2 Advent C

2 Advent C

Transcribed from a sermon given by

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

December 9, 2009

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

The time of Advent is often described as a journey.  Sometimes it’s described as the journey to Bethlehem, or the journey of the Christ child, or the journey of Christ into our hearts.  Our spiritual life is also often talked about as a journey; a journey toward God.  

If we’re going to go on a journey, the first thing we need to do is to be headed in the right direction. If you’re in Iowa and you want to get to New York City, you want to head east and if you want to get to San Francisco, you want to head west.  Pretty clearly you’ve got to be going the right direction.  But every now and then, the messages are unclear.  If you’ve ever been driving in a big city and you’re trying to follow the signs, you may find it hard to know whether you go east or west on some given freeway.  There are lots of different messages, but it’s hard to know the right way to go.  

Our lives can be like that; so many different messages.  It’s kind of like when you were a kid and you played a game called “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”  This is where they put a blindfold on you so you can’t see, then they put you in the middle of the room with a tail, with a pin or tape or some other way to attach it, and they spin you around. Then you’re supposed to walk up to the picture of a donkey and get the tail in the right place. Sometimes the other kids gather around telling you, “Go a little more to the left.  No, no, go to the right.  No, no, no, a little more to the left.  Go up higher.”  

If you’re at a party where all the kids are really nice kids, they’re all going to be telling you how to get closer to the donkey.  But sometimes there are kids at the party who don’t have your best interest at heart. They want to get to laugh at wherever it is you end up putting that tail, so they’re going to tell you the wrong thing.  Now you start hearing different voices.  Some of the voices say, “Go to the left.” and others are saying, “No, go to the right.” and you don’t know what to do.  It’s kind of like the world today when you turn on the radio or TV.  Some of the voices are screaming, “Go to the right.” and other voices saying, “No, go to the left.”  

So what do you do? You have to discern which of the voices you should listen to.  You may hear one voice that you know is the kid that always gives you a hard time, “So okay, I’ll ignore that one.”  Then you listen some more and you notice the voice of your parents or the voice of your best friend that you trust and you’re, “Okay.  That’s the one I can trust.  I’ll do what that voice tells me to do.”  

Sometimes you may be playing this game and all these people are saying go, “Left”, “Right”, “Forward”, “Back” then all of a sudden, you hear the voice of your mother or father shouting, “No!  Turn around. Go the other way.”  That’s when you’re about to step into the swimming pool. That’s the voice you better listen to, and that’s the voice of John the Baptist.  When he’s out in the wilderness, he is saying to the individuals gathered there and to his community, “Stop.  You’re going the wrong way.  Turn around.”  

That’s what repentance really means.  Repentance comes from the Greek word, “metanoia,” to know in a new way; to see things differently.  It’s also translated as “to turn around; to go completely in a different direction than you’ve been going.”  That’s what John the Baptist is saying.  “Turn around.  You’re going the wrong way.” 

Which voices are we listening to?  There are so many voices out there. There are the voices that say, “If you just spend more money for Christmas, you’ll have a happier time.”  There are the voices that say, “All you need to do is go to Las Vegas and then you’ll have fun and you can do whatever you want.”  Then there is the voice that says, “If you buy a new car you’re going to be happy forever.”  And there is the voice that says, “You’ll feel better if you buy a new drug, just talk to your doctor about it.  Yes, there’s several ways it could kill you, but it’ll help that particular disease that you didn’t even know you had.”  

Of course, there are all kinds of other voices, “Oh, one glass of wine isn’t going to hurt you.” All kinds of voices are out there. Which ones do you listen to?  

There were all kinds of voices in first century Jerusalem, as well.  The people who came to hear John the Baptist were surrounded by pagan culture.  The Romans had control.  They had power and were all about power and might.  Then there was the Greek culture which was very prevalent. They had plays, entertainment, and many gods who could be a lot of fun to worship. There was a lot of encouragement to go in different directions, to be secular, to forget about worshiping God. 

John was the voice of was crying in the wilderness, speaking for God.  

In our lives, we need to listen carefully to discern which of all these voices is the one telling us the right way to go.  One of the voices is Scripture.  That’s usually pretty reliable, confusing at times perhaps, but basically reliable.  Then there are good, Godly friends. You know which of your friends have the advice that’s going to be helpful and which of the ones you probably shouldn’t be listening to.  We need to discern which of the voices to listen to and which way to go. 

