Advent 2C

December 10, 2000

by Joe Parrish

Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."'

Make straight our way to you, Dear Lord, and prepare us for your coming. Amen.

Friday I made my way to Calvary Baptist Church in East Orange, New Jersey, for the fourth time in about as many months. I had my cell phone at ready because the first three times I had gotten miserably lost each time. The assistants in the church office seemed not to know the names of the streets, and my being a stranger to those parts of Essex County north of us made matters very confusing. I took about a half an hour the first time I tried to find that rather large and modern church. But the tortuous way I took was totally unmemorable, I had made so many stops and turns and backtracks-once I had even chased down an East Orange police car going in the opposite direction to get myself reoriented. After one of these fiascoes, I looked back in as I exited to go home after the community faith-based meeting and spotted the sign on the crossover road that went above Interstate 280-Munn Road it said, and I knew somehow I had to find Munn Road the next time I came there. This time they told me to take the Harrison Street exit-but there is no Harrison Street exit in East Orange, I felt somewhat secure in that fact. Of course I peered down Route 280 as I took the Clifton Street exit, just to be sure my last time being lost had taught me something. So right away I was tipped off that I was in trouble yet again. So back on the cell phone I went. They told me they really were not too sure of the street names; they referred to the "Route 280 Complex" and said it was just that, complex. I was now to find a very large church that was to be my next landmark. After telling them the names of the streets, they finally figured out that I was going in exactly the opposite direction than what I was supposed to be going. So I crossed over Interstate 280 and headed back toward their church. Then I was to find a very large church, they emphasized it was very large. Of course when I spied a very large church and described it, they said, "No that is not it."

Consternation was beginning to set in. Then I suddenly came to a split in the road-one branch went right and the other went across a wide one-way never-to-return bridge. It was now or never, and they screamed, "Cross the bridge. Cross the bridge!" And I swung to my left dodging a few trucks and crossed the bridge. One would never have expected to take one's life in one's hands just to get to church! Finally I saw the other "large church" and remarked that it was a bit smaller than the first one-I guess this one was one of their main "competitors", but they assured me that that was the "large church" I was to see, not the other one. Finally within two blocks of Calvary Baptist Church I had a sense of deja vous and realized I was nearing the church from a different direction than I had come to it before. I fortunately spotted the church on the corner, took a right and then a left into their parking lot. Safe, and this time I was on time, or maybe only a minute late. And another saga of how America has disenfranchised its churches and people had been acted out. Just as Broad Street no longer allows people to turn on to East Jersey Street to get to our church parking lot, Interstate 280 has completely dissected the city of East Orange in a seeming heartless way. You can see similar things in Union City and other towns in this northern New Jersey area and elsewhere. Roadways are more important than the people whose towns they have destroyed. Cars and commuters going to the distant wealthier suburbs have more clout than the "closer in" folks. How many speed fifty feet above the South Bronx on their way to the much better homes in Westchester County and Connecticut? With the poverty hidden carefully from sight below, one can feel safe and secure that one's way to comfortable living is straight ahead, but certainly not so below.

As you may have heard me say before, we are in a strong effort to attract more and more churches and other groups into what is called a "Faith-based organization." We have about thirty groups now paying dues, including our own church here. Several are in Essex and Hudson Counties, and we are seeking to add more here in Union County. We hope to gain some power in the decision-making processes that seem heretofore to move state and federal funding for public projects into the farther and farther out hinterlands, away from the concentrated poverty we experience in the central cities of the Northeast and elsewhere in the United States. The children of the suburbanites come in here to buy their crack cocaine and 65 percent pure heroine, and the occasional AIDS-bearing prostitute. So solving our problems would be enormously beneficial to the second and third and fourth ring suburban towns. But convincing enough others in the government seats of power of that fact is challenging indeed. We even get blacklisted and badmouthed for advocating for the poor in our own dioceses and other judicatories, but occasionally we are able to wrangle some funds to handle a few of the most pressing problems. But in general, we are seen as pariahs even in the world of the comfortable Christian. So we always have an uphill battle. But we are hopefully getting wiser and maybe closer to some solutions.

John the Baptist happens to be our patronal saint here in St. John's, we were founded on his Saint's Day, June 24, in 1706. We have survived nearly three centuries of changes and chances, but now we still reel from the effects of the Newark riots of the mid-1960's in which perhaps a fifth or more of the adjoining city of Newark was burned down, including large sections of residential housing. Elizabeth escaped the burning, but it certainly did not escape the mass exodus from Newark that followed the fires. The devastation felt in our three-times larger neighbor surely has very negatively affected us. Now we are considered some sort of dumping grounds for all sorts of things-New York City's garbage-half a million tons started coming into Elizabeth in November 1999. And when the word "dredge" is mentioned in conjunction with Newark Bay, we all know who is Ground Zero as being the choicest spot for dumping the dredged dioxins and PCBs from the Vietnam Agent Orange factory just north of us on the Passaic River. There are enough dioxins and PCBs on the bottom of Newark Bay adjoining Elizabeth and Newark to fight another ten Vietnam Wars! And we constantly have the threat to our immediately southerly and upwind neighbors who bear the stresses of barged garbage plans and incinerators right beside huge petroleum refineries and chemical factories, only dwarfed by the brownfields of yesteryear's Industrial Revolution, centered in this area of the country.

