Mea Culpa
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
For December 10, 2023:
Mea Culpa
by Dean Feldmeyer
Isaiah 40:1-11 & Mark 1:1-8
Repent!
We hesitate to even use the word any more. It’s become something of a cliché, right?
We’ve seen the cartoon a thousand times. A guy with a long beard in a robe and sandals, standing on a street corner, holding a sign that says, “Repent!” and the people are walking by, ignoring him.
Use the word “repent” today and the response you’re most likely to get is either ambivalence or laughter.
Not so a couple thousand years ago.
John the Baptizer was “in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and the people weren’t laughing or ignoring him. They were turning out in droves. “People from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him.”
Hear that? ALL the people of Jerusalem. All of them. We’re talking big crowds, here. Rich and poor. Black and white. Female and male. Young and old. Jew and gentile. All of them.
Everyone going to hear John the Baptizer preach about what? Repentance. Changing the way they live. Kinda makes you wonder what would happen if we were to preach such a sermon, doesn’t it?
Well, Advent is a good time to find out.
In the News
In 2007, NFL star quarterback, Michael Vick, was arrested for creating a dog fighting organization and the apparatus where by people could gamble on the outcomes of the fights, almost all of which ended with the painful death of one of the dogs.
If the dogs were not killed in the fighting pit, they were usually so badly injured that their owners took them out back, killed them with a blow (or several blows) to the head, and threw their bodies into a dumpster.
After being arrested but before he was sentenced, Vick went on camera to deliver an apology for his actions. He began by saying that he was a football player and not a public speaker, then proceeded to prove that point in a long, rambling, semi-coherent statement.
He confessed to doing what he was charged with. He apologized to the NFL and his coaches and teammates. He said he had found Jesus. He said he had rejected dog fighting, now, because he realized that it was “a terrible thing.”
And then, he apologized to “all the young kids out there, for my immature actions.” I remember thinking, at the time, “Immature? No, Michael, I think the word you’re looking for, here is, immoral. I have a six-year-old grandson who is immature but knows that it’s wrong to torture animals.”
Vick went to federal prison and served 18 months of his 23-month sentence and made some speeches on behalf of the Humane Society before going back to the NFL who forgave him because, well, he’s a really good quarterback. He played for several teams until, after some injuries, he retired in 2017. Today, he works for athlete management firm Levels Sports Group as its head of athletic development.
His personal wealth has been estimated at $20-23 million. He owns a rottweiler.
But that was then. This is now. And that was the NFL where felony convictions are routinely dismissed as “bad choices” or “mistakes.” Things have changed, right? It isn’t like that in the real world. Well maybe, maybe not.
This week the House of Representatives expelled New York Republican George Santos by a vote of 311 to 114, the first time since the Civil War that a member of congress has been expelled by the body without first being convicted of a crime.
The vote followed a scathing report by the House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged fraud perpetrated by his campaign after months of scandals that hounded the freshman lawmaker. The investigation accused Santos of spending campaign money on things like Botox, luxury shopping, and online pornography.
Even before the committee’s report, media investigations showed that Santos had lied about his education, his religion — he said that he is Jewish and his grandparent had escaped the Holocaust when, in fact, he’s Catholic. He lied about his employment history and the death of his mother who did not, as he claimed, die in the 9/11 attacks.
He is currently under indictment for 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to congress. He has also been charged with 23 counts of campaign fraud, identity theft, and lying to the FEC. A trial is set for next year.
A minority of house Republicans joined all but two Democrats in the vote, enough to achieve the 2/3 majority necessary for the ouster. Apparently, the straw that tipped the scales for some Republicans was a letter they received from Ohio Rep. Max Miller claiming that Santos had defrauded both him and his mother by charging campaign contributions to their personal credit cards.
Through all of this, Santos repeatedly refused to resign, denying any responsibility for any of the things of which he has been accused. He has been, he says, bullied by people who are jealous of his success and popularity in his district, and who hate him because he’s gay.
Asked by a reporter for a response to the vote, Santos said, simply, “To hell with this place,” the word, repentance, not being one with which he is familiar.
In the Scripture
The OT reading this morning is from Isaiah — that part which scholars call Second Isaiah — the part of the book that was written to the people of Israel who were being forced to live as captives in Babylon. In it, Isaiah speaks to God on behalf of the captives. He longs for God to act decisively on Israel’s behalf: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence… so that the nations would tremble at your presence.” And when he says “nations” he means Babylon.
He describes the great and awesome power that is only God’s, the powerful and creative acts that God has performed in the past — the creation of the universe, the vast and profound mystery of life and death, the miracles of healing and regeneration, the glory of love — all of these wonderful things that God has done. And he longs for God to do them again in a concrete, visible way for Israel.
Sound familiar? How many times in the past year, since our country has devolved into meanness and cruelty, and the world has erupted into war, have we heard that prayer prayed, or even prayed it ourselves?
Isaiah doesn’t wait for a response from God, however. He provides his own.
He realizes that before we can ask God to act, we must make sure that we have exhausted all of our own options. We must make sure that we are not asking God to do what we are perfectly capable of doing for ourselves, and we must make sure that our relationship with God is in good repair.
In verses 5-7, Isaiah, speaking for all the people, attends to their relationship with God by confessing that much of what has happened is their own fault. “We have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.”
Isaiah realizes that before we can ask God to fix our problems, we must take responsibility for creating those problems in the first place.
But that’s not the last word. His prayer doesn’t end there, with confession alone.
He closes his prayer with a little offering, saying, “I want to do better. I want to be a better person.” He realizes that his relationship with God has gone on tilt. It’s not as it should be.
Again, speaking for the people of Israel he says to YHWH, “Look, we want to get back into a right relationship with you. We want to be in that relationship where you are the potter and we are the clay.”
“Do not be exceedingly angry,” he asks. Angry, okay. We deserve that. We have messed up. We just ask that you don’t get exceedingly angry. Then he closes with these words: “Remember, we are your people.”
The people of God have humbled themselves before their Lord. They have confessed that much of what they are suffering they have brought upon themselves — either through action or inaction.
They have repented by trying to get back into an appropriate relationship with God — a relationship of dependency, of humility, of vulnerability. They have fallen on their knees. They have prostrated themselves on the ground before his judgement throne.
In the Sermon
In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran and other liturgical churches, this is a weekly ritual — a prayer of confession wherein we acknowledge that many, if not most, of our problems are our own fault. They are the results of bad choices, selfish actions, thoughtless words, simple rudeness, intentional meanness and, sometimes, outright cruelty.
The prayer is called the “Confiteor” after the first word of the prayer when it is spoken in Latin: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, et vobis fratres… The English version often goes like this: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault…”
The act of confession and repentance is not about pointing fingers at others and fixing blame; it is about looking inward to our own hearts, our own minds, our own intentions and actions and outcomes and saying as Isaiah said, “I am a person of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
It is not, as the street corner preacher would have us believe, about fearing Hell and avoiding damnation. It is about being honest with ourselves and each other and owning the darkness that we have brought into our own lives.
We are separated and estranged from God, from each other, from the essential selves that God has called us to be. And our estrangement is both state and act. It is the state into which we are born and that state to which we contribute to by thought, word, and deed.
So profound is our separation that we sometimes find ourselves lonely in the midst of a crowd. We long with an aching heart for just one person with whom we could be totally honest about who and what we really are. We hoard our resources for ourselves, we hurt the people we love most, we throw trifles of charity to the poor and the sick and the desperate, while we ignore the larger problems that made and keep them that way.
So profound is our separation that we are even separated from ourselves. We fill our lives with busy-ness so we won’t be caught, in an unguarded moment, looking into the mirror, confronted with the truth of who we really are.
If this is true of us as individuals, is it not more so of us as a people?
We divide ourselves into political parties and interest groups for whom spin is more important than truth and we excuse ourselves from responsibility because, well, everyone is doing it. After all, if you want to win you don’t really have a choice.
