not.” He is simply the voice crying out in the wilderness. As the gospeller John so eloquently puts it, John came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
John the Baptist reminds us that religion is bigger than you, bigger than me, even bigger than us. And this is because it is about God. There is a temptation out there these days to be spiritual but not religious, to say that you find God in nature, to claim that being a moral person is how your live out your faith. In other words, folks are making up their own religion; which is preposterous because we have a God for that. We don’t need a man-made religion because we have a God-made religion. John the Baptist reminds us that there is a light shining. We don’t need to search for the light, we don’t need to kindle the fire, we don’t need start a fire; it’s already burning.
And remember, John the Baptist was a bit weird. There’s a reason why he wasn’t a prophet in Jerusalem, he was on the outskirts of town for a reason. And he is a reminder to us that this light of God shines in odd and unexpected places. One theologian said that the light of God can only shine through a cracked skull, and don’t we all have some cracks? The light of God shined 2,000 years ago in an unwed mother, and it still shines there today. It shines in the cracks of interfaith dialogue, it shines in moments where Christians surround Muslims in prayer to protect them from danger. The light of God shines in hippie college kids protesting in Zuccotti Park, it shines in soldiers reaching out to children in Afghanistan. It shines in weird and counter-cultural people like St. Francis, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.
And this light of God is transformational. This light is liberating. This light overcomes the darkness of fear, of extremism, of doubt, of death, of disease, of betrayal, of injustice, of apathy, of a sentimental Christmas, of dictators, of intolerance, of greed, of evil. This is the light of the world, we don’t need to reinvent it; we just need to be mirrors- so that we can reflect this light and share it with others, so that it can transform us and our world.
As I started this sermon, I talked about Stir-Up Sunday and Gaudete Sunday. As we approach Christmas, let us be stirred up. Stirred up to transform how we celebrate the coming of Jesus, stirred up to stand up to our oppressors, external and internal. Stirred up to take a counter-cultural stance to free the captives and comfort the oppressed, and stirred up to live a truly transformational faith. And let us also rejoice this Advent. Bask in the light of Christ, the light that transforms darkness and liberates us from all fear.
And I know this is hard. I know it’s hard to re-envision how we celebrate Christmas. I know it’s hard to be counter cultural. I know it’s hard to face our captors. I know it’s hard to embrace our liberation because we’re not sure what comes next. It’s difficult to stand up to liberate others. It’s difficult to be transformed in ways that seem odd and challenge all the things we’ve assumed and done for so long. But let us take solace in Christ, our Light and our coming King, whose has gone before us in transforming and liberating. Let us all join in the song of saints and angels- “this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”
