Sermon for the
Second Sunday of Advent
December 9, 2007
Isaiah 11:1–10
Psalm 72:1–7, 18–19
Romans 15:4–13
Matthew 3:1–12
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Rutabagas and radishes, turnips, parsnips and carrots, and beets. These are winter vegetables. They don’t have the allure of juicy strawberries or the pop of crisp apples, but stored properly they can last a long time, even through a cold winter in the days when trucking oranges was not possible. Rutabagas and radishes, turnips, parsnips and carrots, and beets are what you called root vegetables that grow down into the ground instead of up to the sun. Prior to modern refrigeration, root vegetables were also stored just below ground in a dirt room called, appropriately, the root cellar. Though many people do not find these under classed food high on their yummy meter, they are high in nutritional value. Like mom always, said, eat your vegetables; they’re good for you!
I invite you to look low to the ground this day in Advent. Below the surface, behind the glitter of tinsel and blinking lights, look deep within yourselves, root around a bit, and what do you find?
Self-assessment can be a tricky business. Truth-telling can be an even trickier business, even in these days when candidates offer what is now called “spin” on immigration, health care, and taxes.
Thomas Long writes thoughtfully about truth-telling in his book called Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian. Here’s what he says about the wisdom of a Hollywood movie:
In the comedy film Crazy People, Dudley Moore plays the part of Emory Leeson, an advertising executive who comes up one day with an outrageous idea: telling the truth. “Let’s face it,” Emory tells a coworker, “you and I lie for a living.” So, daring to buck the trend, Emory begins to draft copy for ruthlessly honest ads. Instead of a thousand subtle deceptions about how some product will make people happier, sexier, or richer, he says things like “Volvos: they’re boxy, but they’re safe” or “United Airlines: most of our passengers get there alive.”
Predictably, Emory’s unconventional tactics get him in hot water with his boss and, worse, raise suspicions that he has lost touch with reality. So he is packed away to a psychiatric hospital to restore his “sanity.” But while he is locked up, his agency accidentally releases his ads to the public, and the results are astounding. The public is so shocked, amazed, and delighted by hearing the unvarnished truth for once, sales skyrocket. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p 91)
There are at least two points of wisdom to this: we all hunger for the truth, where politicians, newscasters, and car dealers turn off the spin and the lies. But the second is also compelling, though more subtle: we often laugh at what worries us most inside.
Part of what God’s Word needs to be, and cries out to be in this Advent time is telling the truth, which means exposing falsehood, while also preaching reliable and trustworthy hope.
To a nation bitterly divided in its loyalties, where the elite are grabbing for power, people are swayed to and fro by what they hear, and so many crying out for their loyalties, the prophet Isaiah speaks, low to the ground, exposing falsehood while preaching reliable and trustworthy hope.
Isaiah, the poet par excellence, the fifth-century BC Shakespeare of his day, places before his audience a little greenery out of a stump. A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
In this extended image, we see God’s purposes unfolding in a vast stretch, from way, way down to the roots of Jesse, the patriarch who was the father of King David, while extending and growing up, up and outward through the whole planet, filling it up with the knowledge of the Lord, like waters filling out the sea.
Did you hear the promise? Did you recognize that promise in words spoken to the newly baptized, to the newly confirmed, to all who seek to orient and re-orient their lives toward one who creates, who makes new, and who forgives those who forget and who deny their need for a complete overhaul. These are the words spoken in blessing with the laying on of hands with the prayer for the Spirit: The Spirit shall rest upon him [the Spirit shall rest upon her], the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11:2).
Filled with that new direction, that way to grow with God, truth is ever sought.
Did you hear that the one promised will not judge quickly, but will delve deeply into the root of sin and evil, and seeking not the powerful or the influential but lifting up the poor and meek of the earth? He shall not judge by what his eyes see,or decide by what his ears hear; 4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.
God clearly has a nose, eyes, and ears close to the ground. The underbelly of the nation’s inhabitants, dark secrets and hidden frailties deep within you and me are gathered up, and we are held close and set on a path that is smooth and are led to a way of being that turns enemies into friends, and hatred into peace. 6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.
Do you know that this is the truth that we desperately need to hear, and just as desperately need to speak to any that will listen?
Isaiah was a supreme truth-teller and visionary, and in that prophetic line John the Baptizer appeared to get to the root of those who came seeking a new way and a new life. He appeared in the desert, and cleared a path for the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Our keeping Advent means to model repentance, clearing up the gunk inside and out to make a space for the kingdom of heaven to come near.
In Advent, each Sunday,
We turn toward the rear for our confession and forgiveness to ritually get into our bodies the turn that we must make toward God.
We kneel at the rail to ritually get into our bodies the posture of receiving in faith Christ who restores us and makes us whole.
We share peace with one another to ritually practice the shalom that God intends for the entire planet.
We long for Jesus to come deep, deep inside us to claim us as children of promise, while we cry Lord, have mercy, and come, Lord Jesus. Deep, deep inside us the one who came as a child or promise through the Spirit fills us through wine and bread. In our communal encounter with truth and love, we are extended up, up, and outward to those to whom God would extend redemption, the poor, the hungry, the disenfranchised of the earth.
Now that you have heard the truth, I invite you also to speak it to others. Your words may not be as flowery as Isaiah or as strident as John the Baptizer, but they will surely come in human encounters where you speak from your heart words that are formed out of faith.
Keep your eyes open and your hearts ready to welcome others as Christ has welcomed you. It may not appear easy, but like eating root vegetables, you may grow to like it. And like my mother says, it’s good for you!
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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