We talk of love even while we make war. We pride ourselves in our charity but half of all the money in the world that is spent on weapons is spent by our own country. We speak of kindness and gentleness but value most our right to own guns. We send politicians to Washington and tell them to fix the economy, “But don’t touch anything that is mine.” The elderly say, “Don’t touch my Social Security or my Medicare whether I really need them or not.” The poor say, “Don’t touch my food stamps.” The rich say, “Don’t touch my tax shelters.” Fix the economy, we say, but fix it with someone else’s sacrifice, not mine.
We want to prepare for the coming of Christ by grabbing all that we can get for ourselves and we wonder why we are left on the day after Christmas feeling empty and unfulfilled.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
It is my fault. My own fault. My own most grievous fault.
Much of what we have we have earned. Much of what we got, we brought to ourselves. It is our own fault. As Isaiah says, “You have delivered us, O Lord, into the hand of our own iniquity.”
But that’s not where it ends.
“Sometimes at that moment it is as though a wave of light breaks through the darkness and a voice is heard to be saying, ‘You are accepted. You are accepted! Accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know.’”
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though God, like the prodigal’s father, sees you coming from afar, recognizes you, and does not wait but runs to meet you and spreads God’s arms and takes you into the divine embrace.
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though one of God’s angels takes a live coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and touches that coal to your lips and says, as she said to Isaiah, “Your sin is forgiven, your guilt is taken away.”
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though the heavens open and you hear the voice of God saying, “You are my beloved child and in you I am well pleased.”
“Do not try to do anything now,” says theologian, Paul Tillich. “Perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”
If this happens to us, we have experienced grace.
Did I say, “if?” Make that “when.” For it happens to us all, if we are only focused enough to realize it. If we are not too distracted. If we are not too busy, too involved, too diverted by bells and whistles and flashing lights.
Hear how Paul speaks of God’s grace in his first letter to the Corinthians as we read it this morning. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.”
Past tense. For the grace of God that has been given to you.
It’s already happened. When we hear the word of grace, we’re hearing an echo of a word that was spoken at the moment of our birth and was drowned out by the cacophony of this world.
We are loved. We are forgiven. We are accepted.
When that happens to us, we experience grace.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The Season of Comfort
by Katy Stenta
Mark 1:1-8
God speaks comfort, telling us that the way will be eased for all whom access had been previously blocked. The wilderness will no longer be a harrowing experience. All those who are wandering, thirsty, hungry, and alone can take comfort. It is very different to think of Christmas as the season of comfort, versus “the season of giving.” The “season of comfort” implies a more thoughtful and slow season of offering what is needed to those who feel like they are in the desert or the wilderness, and giving to them not just because you are happy or it is a season, but because it is needful. The “season of giving” seems more demanding and materialistic.
The question is, are we here to be present and worship because this is a season of comfort, or are we in the business of customer service? One striking example of this is when the Washington National Cathedral made the mistake of charging for tickets on Christmas Eve. The blowback was so quick, by the next morning it was optional, and by the next evening they released a press release and an apology. In the Christian world, to make an offering is a joyful and acceptable part of worship — but demanding payment is not.
A good example of someone who offered comfort was Roslyn Carter, who definitely offered service and care to those with disabilities and caregivers. She recognized those with disabilities as real people to be included, and caregivers as those who do real work with viable needs. Her legacy echoes even today. The comfort of seeing people as they really are, and naming their needs, cannot be understated. Is that not what Jesus does? He sees us, names us, and then comforts us, wherever we are? What else could we ask for this Advent season?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Mark 1:1-8
Knowing Who You Are
On her blog, the Rev. Deirdre Whitfield tells the story of a man who got impatient after a long wait at the doctor’s office. “Unwilling to wait any longer, he decided to barge in and demanded to be seen by the doctor. “Don’t you know who I am?” shouted the individual.
The secretary calmly asked the waiting patients; “I have a someone here who doesn’t know who he is. Can anybody please assist him in finding out?”
John the Baptizer suffers from no such loss of identity. He knows exactly who he is, as God’s messenger. Rev. Whitfield adds, “In God’s vision we’re all important. We forget that God shows no impartiality, and fall victim to self-importance, selfishness, jealousy, and begrudgement, believing that no one is paying attention to us. But rest assured, God is paying attention!”
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Messenger Within
John the Baptizer is a dramatic messenger, making a bold announcement aloud to the people assembled by the river. Writer and podcast host Morra Aarons-Mele says that we have a similar messenger within us. In her book, The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower, she observes, “Anxiety is one of our most valuable messengers, signaling that we’re headed down the wrong path or are about to make an unwise decision. You can parlay the information that anxiety yields into all sorts of improvements and better outcomes: Higher productivity, increased empathy, better communication, deeper motivation, maybe even a career that’s a better fit. And that’s a good start — but don’t stop there.”
Anxiety is an unwelcome guest, and also a powerful messenger.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Unexpected Messengers
I wonder how many people expected to learn anything about God from John the Baptizer, or if they just came to see how strange he is?
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen recalls a young women served as a messenger for her, on her last day in the pediatrics clinic.
Two years before, a young Black woman had brought her baby in because he was losing weight, and the doctors in the emergency room noticed marks that looked like bruises. They weren’t. They were birthmarks in a baby whose skin is pigmented. In the emergency room they didn’t know that and assumed the mother was beating and starving her baby.
Dr. Remen knew what the spots were, and got the young mother’s permission to examine the baby. She discovered that he had “pyloric stenosis, a thickening of the muscle that connects the stomach to the intestine, and was vomiting and couldn’t eat. That was why he’d become emaciated. So we rushed him upstairs to the operating room. We opened the stenosis and it was fine. Then she took him home.”
Now, on this day, the little boy, now a toddler, would be her last patient. The mother was doing well and going to school. Dr. Remen got tearful, and the young mother asked, “Why are you crying?” She answered that this little boy would be her last patient. Dr. Remen told her a little bit about her plans, and how medicine had drifted from its purpose.
The young woman said, “This system is sick. I bring my baby into the hospital and they tell me I beating my baby. They don’t believe me. They don’t help me. They call the police. This system is sick. You have a patient now. It’s not a little patient like my baby. It’s a great big patient.” Dr. Remen adds, “I think of her as perhaps an angel. She delivered the right message to me at the right moment. It’s a little mysterious.”
Messengers are all around us.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
In the Wilderness
Quoting the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptizer announces that there is a voice crying out in the wilderness, signaling the arrival of God.
On her 60th birthday, Lori Erickson took a pilgrimage to a redwood forest, hoping for a birthday message from God. As she walked among the immense tress, she says, “I thought about the lessons I’d learned from my time among these forest giants. While it may seem like hubris to expect a birthday gift from them, I’ve long believed that travelers with open hearts receive blessings on their pilgrimages. So what teaching would I take with me?”
Perhaps that “I shouldn’t be afraid of the troubles, trials, and inevitable indignities of aging. That message came from seeing all the fire-ravaged elders of the forest, the ones that had been damaged by long-ago infernos. They’d slowly recovered, growing new bark around the edges of their injuries, but their scars would always remain. I felt a rush of affection for these gnarled beings, some of whom had been so hollowed out by fire that it wasn’t clear how they could remain standing. They reminded me that among the elders of all species, it’s a rare being who doesn’t bear the marks of long-ago traumas. They prove to us that true beauty lies not in perfection, but in endurance."
She got her own wilderness message, just as the people listening to John did. (From Every Step Is Home)
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Trying to Get Your Attention
Would we remember John the Baptizer if he wore “normal” clothes, and weren’t so cranky? It’s hard to say. Certainly, he’s skilled at getting attention for his message, as “all the people of Jerusalem” come out to listen to him.
In our device-saturated world, it’s even harder to get our attention today. Dan Lyons shares that “Every minute, 500 hours of new video content gets uploaded to YouTube. In the same sixty seconds, roughly 1.8 million Snaps are created, and 700,000 stories are posted on Instagram. Nearly 600,000 tweets are tweeted, 150,000 Slack messages sent. Each minute, people watch 167 million TikTok videos, 4.1 million YouTube videos, 70,000 hours of Netflix content, and listen to 40,000 hours of music on Spotify. Every. Damn. Minute. The average American uses ten apps a day, thirty apps per month, and checks their smartphone every 12 minutes. Hardcore addicts check their phones every 4 minutes.”
