Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
Grace and Peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus the coming Messiah, Amen
“What then should we do?” Take what you have too much of, and give it to those who don’t. Take the abundance, and provide to the scarcity. For the Son of God is coming to level the playing field. The Messiah, the Savior of the World; is coming to turn the world on it’s head. The mighty shall be made low. The wheat will be separated from the chaff; the fruitless tree will be cut down. Jesus the Christ is coming, and he will save us all from ourselves.
From our selfishness, our bigotry, our pain, our sorrow, our broken selves. John the Baptizer stands there in the wilderness; the Good News of Jesus Christ having bypassed all the rulers of the land, even the high priests in the temples. The Good News came to a wild man out in the Wilderness. On the banks of the river Jordan, the Good News came to John the Baptizer. A man of the common folk. John the Baptizer, stands there in the wilderness, and proclaims the Good News. One who is related to the Messiah, but is not the Messiah. John the Baptizer calls out to the people to give of their plenty to those who have none. All are equal in Christ Jesus, but for those living on the bottom of the equation, life's not so equal.
Of the 58,000 or so residents residing Otter Tail County, around 12% of the county’s residents live at or below the poverty line. While this county has a higher poverty rate than the state average of 11%, we have a low unemployment rate of only 3%. Minnesota’s unemployment rate and poverty rates, are both in the lowest 10 of the country. Our neighbor, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate at 2.8%.
So, we have jobs. We have people working those jobs, and yet we have a higher than state average poverty rate. There’s a disconnect there, and I’m not entirely sure what the disconnect means. Sure, we have seasonal employment, but I don’t think that’s the nature of the discrepancy. This conversation has been going on in my head for some time now, but the idea is the same - poverty is a reality that needs to be addressed, and everyone knows it. We’re taught, whether implicitly or explicitly, on purpose or on accident - from a young age that there are entire groups of people that we ignore or discriminate against.
Whether by race, creed, religion, wealth, gender identity or sexual orientation - we’re taught from a young age that there are people different from us, and they are to be feared. Each generation has their token group, but otherness has scared us from the beginning of humanity. It is this otherness that keeps us at bay. Away from the knowledge of the other. So we keep them at arm’s length. Whether symbolically or proclaiming to the entire nation that an entire group of people is not welcome in our country… Otherness scares us.
While this theme of otherness being feared has been a constant since the dawn of humanity - the overarching theme of God telling us to get over ourselves has also been there. From the story of Cain and Abel - to Pharaoh fearing the Israelites to Moses sending the scouts into the Promised Land, only for the scouts to feel like grasshoppers to the people already residing there - to the story of Christmas and Herod fearing children… Otherness has been feared and God tells us to get over it. To embrace difference. To love one’s neighbor, just as God loves us. According to Jesus, that is the greatest commandment.
And yet, we persist. We keep the world’s harsh realities at bay, because we don’t want to disturb the life we have. We don’t want to know. We bury our heads in the sand and we hide. Maybe we’ll throw a dollar or two at it and hope that it goes away. Maybe we’ll close our church doors, and only allow certain people to come worship; to come to the table; to sit with us. We fear the unknown. The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson postulated that “What we fear of doing most is usually what we most need to do.”
I’ve told this story a couple times in different places, but in January I sat across the table from Senator John Marty, the son of a prominent Lutheran scholar and brother of a Lutheran pastor in Iowa. He is a champion of fighting for impoverished Minnesotans, and on that day in January, told me the story of the 2006 legislative session. The Minnesota Legislature passed a Legislative Action to End Poverty by 2020 that year. That wasn’t the big ticket item in the legislature that year. At the same time, the legislature was engaged in talks about building Target Field, where the Minnesota Twins play. In one of the discussions, Senator John Marty stood up and plainly asked why we had to wait until 2020 to end poverty, when we could just ask the owners of the Minnesota Twins to end it for us right then and now… Crickets. The discussion continued without even getting that a thought.
The answers are staring us in the face. God calls us to love one another, and yet, we’d rather talk about why the other isn’t deserving of love. God calls us to clothe and feed the impoverished. We’d rather talk about how hard it would be to do anything about poverty. God calls us to welcome our neighbor. We’d rather talk about why they want to harm us.
This country was founded on welcoming the neighbor. My ancestors, our ancestors, were all welcomed here at one point. We have different ancestors from different parts of the world, and yet, here we are.
Here we are celebrating an Italian Catholic saint from 4th century Sicily because it’s a Swedish Lutheran tradition and most of the congregation is more Norwegian than anything… Talk about multiculturalism. Think about that: Here we are, in the middle of the United States of America, celebrating the life and service of a young girl from 4th century Sicily, more than 1700 years after she died. Saint Lucy, or Santa Lucia, or Loosha as we refer to her; lived in Syracuse in the late 3rd century. According to legend, she refused to marry a pagan, as she was Christian and didn’t want a life of indentured servitude to her pagan husband, and gave all of her dowry to the poor. A girl of noble birth, of wealth and status; gave most of what she had to serve the poor. She was martyred in 304 CE. Then, as the years went on, her story struck a chord with the hungry Swedes in Varmland Sweden, and since the 16th century, Lutheran Swedes have celebrated the arrival of a young girl providing food for the hungry. This day, the 13th, was once considered the darkest night of the year, and the image of a young girl with light around her head bringing food to the hungry - bringing light to their darkness - became a beautiful symbol that Swedish Lutherans held onto.
So John the Baptizer stood there on the banks of the Jordan, proclaiming the good news that the Messiah was coming, and he was coming to level the playing field. The Messiah was the light in the darkness. John told the crowds of people to give from their plenty to feed the less fortunate. Lucia took from her dowry and fed the hungry. Bringing light into the darkness.
Jesus is the Light that shines through the darkness. Through the fire and the flames we carry on. Jesus, this Light of the World, that shines for all of us - was born in the lowest of low places, and died on the highest tree around. Jesus, the Savior of the World, died and rose again, to save us all, from ourselves. From our bigotry, our selfishness, our hatred, our ignorance, our darkness, our shame. Jesus the Christ saves us all, by the Grace of God. This unimaginable Grace, Love and Mercy that does not, will not, and cannot end.
That is the Good News that John was shouting in the wilderness. That is the Good News that we each proclaim each day. There is so much darkness in the world, but Jesus shines through it. God’s Light shines through the darkness of this world, and shows us the way. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We respond to this Grace, Love, and Mercy by doing exactly as God calls us to do - to welcome our neighbor with open arms. To love our neighbor as God loves us. To clothe and feed the impoverished, as God has clothed and fed us. God calls us for a life of service to our fellow human being. It’s in the music of the season. In a few weeks, we give of ourselves to our family, our friends, and our neighbors. We continue a tradition of providing joy in the form of Christmas gifts. We continue a tradition of providing light where there is darkness. Abundance where there is scarcity.
What then should we do? Love our neighbor. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Welcome them in with open arms. Proclaim the Good News of the awaited Messiah.
Amen.
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