Today is the first we hear of our patron saint John the Baptist since last our patronal feast day in June, and before that on the first Sunday of Epiphany. But the Second Sunday of Advent every year is always a John the Baptist Sunday for every liturgical church, the ones following the Common Lectionary; and today is that very Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent, all across the world.

John the Baptist figures prominently in the life of Christ. John is the 'announcer', the 'forerunner', the 'point man' for Jesus. In modern military parlance, to be a “point man” means to assume the first and most exposed position in a combat military formation, that is, the lead soldier or unit advancing through hostile or unsecured territory (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_point). Although in modern military strategy, the point man is often let through an ambush so the attackers can be more effective in striking at the main military unit. However, in the gospel writings, John draws the first 'fire', he is killed first, but his fate is only the harbinger of what will befall Jesus who will be cruelly tortured to death on the cross for our sins.

John is the harbinger of things to come, at the Second Coming, more perhaps than at the First Coming, as John preached the judgment of God. We will hear more about that next Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent.

Today's message is about repenting for our sins and of how God will level the playing field, raising all valleys to level, and lowering all mountains to the same plain. It is the plan upon which America's Interstate Highways are constructed, and also most of the major motorways of all other developed countries. The concept of level roadways was also common practice in the days of the Pharaohs and kings, who in preparation to make a state visit in some far away part of their empire or realm would first send out road crews to fill in the valleys and level the mountains and hills so the chariots of the king or pharaoh would have safe and smooth passage through all sorts of terrain, with limited opportunities for ambush attack from local brigands. And the King's Highway was also often a major trade route. Witness in Israel the King's Highway that runs from the border of modern day Egypt to the Arabian Sea and then on into Syria. The ancient King's Highway was probably in existence as early as 1300 BC, 300 years before King David, and parts are still able to be used today; it began in Heliopolis, Egypt, and from there went eastward to Clysma (modern Suez), through the Mitla Pass and the Egyptian forts in the Sinai desert to Eilat and Aqaba on the inlet to the Sea of Arabia. From there the Highway turned northward through the Arabah, the Great Rift Valley to the Dead Sea, past Petra, through Moab, past Damascus, and ending at Resafa on the upper Euphrates River in ancient, and modern, Syria. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Highway_(ancient))

The impressive King's Highway would be more comparable in the Americas to a yet mostly non-existent continuous highway say from Mexico City up to Toronto, or Juno, Alaska, to understand its strategic importance to many ancient Middle Eastern nations. Many of the wars of the Israelites against the kingdoms of the trans-Jordanian highlands during the period of the Kingdom of Israel (and its sister-kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah) under Kings David and Solomon and following probably were fought at least partly over control of the King's Highway.

So the ancient ears to John the Baptist's cry would likely immediately understand the portent, the gist, of what John was proclaiming. God is on the way and with smooth traveling God will be here in no time! The signal arm is down, the bells are ringing, the red lights are flashing, and the train is on its way, inexorably, with unstoppable force and speed much like the modern 250 mile an hour maglev train from near Shanghai, China, to its airport. But instead of being worried about being hit by the wrath of God, John says, “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” But of course, seeing is not necessarily believing!

So today we are presented again with an opportunity to turn our lives back towards God, whom we may have been ignoring for much of our lives, and maybe even during these preceding weeks. How has God rated on our scale of 1 to 10? Is God a 6 or a 3 or a 1? Do we give God our tithe, our ten percent at least? Do we rank God closer to our monthly mortgage payments or down with our electric and water bills, or even below that? Do we spend a hundred or ten minutes with God each week, or each day, or do we simply ignore the Lord most days, and even skip Sunday services?

Do we make God's pathway into our lives straight, or do we gerrymander the road a bit here and there?

So today we are faced with the prospect of being honest with our God. We will not likely admit our thoughts to anyone else, but God will hear our heart and surely God already knows our ways.