“Meanwhile, the content we consume keeps getting shorter, which lays waste to our ability to sustain focus. In 2015, a Microsoft research team made the shocking discovery that since the year 2000, the average human attention span had dropped from twelve seconds to eight seconds, which is shorter than that of a goldfish. This was before TikTok came along to pump fifteen-second clips at us while we stare at our phones, gape-jawed and mesmerized. By now, our attention span must have plunged to … what? Four seconds? That still puts us ahead of fruit flies, which have an attention span of less than one second, but we’ll find a way to get there.”
If God’s messengers are trying to get our attention this Christmas, they have to work hard to do it.
* * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
Where, exactly, is this road?
Mark is clearly citing Isaiah in today’s gospel lesson. Since biblical Hebrew and Greek lack punctuation it is unclear where the road and voice are. Going by the NRSV, Isaiah says the road is in the wilderness. Mark, on the other hand, says the voice is in the wilderness, crying out for a massive public works project.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Context
Bible scholars are unanimous regarding the date of Isaiah, chapters 40-55. They were written after Babylon invaded Judah in 597 BCE and later crushed Jerusalem in 587 BCE. After the latter battle, Jerusalem’s walls were pulled down and the Temple burned. Isaiah wrote these words of hope, consolation, and comfort to the exiles up in Babylon. They had served their time (probably a term of military service, metaphorically); their penalty had been paid; and they had received double punishment for their sins. They had suffered fairly for their sins, but had more than compensated for them. This was good news, the end was, if not near, at least coming.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Four voices
You may want to have four different readers deliver this reading. My preference would be to have a female voice reading vv. 1-2, when the prophet voices what the Lord has said.
Another voice, perhaps the voice of an angel, that is a messenger from God, could speak vv. 3-5.
A third, human voice for vv. 6-8.
Finally, the prophet’s own voice for vv. 9-11.
Breaking the reading up this way will give worshipers a better experience of what was happening in this reading.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Who’s crying out now?
Forms of the Hebrew verb קרא “to cry out” appear in verses 2, 3, and 6. Twice in verse 6. Three of the four voices in the lesson from the prophets are crying out. This type of repetition in Hebrew poetry reinforces and emphasizes that the Lord is not merely speaking through the prophet, but shouting, raising a voice that can be heard in and from the wilderness.
* * *
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Selah
The word in the margin at the end of verse 2 in today’s Psalm reading is transliterated into English as “Selah.” The term appears 74 times in the Hebrew scriptures; 71 times in the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk, chapter 3. There is no consensus on its meaning. Since most of the appearances come in Psalms that mention musical instruments, it is likely some kind of notation regarding instrumentation. It could also indicate the end of a verse or chorus. Some speculate that it could be a performance note akin to fortissimo in modern musical notation. In today’s reading, omitting it would only make things clearer.
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Patience and perspective
“Son, you must learn to be patient; to let God work in God’s own time. Remember, ‘With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.’ And a penny is like a million dollars.”
“Terrific, Dad! Can I have penny?”
“Of course, I’ll have one for you tomorrow!”
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
God’s time
While it may be tempting to cite Guns and Roses’ “Patience,” don’t — the lyrics are vacuous. You’re better off using some quips like, “Lord, give me patience. Right now!” or “At my last annual physical I tested negative for patience.”
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagen:
Isaiah 40:1-11
Turning of the Tides
In the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, the overarching theme of the book is God’s judgment on unfaithful Israel for her sins. Yet in verse 40, the tide begins to turn, and we get the sense that God’s anger has turned to compassion and his judgment to comfort.
It reminds me of earlier this autumn when my seven-year-old had his tonsils and adenoids removed. The first ten days of post-surgery recovery were living hell. He was in so much pain that he was unable to sleep more than an hour or so at a time each night, and eating was impossible due to the large scabbed sores in his throat. Then, in the morning of day eleven, while I was preparing his pain medication, he turned to me and asked for scrambled eggs, pancakes, and a smoothie. “Are you sure?” I asked him. “That’s a lot of food, and remember, it’s been hurting you when you eat.” “I’m sure, Mom,” he told me. “I feel great!” Sure enough, something happened in his body and his healing on the eleventh day; the tide had turned. The rest of his recovery was remarkably smooth, and we all found ourselves able to remember less and less of the painful times that had occurred during the first week and a half because we were so overjoyed that he was feeling better.
After years of hardship, Israel’s tides begin to turn here, and it is almost as if God knows the trials will be but a blink of an eye compared to the comfort and tenderness with which he now approaches his people.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Speak Tenderly
For Hebrew readers, the particular phrase “speak to her heart” in Isaiah 40:2 (דברו על־לב ) might seem familiar. It is constructed of the same phrasing that Joseph uses with his brothers in Genesis 50:21 when they approach him, fearful that he is still angry with them. The English text says he spoke tenderly, kindly to them — he spoke to their heart — just as God does here in Isaiah 40:2 to Jerusalem.
The idea of speaking tenderly to one another, sadly, seems like a foreign concept in modern American culture these days. What’s worse is that name-calling and bullying is present even in the highest levels of society — our government. The US Senate made headlines a few weeks ago when the Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, threatened President of the Teamsters union to a fistfight. At the end of November, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who is a contender for his party’s presidential nomination, faced off against Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom. The Guardian notes that “Fox News organisers called it a “slugfest” even before it began and that was what unfolded, both men throwing rhetorical jabs, but more often talking over each other in a series of windmilling brawls.” It’s no surprise, then, that the majority of Americans say that they are “exhausted” just from thinking about the state of politics in our country, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center.
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Advent Waiting
This text from 2 Peter speaks of our waiting for Christ’s return — the “day of the Lord.” As such, it is wonderfully appropriate for this Advent season of waiting. Waiting is not something we often do well; that said, there’s certainly a difference between waiting on God and, say, waiting in line at the grocery store.
The Ignatian Spirituality Center speaks of Advent waiting as a different kind of waiting than we are used to. It is a waiting that is pregnant with expectation, meaning that the expectation of what is to come consumes us. It’s a big, full waiting, not like the tedious waiting that comes in situations like being in traffic or in the lobby of your dentist’s office.
Advent waiting also requires a preparation on our part; we make space. This doesn’t mean that we have to rush around or get caught up in the busy-ness of doing things. Rather, we make room in our lives and in our actions for God to show up however God pleases.
Finally, Advent waiting is hopeful. Hope can seem like a naughty four-letter word at times, particularly when we look at our world filled with violence and war. We wait for a ceasefire in Gaza, and the longer we wait, the easier it is to lose hope. Yet Advent waiting teaches us a waiting that is not dependent on circumstances or situations, which is particularly why it is so powerful — and so deeply needed.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Contemporary Prophets
Mark cites the prophet Isaiah in his introduction of John the Baptist who, coincidentally, is named as a messenger — another word for prophet. In our modern context, we think that a prophet is someone who can foretell the future; our minds conjure up images of the end times because biblical prophecy has been sensationalized to make us think that’s all it is. But prophets in the Bible were certainly more like messengers, as in the case of John the Baptist. They primarily called attention to the way that things currently were in a society, and they spurred people on to new visioning of how things could be.
It makes me think of what we would know as activists in our modern culture. People like Greta Thunberg, who speaks out about the climate crisis, or Malala Yousafzi, who advocates for women’s and human rights, or Alicia Garza, who fights for racial justice, are truly contemporary prophets.
Of course, prophets in the Bible were rarely well-accepted by the cultures they would critique, as is the case today. I imagine that John the Baptist was viewed as a bit of a zealot, some wild thing running around eating honey and wearing camel fur, and people dismissed him because of those biases. These days, activists face similar discrimination and dismissal by a society who is uncomfortable with their criticisms.
Perhaps this Advent we might want to revisit their messages and consider how God is speaking to us through them.