What we need to make the pathway of the Lord straighter is more jobs for people, not more underpaying, minimum wage, retail jobs that do not support the rents in the area, but real jobs that will allow people to actually live here and support the enormous tax drain of city services. Folks in Elizabeth pay more in property taxes than about seventy to eighty percent of all communities in the United States. Our huge industries, Singer Sewing Machine, Exxon, and Thomas and Betts and others have either completely disappeared or downsized by ninety percent or more. Yet we have some of the country's best transportation routes, land, sea, and train, and we are only a hop, skip, and a jump from New York City's seven million residents and businesses. But to turnaround the so-called "first ring suburbs" is an enormous challenge, especially when the state and federal powers-that-be are not that much interested in our plight.

Of course what we need is repentance, just as John the Baptist cried in the wilderness. We are in a wilderness of problems and poverty, and we need the help of many to bring about a change and a truly brighter day.

It is easy to be seized by cynicism. But several of us are hearing what we believe to be the clarion call of God to rescue those mired in poverty and injustice and degradation. So we campaign on to find better ways to respond as Christians in an increasingly secular society. I have estimated we will need the membership of at least seventy congregations and groups to begin to approach the enormity of the problems we face. So we need your help in spreading the word and in getting others to come into our organized effort to make a difference.

Is this theological? I have to present this perspective in our next meeting on January 4th at 11 AM, and I also need at least five parishioners to attend the meeting with me there in East Orange-be assured I now know the Way! So you can come with me or follow me on Thursday, January 4th at 11 AM! The meeting will end promptly at 1 PM, and we will have a light lunch there. So put that date on your calendar and let me know if you will be able to attend Thursday, January 4th at 11 AM. We'll leave the church here at 10 AM.

Surely God knew what God was trying to say through John the Baptist in the year 26 AD or so. God's Son was about to spring onto the world scene again, now as a fully-grown adult. It was important that his way be made as smooth and as straight as possible, because his days would be fiercely numbered. Now Jesus is to come to us again, in the clouds, and it is our time that is fiercely limited. How will we be part of the preparation for his second coming? Will we have spread the gospel of salvation far and wide enough? Will each of our neighbors be brought into a decision about coming into God's Son's fold? Will our lives count as being those Christ would have us live?

Preparation for the return of Christ requires repentance, in the Greek, "metanoia", that means, "changing one's mind". We need to have a new perspective on how our Christian lives affect others, whether we travel above or below their heads going sixty miles an hour in the South Bronx or on Route 280 in East Orange or elsewhere in this the richest land in the world. How disparate are the lives of those living in Newark, and Camden, and Elizabeth from those living in Somerset or Morris or Hunterdon Counties, some of the wealthiest counties in the United States? How can we make a difference in gaining relief for others who are neglected or mistreated? I am sure the problems are just as real in Oregon or Oklahoma or Omaha, Nebraska. The distance between the haves and the have-nots increases by the week. What judgment will this bring on us when the Lord comes again? Is this only Biblical fiction, or does it really, really matter?

Paris, France, uses one and a half tons of a perfume called "Madeline" per month to suppress the odors of its subway system. And I am sure someone is trying to buy something like "Madeline" perfume to cover up the odors from the Julia Street garbage transfer station here in Elizabeth that takes in 1,600 tons of New York City and New Jersey garbage each and every day, right in the back yards of hundreds of lower income minority families here in Elizabeth, as well as a comparable amount in similar neighborhoods in Newark. What has driven us to such extremes? Why do people's lives and livelihoods no longer matter? And I have just this week heard similar stories from Ohio and Colorado. Where else are travesties occurring among the least able to defend themselves?

I for one think churches have a major role to play in getting our society to repent of its insensitivities to the cares and concerns of many downtrodden and disenfranchised people. We as a nation and as a world have ignored the cries of the poor and oppressed, even the ones right under our noses, and feet.

Advent begins with repentance. Advent continues with the remembrance of things we have either done or left undone. And finally Advent should culminate in renewal of our vows as Christians to work on behalf of the last, the least, and the lowly. Jesus came to save us. We need to be the saving agents for others. Let us go forth from here and serve the Lord in justice, in righteousness, and in truth. The time to wake up and hear the cry of the prophet in the wilderness is again upon us. Will we respect his call? And will we respect, honor, and serve his Lord, our Savior?

Amen.