Advent 2 C + Do what the Spirit says + 12.5.21

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M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Baruch 5:1–9; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3–11; St Luke 3:1–6)

This from the Gospel according to Sweet Honey in the Rock:

We're gonna do what the spirit say do,
We're gonna do what the spirit say do
What the spirit say do we're gonna do, oh Lord,
We're gonna do what the spirit say do

John the Baptist was doing what the Spirit said to do. He was born into a priestly family, raised up by his father Zechariah, a priest according to the order of Abijah. On his mother’s side, he was also from a priestly line, as Elizabeth was a descendent of Aaron. So this guy had priest all over him. His role in life was supposed to be to wear nice priestly robes and lead worship, including ritual baths, in the temple. But you know what happens when the Spirit gets ahold of you? You gotta do what Spirit say do.

And so John took himself out of the temple and to the wilderness in the area of the Jordan River, and he do that priestly ministry right out amongst the people. He went out to the wilderness, the place where God meets God’s people and the place where the people meet God. The wilderness is where Moses and the people of Israel walked and received God’s commandments, and manna for survival, and where later Jesus would go on his own Walkabout and even later feed a crowd. So here in the wilderness, John the Baptist talked about the baptism for the forgiveness of sins. He talked about repentance, and God’s leveling ways.

He did what the Spirit said and brought good news to the people. All the people.
And he talked how every valley would be filled and every mountain and hill made low. The paths would be made straight. The original people to whom Isaiah spoke in this section quoted by John the Baptist were in exile. They needed those smooth roads to be able to return home. But they were also ready to return to a Jerusalem much changed and needed God to smooth the path for their hearts too. In Jesus and John the Baptist’s time, the people were dealing with a Roman occupation and needed the hope John provided to imagine a future in which they would be free.

And today, we are continuing to live during a pandemic and continue to ask ourselves, what would freedom look like today? What roads need to be leveled?
This brings us to the comment- all flesh shall see the salvation of God. All flesh shall see it. John the Baptist was not just talking to the observant and well-behaved Jews, he was talking to the misfits and the outcasts. Possibly already to some who didn’t really fit into the religious categories. He was reaching out, and doing what the Spirit said to do!

What might the good news of all flesh seeing God’s salvation look like today? I wonder. Could it look like enough vaccine distribution to all parts of the world so that no one has to keep worrying about yet another variant? Might it be racial equality and gender equity? Could it look like clean drinking water for all? Like a planet that is not being polluted by corporations so that all can breathe free, without fear of asthma in the inner cities, whether a person live in South America, North America, Africa or Asia? Or anywhere else?
This Advent, we are invited to listen to the Spirit, too. To do what the Spirit say do in our own lives. What that looks like will be different for each of us. But there is such good news here, also. Good news of a God who is already pouring that good news out on all of us.
All flesh, all creation will see the goodness of God.
Let us travel to the wilderness in our hearts, and see what the Baptist has to say to us.
Do you have something to repent of today? Bring it to God in prayer. Let the cleansing waters of baptism, that is to say the renewal of God’s forgiveness, wash that hurt from your soul.

Do you have a new path to walk on? One that God might be even now smoothing for you, preparing for you? Be not afraid. Walk on that path. God, the God who led the people to the promised land, who returned the exiles back to their home, the God who redeemed the world in Jesus, that God is looking out for you! And God will bring us through this time, too. Through the fears of pandemic, and the partisan enmity and all the suffering of our lives, God will lead us through. And we will see the salvation. All of us.

As another song goes, this one by the Brilliance (“Love Has a Way”),

“Love has a way of finding us
Just when you think that all is lost
So if you feel like giving up
No love is never too far off.

So give a little love”

Let us give a little love at this time and trust that love has a way of finding us, if we are willing to do what the Spirit says to do!

Amen.

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