* * * * * *
From team member Quantisha Mason-Doll:
2 Peter 3:8-15
Three weeks of waiting
When I was 32 weeks pregnant, my husband and I received news that devastated us. While we were both healthy and developing well, I needed to be checked into the hospital for 24-hour monitoring for both our safety. I will not say it was a fully traumatic experience — I like to believe that we all secretly prepare for the worst even though we hope for the best. I remember the tech walking out of the room and how quiet it became. The ticking of the clock was so loud. I remember every moment down to the second while I waited in the specialist’s office. Every second felt like a lifetime — a lifetime where at any moment something could happen and steal away my little bit of heaven.
Peter’s words ring loudly in my ears this Advent season. The idea of time spent waiting — has taken on a whole new meaning. In the three minutes it took for the tech to return to the room with four doctors in tow and in the three weeks I spent confined to a hospital room, all I had to cling to was the promise that our Lord would be near. All I had to do was call on the name of our Lord and God would listen. It was that deep love that kept me upright and ready to wait. We will not be abandoned in our time of need. Patience means salvation. Our Lord taught us this much.
Now when I look into the eyes of my child a thousand years could pass yet it would feel like a second.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Lord, you restored the fortunes of your people.
All: You forgave the iniquity of your people and pardoned all their sin.
One: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet.
All: Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
One: Faithfulness will spring up from the ground.
All: And righteousness will look down from the sky.
OR
One: God calls us to repentance this day.
All: We know we have failed and need to turn.
One: God calls us to forsake our unloving ways.
All: We turn to God who is love to renew us.
One: God calls us to amend our lives.
All: By the grace of God we will change our way of living.
Hymns and Songs
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Blessed Be the God of Israel
UMH: 209
H82: 444
GTG: 109
CH: 135
ELW: 552
W&P: 158
Renew: 128
Just as I Am Without One Plea
UMH: 357
H82: 693
PH: 370
GTG: 442
AAHH: 344/345
NNBH: 167
NCH: 207
CH: 339
LBW: 296
ELW: 592
W&P: 354
AMEC: 257/258
Renew: 140
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
UMH: 382
AAHH: 449
NNBH: 206
CH: 588
W&P: 486
AMEC: 345
Spirit of the Living God
UMH: 393
PH: 322
GTG: 288
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
CCB: 57
Renew: 90
Take My Life, and Let It Be
UMH: 399
H82: 707
PH: 391
GTG: 697
NNBH: 213
NCH: 448
CH: 609
LBW: 406
ELW: 583/685
W&P: 466
AMEC: 292
Renew: 150
That Boy-Child of Mary
UMH: 241
PH: 55
GTG: 139
ELW: 293
W&P: 211
In the Bleak Midwinter
UMH: 221
H82: 112
PH: 36
GTG: 144
NCH: 128
ELW: 294
W&P: 196
STLT: 241
Refiner’s Fire
CCB: 79
Change My Heart, O God
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is never changes and yet is ever new:
Grant us the grace to repent, turning to you once again,
that we might truly be prepared for the Christ to be born in us;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who never changes and yet you are ever new. You invite us to repent, to turn once again to you and to life. Touch our hearts that we may hear you and repent and so receive new life, even eternal life. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to repent.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have failed to do the things we ought to do and we have done the things we ought not to do and, yet, we would rather blame circumstances and others for our sins. We would rather call them by any other name that what they truly are. We have sinned and we are to blame. We have chosen poorly, selfishly, and with evil intent. We have hurt others and ourselves; we have turned from you. Forgive us and renew us that we might amend our lives and live in you. Amen.
One: God is gracious and full of compassion. God knows our weakness and our propensity for sin. Receive God’s forgiveness and the outpouring of God’s Spirit that you might walk in light and newness of life.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory and honor to you, O Righteous One, who sits in splendor over all you have created.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have failed to do the things we ought to do and we have done the things we ought not to do and, yet, we would rather blame circumstances and others for our sins. We would rather call them by any other name that what they truly are. We have sinned and we are to blame. We have chosen poorly, selfishly, and with evil intent. We have hurt others and ourselves; we have turned from you. Forgive us and renew us that we might amend our lives and live in you.
We give you thanks for the direction you give to our lives and for your forgiveness and renewal when we fail to follow. We thank you for those who are willing to call us to repentance when we stray and for those who help us see us as we truly are. We thank you for the chances to make amends for our wrong doing.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those whom we have hurt and those we have failed to help. We pray for ourselves that we might reach out to restore relationships we have broken. We pray for those who suffer because of the violence and hatred of others. We pray for those suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
A Five-minute Christmas Pageant!
by Chris Keating
Mark 1:1-8
An alternative to the traditional Christmas pageant can be a short, impromptu no-rehearsal needed “Five Minute Christmas Pageant” during the children’s sermon. You might even break up the story over each Sunday in Advent. Here’s an idea for the Second Sunday of Advent:
Gather ahead of time:
A easy-to-use John the Baptist costume (Some ideas: a simple piece of burlap, or felt with an opening for a head, a leather belt, and a plate with fake bugs on it.
Make an announcement that reads “Prepare for Jesus! Get ready!”
During this week, spend time reading Mark 1:1-8. Imagine John standing out in the wilderness, proclaiming God’s message of repentance and change. Keep a list of questions that you may have about John:
Sunday scripture conversation:
As the children gather, tell them you’re glad they are here today, because they are going help you tell a Christmas story that is rarely included in our Christmas pageants. Ask for a volunteer to be John, and other volunteers to be the crowds.
Point out that John is an important part of the Christmas story, but that is never included in our creche scenes. Not too many Christmas pageants include John, maybe because we tend to see him as just a little weird. (Get ready for giggles.)
Why would people think John was a bit different?
Let’s think about this for a minute. Here’s what the Bible tells us about John: he wore clothes made out of camel’s hair, which sort of sounds like it might have been pretty itchy to me. (Help “John” get into the costume). Mark also tells us that John had a leather belt which helped him keep his clothes on. But maybe the strangest thing about John (at least to some of us) is that he ate…BUGS! (Bring out the plate of fake bugs). Imagine going to McDonald’s and asking for a Happy Meal made out of bugs!!
There’s something else that was different about John. He was Jesus’ cousin – their mothers were related. Cousins are special parts of our family. It’s very possible that John knew that Jesus had come from God to show others about God’s love.
It did not matter that John was different. In fact, being different was a good thing. God needed John to do something important. He had two jobs, in fact. One was to be a messenger who told others to get ready for Jesus to come, and the other was to baptize those who came out to the wilderness to hear him.
Let’s have those of you who are members of the crowd stand up and come over near to John. (Now hand John the “message” that says “Prepare for Jesus! Get Ready!”)
When the people went out to where John was, they heard him make an announcement. He told people “Get ready for Jesus!” He invited them to change their lives by being baptized, which was a sign of God’s forgiveness.
There are messengers all around us, just like John. Sometimes a messenger may make an announcement like people do in church. They tell us of something that is about to happen. Sometimes a messenger may be a teacher who is telling us information that we need to know. And, sometimes, pastors are messengers who share the news about God. John did all these things, and it helped people get ready for Jesus.
Let’s be thankful that being different does not matter to God. God will use us to be messengers, just like God used John. We can help others get ready for Christmas by reminding them that Jesus is coming, and that Jesus is God’s gift of love.
Prayer
Dear God, Thank you for using John to remind us to get ready for Christmas. Help us to be messengers of your love so that others can get ready for Christmas by waiting for Jesus to be born. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 10, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Mea Culpa by Dean Feldmeyer — Advent is a good time to start preaching about repentance.
- Second Thoughts: The Season of Comfort by Katy Stenta based on Mark 1:1-8.
- Sermon illustrations by Tom Willadsen, Mary Austin, Elena Delhagen.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: A Five-minute Christmas Pageant! by Chris Keating based on Mark 1:1-8.
Mea Culpaby Dean Feldmeyer
Isaiah 40:1-11 & Mark 1:1-8
Repent!
We hesitate to even use the word any more. It’s become something of a cliché, right?