Rev. J. Clemens quotes Theresa of Avila, “'God's messengers come through the conversations of good people, or from sermons, or through the reading of good books; and there are many other ways . . . in which God calls. Or [God's messengers] come through sicknesses and trials, or by means of truths which God teaches us at times when we are engaged in prayer; however feeble such prayers may be, God values them highly.'

“Not satisfied with boxing up promise [and] fulfillment passages such as these and mothballing them on the shelf of irrelevant history, Teresa takes those same passages and moves forward into a new time and place. And that's where the lessons of Advent can address us: what messages has God been sending to you lately? How have you been challenged to grow? Who has brought you hope?”

Rev. Clemens continues, “Not long ago, a close friend recalled her mother's life. 'My mother worked her entire life in the same job. She knew what the job entailed and developed the skills and knowledge to accomplish her tasks. But she never changed.' I thought that harsh and unloving, Rev. Clemens said, so I asked her to explain. 'Well, my mother never developed any interests, hobbies, never took a class, never enjoyed a symphony concert or attended the theatre. She just put in her 9-5 over a life time and went home and watched TV.'

“We need messengers and messages to confront us and to push us to new places of growth,” Rev. Clemens concludes.

Maybe God has some glorious purpose for your life. Can you hear it? Does it excite you? Or will you ignore God's promptings and go along with your 9 to 5 or 8 to 6 job, go home and plop down on the easy chair to watch TV every night?

Or is God calling you to come up higher to hear God's plan for the rest of your life?

I believe God has a lot to say to each of us here today. God does have needs that only we can fulfill. Maybe we are to be trustworthy greeters, ushers, readers. And then again, maybe we are to go out as missionaries to the far flung reaches of the earth--or maybe something in between.

One of my hometown friends goes to a church that sponsors their pastor to lead evangelistic campaigns in South America each year. That idea just blows my mind, but he somehow raises up local preachers to do these big speaking engagements with him every six months or so. That is pretty much completely unheard of in Episcopalian circles. But in the more distant past that was not the case. The Episcopal Church had a lot of missionary bishops who founded dozens of churches out west and all across the United States. Now with a number of Dioceses leaving the Episcopal Church, I see a vast new opportunity to 're-church' the West and other parts of the US where outlying dioceses have left and have taken their church buildings with them. The current national strategy of TEC, The Episcopal Church, seems to be to spend millions of dollars in litigation to get back all those old buildings rather than to use our precious funds to begin new ministries in the places where people are desperate for the Gospel. That's sort of what we have done at St. John's here. We don't seem to be able to find many existing Episcopalians to come to church, so we have reached out to the unchurched with pretty good success. I don't know if we will be able to confirm all or many of them, but last Sunday we had nearly a hundred people at our 2:30 PM Karaoke Vespers service. And actually the service didn't cost us much of anything for food as another church provided that. But we could definitely use some usher help, as the crowd is far larger than we have been handling. We need ushers! And even on the two or three Sundays when we do provide the food, the cost is something less than two dollars a head, considerably less that what we spend for this service.

So I think God is still speaking to us Episcopalians. Whether we are listening or not may be the question. And the same goes for the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholics, the Baptists, and so on. God is speaking, but few seem to be listening.

But let us not be concerned about anyone else at this point. What we need to discern is what is God speaking about to me and to you today? What is God saying to St. John's Church today, or to any other church (even our online church, i-church), or diocese? Are we listening, or are things pretty much pro forma, status quo, humdrum?

I rather think God is not keeping silent. When we all have repented, turned from our sins of self-deception and self-absorption and self-aggrandizement, we may just hear God motioning to us to come closer to God's lips so we can hear God's whisper. It may not even be a sound, but only the mother of a sound, as when Elijah and John the Baptist heard God's voice in the wilderness. It may be in the brief quietness between the offertory sentence and the offertory hymn, or maybe God already spoke to you before the worship began. God can speak quickly or slowly, but always to the point, and amazingly clearly if we only are willing to listen.

Give your life to God. It's all you have, but you will be rewarded handsomely, both now and in eternity. Amen.

(Comments to Joe at joe.parrish@ecunet.org.)

St. John's Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201