And when we discover we’ve been going the wrong way, we need to repent.

Repentance means saying, “I’ve been doing it wrong.  I haven’t been going towards God.  I’ve been going away from God.  I haven’t been going towards love.  I’ve been going away from love.  I haven’t been helping other people.  I’ve been hurting other people.”  

When you realize that you go, “Whoa!  I better stop.”  To repent does not just mean that you acknowledge what you’ve done.  Repentance is not just saying, “I’m sorry.” Repentance is saying “I’m sorry” and then turning around, turning your life around, so that you don’t go there again, but you go in the other direction.  The first step in our spiritual journey is to get going the right way. To get going the right way is what repentance is all about.  

But there’s more to what John has to say about the journey.  In this Gospel reading, John quotes from the Old Testament that says that God will make the high places low, fill in the valleys, and straighten the journey.  When you’re in your car, you may not notice the mountains so much, but if you’re on a hike, you know that when you come to a mountain its hard work. When you go into a deep valley, it can be scary. When you’re going on a crooked path, it takes a long time and you feel like you’re getting nowhere. When the path is rough its hard work and you may fall and trip.  It’s a lot easier to go on a level place, the smooth and straight road.  

The Old Testament says that God’s going to level things out. In that reading, it’s talking about the people of Israel who were in exile and that God’s going to make it possible for them all to get back to Jerusalem and the Temple and to God.  In the reading in the Gospel, the way it’s described is that John said that it is up to us to prepare the way.  It’s up to us to level the mountains.  Well there are two ways to understand that. 

One is the inner journey in which we are preparing to receive Christ into our hearts.  Remember the “Joy to World”?  “Joy to the world, the Lord has come.  Let earth receive her King.  Let every heart receive Him.”  It’s about getting our hearts ready to receive Christ. So we’ve got to get rid of the obstacles.  What are the mountains in you that keep Christ from getting in?  What are the deep valleys of darkness, the negativity, the resentments, the things you’ve held onto from your childhood that you haven’t worked out yet?  What’s the crooked path?  Where have you gone wrong? It could be that secret thing you won’t tell anybody else.  Probably should tell somebody and straighten it out.  What is rough and unclean about us that would get in the way of Christ coming in?  That’s our work right now, to get rid of those obstacles to Christ’s Love. To get rid of those things that keep us from realizing that the Love of God has been made known to the world in Jesus Christ and we are not letting that love in.  

There’s another side. There’s the community side. We are to knock down the mountains for everybody so that everybody can let Him. Christians don’t live alone.  Christians do not live in isolation.  Our spiritual journey isn’t just about ourselves.  It’s about a community.  We live as part of a community and always have.  Christianity started with Jesus having 12 disciples.  When He sent them out, He sent them out two by two.  He doesn’t send us out alone.  We are here together as the church, the community, the Body of Christ gathered together.  

So our job, right now during Advent, is to get out there and level those hills.  We need to get the bulldozers.  We need to get rid of the obstacles that keep other people from knowing God.  Knock them down, straighten things out, make it easy for each other.  That’s what ministry is about.  Ministry is about making it easier for other people to know God. 

So when someone’s by the church door, say’s, “Hello” and hands you a bulletin, it makes it a little easier to come into the church, to feel welcome.  When you have people who stand up here and sing, lead us in song and inspire us, it helps us; it smoothes the way.  There’s nothing like music in a worship service to kind of grease our way to God, smooth things out.  

And the people who make the coffee for after the service so we can have fellowship. And the ones who come during the week and fix up the grounds so it looks beautiful. And the people who are over taking care of the children.  There are so many things, little things, things that nobody notices.  That’s what ministry is about, because we’re helping to clear the way for God, to make it easier for other people to approach God.

That’s our work. That’s our job.  That’s the mission. It’s not an impossible mission that God calls us to, to love one another, to help one another find God, to stay on the path, to make the path straight, to know which way to go.  And it’s a glorious and joyous thing because we, as a community, are the Body of Christ.  We are the ones who are preparing the way for the Lord.  We are the ones to make the valleys filled and the high places low so the journey to God can be easy and direct together.  