We’ve seen the cartoon a thousand times. A guy with a long beard in a robe and sandals, standing on a street corner, holding a sign that says, “Repent!” and the people are walking by, ignoring him.
Use the word “repent” today and the response you’re most likely to get is either ambivalence or laughter.
Not so a couple thousand years ago.
John the Baptizer was “in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” and the people weren’t laughing or ignoring him. They were turning out in droves. “People from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him.”
Hear that? ALL the people of Jerusalem. All of them. We’re talking big crowds, here. Rich and poor. Black and white. Female and male. Young and old. Jew and gentile. All of them.
Everyone going to hear John the Baptizer preach about what? Repentance. Changing the way they live. Kinda makes you wonder what would happen if we were to preach such a sermon, doesn’t it?
Well, Advent is a good time to find out.
In the News
In 2007, NFL star quarterback, Michael Vick, was arrested for creating a dog fighting organization and the apparatus where by people could gamble on the outcomes of the fights, almost all of which ended with the painful death of one of the dogs.
If the dogs were not killed in the fighting pit, they were usually so badly injured that their owners took them out back, killed them with a blow (or several blows) to the head, and threw their bodies into a dumpster.
After being arrested but before he was sentenced, Vick went on camera to deliver an apology for his actions. He began by saying that he was a football player and not a public speaker, then proceeded to prove that point in a long, rambling, semi-coherent statement.
He confessed to doing what he was charged with. He apologized to the NFL and his coaches and teammates. He said he had found Jesus. He said he had rejected dog fighting, now, because he realized that it was “a terrible thing.”
And then, he apologized to “all the young kids out there, for my immature actions.” I remember thinking, at the time, “Immature? No, Michael, I think the word you’re looking for, here is, immoral. I have a six-year-old grandson who is immature but knows that it’s wrong to torture animals.”
Vick went to federal prison and served 18 months of his 23-month sentence and made some speeches on behalf of the Humane Society before going back to the NFL who forgave him because, well, he’s a really good quarterback. He played for several teams until, after some injuries, he retired in 2017. Today, he works for athlete management firm Levels Sports Group as its head of athletic development.
His personal wealth has been estimated at $20-23 million. He owns a rottweiler.
But that was then. This is now. And that was the NFL where felony convictions are routinely dismissed as “bad choices” or “mistakes.” Things have changed, right? It isn’t like that in the real world. Well maybe, maybe not.
This week the House of Representatives expelled New York Republican George Santos by a vote of 311 to 114, the first time since the Civil War that a member of congress has been expelled by the body without first being convicted of a crime.
The vote followed a scathing report by the House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged fraud perpetrated by his campaign after months of scandals that hounded the freshman lawmaker. The investigation accused Santos of spending campaign money on things like Botox, luxury shopping, and online pornography.
Even before the committee’s report, media investigations showed that Santos had lied about his education, his religion — he said that he is Jewish and his grandparent had escaped the Holocaust when, in fact, he’s Catholic. He lied about his employment history and the death of his mother who did not, as he claimed, die in the 9/11 attacks.
He is currently under indictment for 13 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and lying to congress. He has also been charged with 23 counts of campaign fraud, identity theft, and lying to the FEC. A trial is set for next year.
A minority of house Republicans joined all but two Democrats in the vote, enough to achieve the 2/3 majority necessary for the ouster. Apparently, the straw that tipped the scales for some Republicans was a letter they received from Ohio Rep. Max Miller claiming that Santos had defrauded both him and his mother by charging campaign contributions to their personal credit cards.
Through all of this, Santos repeatedly refused to resign, denying any responsibility for any of the things of which he has been accused. He has been, he says, bullied by people who are jealous of his success and popularity in his district, and who hate him because he’s gay.
Asked by a reporter for a response to the vote, Santos said, simply, “To hell with this place,” the word, repentance, not being one with which he is familiar.
In the Scripture
The OT reading this morning is from Isaiah — that part which scholars call Second Isaiah — the part of the book that was written to the people of Israel who were being forced to live as captives in Babylon. In it, Isaiah speaks to God on behalf of the captives. He longs for God to act decisively on Israel’s behalf: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down so that the mountains would quake at your presence… so that the nations would tremble at your presence.” And when he says “nations” he means Babylon.
He describes the great and awesome power that is only God’s, the powerful and creative acts that God has performed in the past — the creation of the universe, the vast and profound mystery of life and death, the miracles of healing and regeneration, the glory of love — all of these wonderful things that God has done. And he longs for God to do them again in a concrete, visible way for Israel.
Sound familiar? How many times in the past year, since our country has devolved into meanness and cruelty, and the world has erupted into war, have we heard that prayer prayed, or even prayed it ourselves?
Isaiah doesn’t wait for a response from God, however. He provides his own.
He realizes that before we can ask God to act, we must make sure that we have exhausted all of our own options. We must make sure that we are not asking God to do what we are perfectly capable of doing for ourselves, and we must make sure that our relationship with God is in good repair.
In verses 5-7, Isaiah, speaking for all the people, attends to their relationship with God by confessing that much of what has happened is their own fault. “We have all become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.”
Isaiah realizes that before we can ask God to fix our problems, we must take responsibility for creating those problems in the first place.
But that’s not the last word. His prayer doesn’t end there, with confession alone.
He closes his prayer with a little offering, saying, “I want to do better. I want to be a better person.” He realizes that his relationship with God has gone on tilt. It’s not as it should be.
Again, speaking for the people of Israel he says to YHWH, “Look, we want to get back into a right relationship with you. We want to be in that relationship where you are the potter and we are the clay.”
“Do not be exceedingly angry,” he asks. Angry, okay. We deserve that. We have messed up. We just ask that you don’t get exceedingly angry. Then he closes with these words: “Remember, we are your people.”
The people of God have humbled themselves before their Lord. They have confessed that much of what they are suffering they have brought upon themselves — either through action or inaction.
They have repented by trying to get back into an appropriate relationship with God — a relationship of dependency, of humility, of vulnerability. They have fallen on their knees. They have prostrated themselves on the ground before his judgement throne.
In the Sermon
In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran and other liturgical churches, this is a weekly ritual — a prayer of confession wherein we acknowledge that many, if not most, of our problems are our own fault. They are the results of bad choices, selfish actions, thoughtless words, simple rudeness, intentional meanness and, sometimes, outright cruelty.
The prayer is called the “Confiteor” after the first word of the prayer when it is spoken in Latin: Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, et vobis fratres… The English version often goes like this: “I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault…”
The act of confession and repentance is not about pointing fingers at others and fixing blame; it is about looking inward to our own hearts, our own minds, our own intentions and actions and outcomes and saying as Isaiah said, “I am a person of unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
It is not, as the street corner preacher would have us believe, about fearing Hell and avoiding damnation. It is about being honest with ourselves and each other and owning the darkness that we have brought into our own lives.
We are separated and estranged from God, from each other, from the essential selves that God has called us to be. And our estrangement is both state and act. It is the state into which we are born and that state to which we contribute to by thought, word, and deed.
So profound is our separation that we sometimes find ourselves lonely in the midst of a crowd. We long with an aching heart for just one person with whom we could be totally honest about who and what we really are. We hoard our resources for ourselves, we hurt the people we love most, we throw trifles of charity to the poor and the sick and the desperate, while we ignore the larger problems that made and keep them that way.
So profound is our separation that we are even separated from ourselves. We fill our lives with busy-ness so we won’t be caught, in an unguarded moment, looking into the mirror, confronted with the truth of who we really are.
If this is true of us as individuals, is it not more so of us as a people?
We divide ourselves into political parties and interest groups for whom spin is more important than truth and we excuse ourselves from responsibility because, well, everyone is doing it. After all, if you want to win you don’t really have a choice.
We talk of love even while we make war. We pride ourselves in our charity but half of all the money in the world that is spent on weapons is spent by our own country. We speak of kindness and gentleness but value most our right to own guns. We send politicians to Washington and tell them to fix the economy, “But don’t touch anything that is mine.” The elderly say, “Don’t touch my Social Security or my Medicare whether I really need them or not.” The poor say, “Don’t touch my food stamps.” The rich say, “Don’t touch my tax shelters.” Fix the economy, we say, but fix it with someone else’s sacrifice, not mine.
We want to prepare for the coming of Christ by grabbing all that we can get for ourselves and we wonder why we are left on the day after Christmas feeling empty and unfulfilled.
Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
It is my fault. My own fault. My own most grievous fault.
Much of what we have we have earned. Much of what we got, we brought to ourselves. It is our own fault. As Isaiah says, “You have delivered us, O Lord, into the hand of our own iniquity.”
But that’s not where it ends.
“Sometimes at that moment it is as though a wave of light breaks through the darkness and a voice is heard to be saying, ‘You are accepted. You are accepted! Accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know.’”
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though God, like the prodigal’s father, sees you coming from afar, recognizes you, and does not wait but runs to meet you and spreads God’s arms and takes you into the divine embrace.
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though one of God’s angels takes a live coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and touches that coal to your lips and says, as she said to Isaiah, “Your sin is forgiven, your guilt is taken away.”
Sometimes, at that moment, it is as though the heavens open and you hear the voice of God saying, “You are my beloved child and in you I am well pleased.”
“Do not try to do anything now,” says theologian, Paul Tillich. “Perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”
If this happens to us, we have experienced grace.
Did I say, “if?” Make that “when.” For it happens to us all, if we are only focused enough to realize it. If we are not too distracted. If we are not too busy, too involved, too diverted by bells and whistles and flashing lights.
Hear how Paul speaks of God’s grace in his first letter to the Corinthians as we read it this morning. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus.”
Past tense. For the grace of God that has been given to you.
It’s already happened. When we hear the word of grace, we’re hearing an echo of a word that was spoken at the moment of our birth and was drowned out by the cacophony of this world.
We are loved. We are forgiven. We are accepted.
When that happens to us, we experience grace.
SECOND THOUGHTSThe Season of Comfort
by Katy Stenta
Mark 1:1-8
God speaks comfort, telling us that the way will be eased for all whom access had been previously blocked. The wilderness will no longer be a harrowing experience. All those who are wandering, thirsty, hungry, and alone can take comfort. It is very different to think of Christmas as the season of comfort, versus “the season of giving.” The “season of comfort” implies a more thoughtful and slow season of offering what is needed to those who feel like they are in the desert or the wilderness, and giving to them not just because you are happy or it is a season, but because it is needful. The “season of giving” seems more demanding and materialistic.
The question is, are we here to be present and worship because this is a season of comfort, or are we in the business of customer service? One striking example of this is when the Washington National Cathedral made the mistake of charging for tickets on Christmas Eve. The blowback was so quick, by the next morning it was optional, and by the next evening they released a press release and an apology. In the Christian world, to make an offering is a joyful and acceptable part of worship — but demanding payment is not.
A good example of someone who offered comfort was Roslyn Carter, who definitely offered service and care to those with disabilities and caregivers. She recognized those with disabilities as real people to be included, and caregivers as those who do real work with viable needs. Her legacy echoes even today. The comfort of seeing people as they really are, and naming their needs, cannot be understated. Is that not what Jesus does? He sees us, names us, and then comforts us, wherever we are? What else could we ask for this Advent season?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Mark 1:1-8
Knowing Who You Are
On her blog, the Rev. Deirdre Whitfield tells the story of a man who got impatient after a long wait at the doctor’s office. “Unwilling to wait any longer, he decided to barge in and demanded to be seen by the doctor. “Don’t you know who I am?” shouted the individual.
The secretary calmly asked the waiting patients; “I have a someone here who doesn’t know who he is. Can anybody please assist him in finding out?”
John the Baptizer suffers from no such loss of identity. He knows exactly who he is, as God’s messenger. Rev. Whitfield adds, “In God’s vision we’re all important. We forget that God shows no impartiality, and fall victim to self-importance, selfishness, jealousy, and begrudgement, believing that no one is paying attention to us. But rest assured, God is paying attention!”
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Messenger Within
John the Baptizer is a dramatic messenger, making a bold announcement aloud to the people assembled by the river. Writer and podcast host Morra Aarons-Mele says that we have a similar messenger within us. In her book, The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superpower, she observes, “Anxiety is one of our most valuable messengers, signaling that we’re headed down the wrong path or are about to make an unwise decision. You can parlay the information that anxiety yields into all sorts of improvements and better outcomes: Higher productivity, increased empathy, better communication, deeper motivation, maybe even a career that’s a better fit. And that’s a good start — but don’t stop there.”
Anxiety is an unwelcome guest, and also a powerful messenger.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Unexpected Messengers
I wonder how many people expected to learn anything about God from John the Baptizer, or if they just came to see how strange he is?
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen recalls a young women served as a messenger for her, on her last day in the pediatrics clinic.
Two years before, a young Black woman had brought her baby in because he was losing weight, and the doctors in the emergency room noticed marks that looked like bruises. They weren’t. They were birthmarks in a baby whose skin is pigmented. In the emergency room they didn’t know that and assumed the mother was beating and starving her baby.
Dr. Remen knew what the spots were, and got the young mother’s permission to examine the baby. She discovered that he had “pyloric stenosis, a thickening of the muscle that connects the stomach to the intestine, and was vomiting and couldn’t eat. That was why he’d become emaciated. So we rushed him upstairs to the operating room. We opened the stenosis and it was fine. Then she took him home.”
Now, on this day, the little boy, now a toddler, would be her last patient. The mother was doing well and going to school. Dr. Remen got tearful, and the young mother asked, “Why are you crying?” She answered that this little boy would be her last patient. Dr. Remen told her a little bit about her plans, and how medicine had drifted from its purpose.
The young woman said, “This system is sick. I bring my baby into the hospital and they tell me I beating my baby. They don’t believe me. They don’t help me. They call the police. This system is sick. You have a patient now. It’s not a little patient like my baby. It’s a great big patient.” Dr. Remen adds, “I think of her as perhaps an angel. She delivered the right message to me at the right moment. It’s a little mysterious.”
Messengers are all around us.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
In the Wilderness
Quoting the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptizer announces that there is a voice crying out in the wilderness, signaling the arrival of God.
On her 60th birthday, Lori Erickson took a pilgrimage to a redwood forest, hoping for a birthday message from God. As she walked among the immense tress, she says, “I thought about the lessons I’d learned from my time among these forest giants. While it may seem like hubris to expect a birthday gift from them, I’ve long believed that travelers with open hearts receive blessings on their pilgrimages. So what teaching would I take with me?”
Perhaps that “I shouldn’t be afraid of the troubles, trials, and inevitable indignities of aging. That message came from seeing all the fire-ravaged elders of the forest, the ones that had been damaged by long-ago infernos. They’d slowly recovered, growing new bark around the edges of their injuries, but their scars would always remain. I felt a rush of affection for these gnarled beings, some of whom had been so hollowed out by fire that it wasn’t clear how they could remain standing. They reminded me that among the elders of all species, it’s a rare being who doesn’t bear the marks of long-ago traumas. They prove to us that true beauty lies not in perfection, but in endurance."
She got her own wilderness message, just as the people listening to John did. (From Every Step Is Home)
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Trying to Get Your Attention
Would we remember John the Baptizer if he wore “normal” clothes, and weren’t so cranky? It’s hard to say. Certainly, he’s skilled at getting attention for his message, as “all the people of Jerusalem” come out to listen to him.
In our device-saturated world, it’s even harder to get our attention today. Dan Lyons shares that “Every minute, 500 hours of new video content gets uploaded to YouTube. In the same sixty seconds, roughly 1.8 million Snaps are created, and 700,000 stories are posted on Instagram. Nearly 600,000 tweets are tweeted, 150,000 Slack messages sent. Each minute, people watch 167 million TikTok videos, 4.1 million YouTube videos, 70,000 hours of Netflix content, and listen to 40,000 hours of music on Spotify. Every. Damn. Minute. The average American uses ten apps a day, thirty apps per month, and checks their smartphone every 12 minutes. Hardcore addicts check their phones every 4 minutes.”