2 Advent B

It is a dark and foggy night and you are driving along following the red tail lights of an unknown car in front of you. Suddenly a strangely dressed man appears on the road frantically waving a stop sign and saying, “Turn around, you are going the wrong way!”

2 Advent B

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

Brentwood, CA

12/8/96

Mark 1:1-8

         Imagine that you’ve spent the evening at a friend’s house somewhere East of Byron. When you leave to come home you discover that it is a dark and foggy night. You get in your car and drive along, carefully following those little yellow dots that show where the middle of the highway is. You have been driving for quite a while. Your spouse, sitting next to you, is complaining that things don’t look right, shouldn’t there have been a turn back there, etc. You mutter back something about back seat drivers and continue on.

Now you are making a little better time because there is a car in front of you, at least there are those two red lights to follow. You know nothing of the person driving that car, or where they are headed, but at least there is someone to follow. Then, suddenly, you see a strangely dressed man standing in the road holding a stop sign, waving and jumping up and down to get your attention. With hesitation, you stop and role the window down just a little.

“Turn around! You are going the wrong way!” he says.

You look confused.

“Turn around! If you keep going this way you will hurt yourself or someone else,” he repeats.

“But I’m being careful” you respond.

“Turn around! The lights you are following belong to a drunk who could lead you off the road, who will lead you only to death!” he states with great drama.

“Who are you and why should I trust you?” you ask.

“Turn around” he keeps saying.

Finally, he brings out a bucket of water and pours it over your windshield. To your surprise, it is no longer foggy outside. What you had thought was fog, was really all the dirt on your own windshield. Now that you can see outside you realize that you are very far from home; you have no idea how many hours you were going the wrong direction. It dawns on you that you are totally lost.

You also notice that the car you were following is about to go off into a ditch. You turn to the man beside you to thank him and ask him how to get home.

“Follow that one over there,” he says as he points to a light in the distance.

As you pull away you ask your spouse “Who was that?”

“Oh, I think he was a workman preparing the road, making the highway in this desert straight.”

         John the baptizer proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance, what is repentance? The word is a translation of metanoia, a Greek word that means to know again in a new way, be transformed, to turn around. When someone calls for repentance they are telling you to turn around, to turn around because you are going in the wrong direction, to turn around so that you can see things in a new way. Baptism of repentance would be a baptism that provides one an opportunity to see things in a new way.

         How much of our lives we spend as if we are wandering lost in the fog? We have no sense of where we are going, we don’t see the dangers ahead, and sometimes we follow something or someone without knowing where it will lead.

How many of us wake up one morning and begin to question what we are doing with our lives? We follow a path set before us, school, marriage, job, whatever, without thinking about whether it leads to where we really want to go. Perhaps we seek wealth, money for its own sake, without thinking about why we should be trying to get rich, and then we find, once we have some money, that we still feel empty inside. Perhaps it is power that you followed after. Perhaps it was the dream of your own home and that fantasy middle class life. Once you have achieved it, then what?

         Maybe you have a gone down a road of addiction to alcohol, or drugs and one day you woke up to realize that this road leads nowhere. Maybe you idealized someone and followed them until you found that you had lost your own sense of identity.

Any time we make anything more important than God, more important than loving God and our neighbors, we are going in the wrong direction and sooner or latter will find ourselves lost and at a dead end. 

When we discover we have gone the wrong way there is only one thing to do, turn around.  To repent, to turn around, means to acknowledge that we have been going the wrong way, to acknowledge that we have done things we shouldn’t have done and not done things we should have. 

To repent of our sins means to open our eyes and acknowledge the mistakes we have made, to see ourselves in a new way, to acknowledge that we are lost, to turn around and to follow the one for whom John was preparing, to follow the true light that can lead us home.

         Advent is a season with two themes. The first is the joyful anticipation of the birth of Christ, the incarnation of our Lord. The second is the preparing for the second coming of Christ. Both involve a sense of preparation, of self study, so that we are ready to receive the incredible grace that God bestowed upon the earth on the first Christmas. We need to prepare to be able to let in just how much God loves us. We need to be prepared to open our hearts and receive the gift of love that is the Christ child.

         How do we prepare? By opening our eyes and hearts, by washing away the dirt of our past that keeps us from seeing the truth, by repenting and letting ourselves be transformed, so that when we see the true light we are ready to follow Christ home.