“Meanwhile, the content we consume keeps getting shorter, which lays waste to our ability to sustain focus. In 2015, a Microsoft research team made the shocking discovery that since the year 2000, the average human attention span had dropped from twelve seconds to eight seconds, which is shorter than that of a goldfish. This was before TikTok came along to pump fifteen-second clips at us while we stare at our phones, gape-jawed and mesmerized. By now, our attention span must have plunged to … what? Four seconds? That still puts us ahead of fruit flies, which have an attention span of less than one second, but we’ll find a way to get there.”
If God’s messengers are trying to get our attention this Christmas, they have to work hard to do it.
* * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8
Where, exactly, is this road?
Mark is clearly citing Isaiah in today’s gospel lesson. Since biblical Hebrew and Greek lack punctuation it is unclear where the road and voice are. Going by the NRSV, Isaiah says the road is in the wilderness. Mark, on the other hand, says the voice is in the wilderness, crying out for a massive public works project.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Context
Bible scholars are unanimous regarding the date of Isaiah, chapters 40-55. They were written after Babylon invaded Judah in 597 BCE and later crushed Jerusalem in 587 BCE. After the latter battle, Jerusalem’s walls were pulled down and the Temple burned. Isaiah wrote these words of hope, consolation, and comfort to the exiles up in Babylon. They had served their time (probably a term of military service, metaphorically); their penalty had been paid; and they had received double punishment for their sins. They had suffered fairly for their sins, but had more than compensated for them. This was good news, the end was, if not near, at least coming.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Four voices
You may want to have four different readers deliver this reading. My preference would be to have a female voice reading vv. 1-2, when the prophet voices what the Lord has said.
Another voice, perhaps the voice of an angel, that is a messenger from God, could speak vv. 3-5.
A third, human voice for vv. 6-8.
Finally, the prophet’s own voice for vv. 9-11.
Breaking the reading up this way will give worshipers a better experience of what was happening in this reading.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Who’s crying out now?
Forms of the Hebrew verb קרא “to cry out” appear in verses 2, 3, and 6. Twice in verse 6. Three of the four voices in the lesson from the prophets are crying out. This type of repetition in Hebrew poetry reinforces and emphasizes that the Lord is not merely speaking through the prophet, but shouting, raising a voice that can be heard in and from the wilderness.
* * *
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Selah
The word in the margin at the end of verse 2 in today’s Psalm reading is transliterated into English as “Selah.” The term appears 74 times in the Hebrew scriptures; 71 times in the Psalms and three times in Habakkuk, chapter 3. There is no consensus on its meaning. Since most of the appearances come in Psalms that mention musical instruments, it is likely some kind of notation regarding instrumentation. It could also indicate the end of a verse or chorus. Some speculate that it could be a performance note akin to fortissimo in modern musical notation. In today’s reading, omitting it would only make things clearer.
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Patience and perspective
“Son, you must learn to be patient; to let God work in God’s own time. Remember, ‘With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.’ And a penny is like a million dollars.”
“Terrific, Dad! Can I have penny?”
“Of course, I’ll have one for you tomorrow!”
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
God’s time
While it may be tempting to cite Guns and Roses’ “Patience,” don’t — the lyrics are vacuous. You’re better off using some quips like, “Lord, give me patience. Right now!” or “At my last annual physical I tested negative for patience.”
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagen:Isaiah 40:1-11
Turning of the Tides
In the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, the overarching theme of the book is God’s judgment on unfaithful Israel for her sins. Yet in verse 40, the tide begins to turn, and we get the sense that God’s anger has turned to compassion and his judgment to comfort.
It reminds me of earlier this autumn when my seven-year-old had his tonsils and adenoids removed. The first ten days of post-surgery recovery were living hell. He was in so much pain that he was unable to sleep more than an hour or so at a time each night, and eating was impossible due to the large scabbed sores in his throat. Then, in the morning of day eleven, while I was preparing his pain medication, he turned to me and asked for scrambled eggs, pancakes, and a smoothie. “Are you sure?” I asked him. “That’s a lot of food, and remember, it’s been hurting you when you eat.” “I’m sure, Mom,” he told me. “I feel great!” Sure enough, something happened in his body and his healing on the eleventh day; the tide had turned. The rest of his recovery was remarkably smooth, and we all found ourselves able to remember less and less of the painful times that had occurred during the first week and a half because we were so overjoyed that he was feeling better.
After years of hardship, Israel’s tides begin to turn here, and it is almost as if God knows the trials will be but a blink of an eye compared to the comfort and tenderness with which he now approaches his people.
* * *
Isaiah 40:1-11
Speak Tenderly
For Hebrew readers, the particular phrase “speak to her heart” in Isaiah 40:2 (דברו על־לב ) might seem familiar. It is constructed of the same phrasing that Joseph uses with his brothers in Genesis 50:21 when they approach him, fearful that he is still angry with them. The English text says he spoke tenderly, kindly to them — he spoke to their heart — just as God does here in Isaiah 40:2 to Jerusalem.
The idea of speaking tenderly to one another, sadly, seems like a foreign concept in modern American culture these days. What’s worse is that name-calling and bullying is present even in the highest levels of society — our government. The US Senate made headlines a few weeks ago when the Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, threatened President of the Teamsters union to a fistfight. At the end of November, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who is a contender for his party’s presidential nomination, faced off against Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom. The Guardian notes that “Fox News organisers called it a “slugfest” even before it began and that was what unfolded, both men throwing rhetorical jabs, but more often talking over each other in a series of windmilling brawls.” It’s no surprise, then, that the majority of Americans say that they are “exhausted” just from thinking about the state of politics in our country, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center.
* * *
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Advent Waiting
This text from 2 Peter speaks of our waiting for Christ’s return — the “day of the Lord.” As such, it is wonderfully appropriate for this Advent season of waiting. Waiting is not something we often do well; that said, there’s certainly a difference between waiting on God and, say, waiting in line at the grocery store.
The Ignatian Spirituality Center speaks of Advent waiting as a different kind of waiting than we are used to. It is a waiting that is pregnant with expectation, meaning that the expectation of what is to come consumes us. It’s a big, full waiting, not like the tedious waiting that comes in situations like being in traffic or in the lobby of your dentist’s office.
Advent waiting also requires a preparation on our part; we make space. This doesn’t mean that we have to rush around or get caught up in the busy-ness of doing things. Rather, we make room in our lives and in our actions for God to show up however God pleases.
Finally, Advent waiting is hopeful. Hope can seem like a naughty four-letter word at times, particularly when we look at our world filled with violence and war. We wait for a ceasefire in Gaza, and the longer we wait, the easier it is to lose hope. Yet Advent waiting teaches us a waiting that is not dependent on circumstances or situations, which is particularly why it is so powerful — and so deeply needed.
* * *
Mark 1:1-8
Contemporary Prophets
Mark cites the prophet Isaiah in his introduction of John the Baptist who, coincidentally, is named as a messenger — another word for prophet. In our modern context, we think that a prophet is someone who can foretell the future; our minds conjure up images of the end times because biblical prophecy has been sensationalized to make us think that’s all it is. But prophets in the Bible were certainly more like messengers, as in the case of John the Baptist. They primarily called attention to the way that things currently were in a society, and they spurred people on to new visioning of how things could be.
It makes me think of what we would know as activists in our modern culture. People like Greta Thunberg, who speaks out about the climate crisis, or Malala Yousafzi, who advocates for women’s and human rights, or Alicia Garza, who fights for racial justice, are truly contemporary prophets.
Of course, prophets in the Bible were rarely well-accepted by the cultures they would critique, as is the case today. I imagine that John the Baptist was viewed as a bit of a zealot, some wild thing running around eating honey and wearing camel fur, and people dismissed him because of those biases. These days, activists face similar discrimination and dismissal by a society who is uncomfortable with their criticisms.
Perhaps this Advent we might want to revisit their messages and consider how God is speaking to us through them.