Advent 2 C

Imagine that you are told that the President is coming to visit your home. What would you do to prepare?

Advent 2 C

Transcribed from a sermon given on

December 9, 2012

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande

This past week I saw a small thing on the news about the president going to visit a middle class family. It was one of those photo opportunities. I imagined what it would be like to be a member of that family. Can you imagine getting the call, “The president is going to come to visit.” I don’t know how much time they had to prepare - certainly at least a few hours because the secret service had to come and all that. But can you imagine how you would feel. Immediately it would be, “Oh my gosh, when did we dust last.” And I have to vacuum under the furniture because I don’t do that. And then as you’ve got the house fairly clean you are thinking oh my there is all that stuff that we put down in the basement. The secret service are going to go down there and what are they going to find? You know. And the husband is going to be out there mowing the grass and blowing the leaves.

We know what it is like when someone important is coming to visit. We know what we do to prepare. Now I help with a lot of weddings, and I can’t tell you how many new carpets have been put into houses of the family of someone getting married. When people are going to come and see the house we have to get everything in order. We have to prepare. And of course if you have kept the house pretty clean all along it is not nearly as difficult as if you have been a little slovenly and haven’t done much of anything. But we all know what it is like when someone comes to visit, especially when it is someone important.

It is different if it is your friend. Now if it is the president of the United States or your spouse’s boss you are going to want everything to be just perfect. Not because you care about that person but because you care about what people are going to think of you if your house is a mess. But if the one coming is your old friend that you haven’t seen for years, your beloved friend, you want to clean the house so that it is warm and welcoming and they will have a good time.

So here we are, it’s Advent and we are hearing about “Prepare”. Get ready! It is going to happen. Any time. We don’t know when. At least that family had some knowledge that the president was coming. We aren’t promised any foreknowledge of when we are going to be encountering Christ. “Prepare!”

In spiritual teachers throughout history and in different religions have talked about the house as representing our spiritual life. Sometimes in dreams the basement is seen to represent your unconscious, while the attic is your higher self or spiritual self. It’s an image that is used a lot, so we can use that in our own sense of preparation. What are we getting prepared for? We are getting everything just right for the visitor.

Now how do we prepare? John the Baptist says that the way we prepare is to repent. Every year at Advent and at Lent we hear about repentance. It’s the word that comes up over and over again in Advent and Lent. Repent is a translation of a word that means to turn around, to see things in a new way - to turn your life around. This year for Advent in my own personal Advent reflections I’m playing with an image of repentance as how I look at things. Of whether I am looking primarily at me or out at others and at God. Are my thoughts about what I am doing and what is best for me and what I am going to do or am I thinking about God, and what God wants - and what other people want. When I go to buy Christmas gifts am I thinking, “Oh, they are going to think highly of me when I buy this. Or who do I need to buy for because they are going to get me a gift and they’ll feel bad if I don’t get them something?” Is it all about me? Or is it “Oh, I can bring joy to this person with this gift.” Of course it is mixed. It always is. But I am reflecting on trying to be aware of which direction am I looking? Am I looking at myself or am I looking outside.

Well in our preparations, when we look at ourselves we are focused on what is this visitor going to think of me. When we begin to focus outside, we begin to look at who is this person who is coming that we are preparing for? And the truth is that when we really see, when we get beyond ourselves and open our eyes to see who it is we are preparing for, we find we are preparing for our very best friend. The one being that loves us totally and unconditionally. This is a friend that’s going to come in and not take a glove and see if there is any dust on top of things, but say, wow, it looks so much better than last time I was here. Because Christ knows that we are a work in progress.

That is one of the wonderful things about this passage from Paul. He talks about may the one who has started a good work in you, which I assume he is referring to the Holy Spirit, continue to do so to prepare you for the coming of Christ. It is an ongoing process. It is a continuing process. We don’t “get it” and then we are right. What it is is that we are constantly in a process of becoming. Becoming more and more of what God delights in. And God takes delight in this process that we are going through.

So here we are. We are in Advent. We are getting ready. And these first couple of weeks are all about this kind of grumpy John the Baptist who yells, “Watch Out! Get ready!” But it ends on Christmas with the angels singing about great joy and good news. Because the one we have been preparing for is the one who is our best friend, most beloved, and the most wonderful guest we could ever welcome into our homes and into our hearts.

Advent 2 B - sermon

Imagine that you are driving, lost in the fog. Is it time to turn around?

2 Advent B

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

Brentwood, CA

12/8/96

Mark 1:1-8

         Imagine that you’ve spent the evening at a friend’s house somewhere East of Byron. When you leave to come home you discover that it is a dark and foggy night, so you get in your car and drive along, carefully following those little yellow dots that show where the middle of the highway is. You have been driving for quite a while, and your spouse sitting next to you, is complaining that things don’t look right, shouldn’t there have been a turn back there, etc. You mutter back something about back seat drivers and continue on. Now you are making a little better time, because there is a car in front of you, at least there are those two red lights to follow. You know nothing of the person driving that car, or where they are headed, but at least there is someone to follow. Then, suddenly you see a strangely dressed man standing in the road holding a stop sign and waving and jumping up and down to get your attention. With hesitation, you stop and role the window down just a little. “Turn around! You are going the wrong way!” he says. You look confused. “Turn around! If you keep going this way you will hurt yourself or someone else,” he repeats. “But I’m being careful” you respond. “Turn around! The lights you are following belong to a drunk who could lead you off the road, who will lead you only to death!” he states with great drama. “Who are you and why should I trust you?” you ask. “Turn around” he keeps saying. Finally he brings out a bucket of water and pours it over your windshield. To your surprise, it is no longer foggy outside. What you had thought was fog, was really all the dirt on your own windshield. As you can see outside you realize that you are very far from home, you have no idea how many hours you were going the wrong direction, and it dawns on you that you are totally lost. You also notice that the car you were following is about to go off into a ditch. You turn to the man beside you to thank him and ask him how to get home. “Follow that one over there,” he says as he points to a light in the distance. As you pull away you ask your spouse “Who was that?” “Oh, I think he was a workman preparing the road, making the highway in this desert straight.”

         John the baptizer proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance, what is repentance? The word is a translation of metanoia, a Greek word that means to know again in a new way, be transformed, to turn around. When someone calls for repentance they are telling you to turn around, to turn around because you are going in the wrong direction, to turn around so that you can see things in a new way. Baptism of repentance would be a baptism that provides one an opportunity to see things in a new way.

         How much of our lives we spend as if we were wandering lost in the fog. We have no sense of where we are going, we don’t see the dangers ahead, and sometimes we follow something or someone without knowing where it will lead. How many of us wake up one morning and begin to question what we are doing with our lives. We follow a path set before us, school, marriage, job, whatever, without thinking about whether it leads to where we really want to go. Perhaps we seek wealth, money for its own sake, without thinking about why we should be trying to get rich, and then we find, once we have some money, that we still feel empty inside. Perhaps it is power that you followed after. Perhaps it was the dream of your own home and that fantasy middle class life. Once you have achieved it, then what?

         Maybe you have a gone down a road of addiction to alcohol, or drugs and one day you woke up to realize that this road leads nowhere. Maybe you idealized someone and followed them until you found that you had lost your own sense of identity. Any time we make anything more important than God, more important than loving God and our neighbors, we are going in the wrong direction and sooner or latter will find ourselves lost and at a dead end.  When we discover we have gone the wrong way there is only one thing to do, turn around.  To repent, to turn around, means to acknowledge that we have been going the wrong way, to acknowledge that we have done things we shouldn’t have done and not done things we should have.  To repent of our sins means to open our eyes and acknowledge the mistakes we have made, to see ourselves in a new way, to acknowledge that we are lost, to turn around and to follow the one for whom John was preparing, to follow the true light that can lead us home.

         Advent is a season with two themes. The first is the joyful anticipation of the birth of Christ, the incarnation of our Lord. The second is the preparing for the second coming of Christ. Both involve a sense of preparation, of self study so that we are ready to receive the incredible grace that God bestowed upon the earth on the first Christmas. We need to prepare to be able to let in just how much God loves us. We need to be prepared to open our hearts and receive the gift of love that is the Christ child.

         How do we prepare? By opening our eyes and hearts, by washing away the dirt of our past that keeps us from seeing the truth, by repenting and letting ourselves be transformed, so that when we see the true light we are ready to follow Christ home.