* * * * * *
From team member Quantisha Mason-Doll:2 Peter 3:8-15
Three weeks of waiting
When I was 32 weeks pregnant, my husband and I received news that devastated us. While we were both healthy and developing well, I needed to be checked into the hospital for 24-hour monitoring for both our safety. I will not say it was a fully traumatic experience — I like to believe that we all secretly prepare for the worst even though we hope for the best. I remember the tech walking out of the room and how quiet it became. The ticking of the clock was so loud. I remember every moment down to the second while I waited in the specialist’s office. Every second felt like a lifetime — a lifetime where at any moment something could happen and steal away my little bit of heaven.
Peter’s words ring loudly in my ears this Advent season. The idea of time spent waiting — has taken on a whole new meaning. In the three minutes it took for the tech to return to the room with four doctors in tow and in the three weeks I spent confined to a hospital room, all I had to cling to was the promise that our Lord would be near. All I had to do was call on the name of our Lord and God would listen. It was that deep love that kept me upright and ready to wait. We will not be abandoned in our time of need. Patience means salvation. Our Lord taught us this much.
Now when I look into the eyes of my child a thousand years could pass yet it would feel like a second.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Lord, you restored the fortunes of your people.
All: You forgave the iniquity of your people and pardoned all their sin.
One: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet.
All: Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
One: Faithfulness will spring up from the ground.
All: And righteousness will look down from the sky.
OR
One: God calls us to repentance this day.
All: We know we have failed and need to turn.
One: God calls us to forsake our unloving ways.
All: We turn to God who is love to renew us.
One: God calls us to amend our lives.
All: By the grace of God we will change our way of living.
Hymns and Songs
Savior of the Nations, Come
UMH: 214
PH: 14
GTG: 102
LBW: 28
ELW: 263
W&P: 168
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
UMH: 206
H82: 490
GTG: 377
ELW: 815
W&P: 248
Renew: 152
Blessed Be the God of Israel
UMH: 209
H82: 444
GTG: 109
CH: 135
ELW: 552
W&P: 158
Renew: 128
Just as I Am Without One Plea
UMH: 357
H82: 693
PH: 370
GTG: 442
AAHH: 344/345
NNBH: 167
NCH: 207
CH: 339
LBW: 296
ELW: 592
W&P: 354
AMEC: 257/258
Renew: 140
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
UMH: 358
H82: 652/653
PH: 345
GTG: 169
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
UMH: 382
AAHH: 449
NNBH: 206
CH: 588
W&P: 486
AMEC: 345
Spirit of the Living God
UMH: 393
PH: 322
GTG: 288
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
CCB: 57
Renew: 90
Take My Life, and Let It Be
UMH: 399
H82: 707
PH: 391
GTG: 697
NNBH: 213
NCH: 448
CH: 609
LBW: 406
ELW: 583/685
W&P: 466
AMEC: 292
Renew: 150
That Boy-Child of Mary
UMH: 241
PH: 55
GTG: 139
ELW: 293
W&P: 211
In the Bleak Midwinter
UMH: 221
H82: 112
PH: 36
GTG: 144
NCH: 128
ELW: 294
W&P: 196
STLT: 241
Refiner’s Fire
CCB: 79
Change My Heart, O God
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is never changes and yet is ever new:
Grant us the grace to repent, turning to you once again,
that we might truly be prepared for the Christ to be born in us;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the one who never changes and yet you are ever new. You invite us to repent, to turn once again to you and to life. Touch our hearts that we may hear you and repent and so receive new life, even eternal life. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our failure to repent.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have failed to do the things we ought to do and we have done the things we ought not to do and, yet, we would rather blame circumstances and others for our sins. We would rather call them by any other name that what they truly are. We have sinned and we are to blame. We have chosen poorly, selfishly, and with evil intent. We have hurt others and ourselves; we have turned from you. Forgive us and renew us that we might amend our lives and live in you. Amen.
One: God is gracious and full of compassion. God knows our weakness and our propensity for sin. Receive God’s forgiveness and the outpouring of God’s Spirit that you might walk in light and newness of life.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory and honor to you, O Righteous One, who sits in splendor over all you have created.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have failed to do the things we ought to do and we have done the things we ought not to do and, yet, we would rather blame circumstances and others for our sins. We would rather call them by any other name that what they truly are. We have sinned and we are to blame. We have chosen poorly, selfishly, and with evil intent. We have hurt others and ourselves; we have turned from you. Forgive us and renew us that we might amend our lives and live in you.
We give you thanks for the direction you give to our lives and for your forgiveness and renewal when we fail to follow. We thank you for those who are willing to call us to repentance when we stray and for those who help us see us as we truly are. We thank you for the chances to make amends for our wrong doing.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We pray for those whom we have hurt and those we have failed to help. We pray for ourselves that we might reach out to restore relationships we have broken. We pray for those who suffer because of the violence and hatred of others. We pray for those suffer in body, mind, or spirit.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONA Five-minute Christmas Pageant!
by Chris Keating
Mark 1:1-8
An alternative to the traditional Christmas pageant can be a short, impromptu no-rehearsal needed “Five Minute Christmas Pageant” during the children’s sermon. You might even break up the story over each Sunday in Advent. Here’s an idea for the Second Sunday of Advent:
Gather ahead of time:
A easy-to-use John the Baptist costume (Some ideas: a simple piece of burlap, or felt with an opening for a head, a leather belt, and a plate with fake bugs on it.
Make an announcement that reads “Prepare for Jesus! Get ready!”
During this week, spend time reading Mark 1:1-8. Imagine John standing out in the wilderness, proclaiming God’s message of repentance and change. Keep a list of questions that you may have about John:
- Why would people come out from the city to hear him?
- What motivated people to travel to the river so they could be baptized?
- Would you go out to hear someone like John?
Sunday scripture conversation:
As the children gather, tell them you’re glad they are here today, because they are going help you tell a Christmas story that is rarely included in our Christmas pageants. Ask for a volunteer to be John, and other volunteers to be the crowds.
Point out that John is an important part of the Christmas story, but that is never included in our creche scenes. Not too many Christmas pageants include John, maybe because we tend to see him as just a little weird. (Get ready for giggles.)
Why would people think John was a bit different?
Let’s think about this for a minute. Here’s what the Bible tells us about John: he wore clothes made out of camel’s hair, which sort of sounds like it might have been pretty itchy to me. (Help “John” get into the costume). Mark also tells us that John had a leather belt which helped him keep his clothes on. But maybe the strangest thing about John (at least to some of us) is that he ate…BUGS! (Bring out the plate of fake bugs). Imagine going to McDonald’s and asking for a Happy Meal made out of bugs!!
There’s something else that was different about John. He was Jesus’ cousin – their mothers were related. Cousins are special parts of our family. It’s very possible that John knew that Jesus had come from God to show others about God’s love.
It did not matter that John was different. In fact, being different was a good thing. God needed John to do something important. He had two jobs, in fact. One was to be a messenger who told others to get ready for Jesus to come, and the other was to baptize those who came out to the wilderness to hear him.
Let’s have those of you who are members of the crowd stand up and come over near to John. (Now hand John the “message” that says “Prepare for Jesus! Get Ready!”)
When the people went out to where John was, they heard him make an announcement. He told people “Get ready for Jesus!” He invited them to change their lives by being baptized, which was a sign of God’s forgiveness.
There are messengers all around us, just like John. Sometimes a messenger may make an announcement like people do in church. They tell us of something that is about to happen. Sometimes a messenger may be a teacher who is telling us information that we need to know. And, sometimes, pastors are messengers who share the news about God. John did all these things, and it helped people get ready for Jesus.
Let’s be thankful that being different does not matter to God. God will use us to be messengers, just like God used John. We can help others get ready for Christmas by reminding them that Jesus is coming, and that Jesus is God’s gift of love.
Prayer
Dear God, Thank you for using John to remind us to get ready for Christmas. Help us to be messengers of your love so that others can get ready for Christmas by waiting for Jesus to be born. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 10, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
