Heralds of joy and life!

     I was at AT&T Thursday, my third level of hell on earth for those of you who follow Dante’s circle—Comcast is the bottom circle, of course—paying a bill for a woman who keeps four survivors’ phones on her plan.  Y’all have met Christi with United Against Slavery.  Some of you have given money to help pay some bills and support her research work that we need finished to get the con-celebrated eucharist done in Nashville.  Yes, that Christi.  She has been injured and unable to work.  Unsurprising to most of us, her hours have been cut by her employer, Wal Mart.  She tore the tendons or ligaments in her foot again and is unable to do all the work she is supposed.  Good news is that the surgery will be next week.  This will be the second or third for the same injury.  If you know anything about Wal Mart, though, you know what a benevolent corporation it really is.  Wal Mart seeks that wonderful balance between great employee benefits and cheap prices for consumers to make themselves billions of dollars annually.  Why are y’all chuckling?

      Anyway, they’ve drastically cut Christi’s hours, and she’s not making enough to support herself.  Thankfully, y’all give enough in Discretionary that I can help in your name.  Thank you for those gifts and that trust.  So I went to AT&T to pay the monthly bill.  The lady helping me was a young lady, I’m guessing Sarah or Amanda’s age.  She was smaller than me, blond hair and covered in tattoos.  I gave her Christ’s number and she was working to pull up the account.  I was studying her tattoos.  She caught me squinting at one.  What can I say?  I’ve not done the eye doctor yet this year, and I could not read what it said.

     She saw and I did not want her to think I was that kind of creep.  So I told her I was trying to read her tattoo.  She held her arm up higher and closer.  It read, “I have a song in my heart.”  I commented that was an interesting choice.  She said something about her blossoming faith.  Then, Christi’s account pulled up.  “Whoa, why is this bill so high and why are you paying it if it is not yours?”  I explained I was a pastor, that Christi was injured, that the bill was for her and four survivors, and that I was using discretionary funds to pay the bill.  It kept the survivors in contact with support and work and family, where necessary, and it helped Christi.

     That got the young lady really excited.  She’d heard a lot about sex trafficking.  Nashville was the number two site in the United States behind Atlanta.  That was work she really though magnificent.  She wondered if Christi ever made it from Morristown to Nashville because it would be great to meet someone active in that work, to hear the really nitty gritty details.  She was opining this as she was fighting her system to take the discretionary account card.

     She asked how I’d met Christi, and I shared.  All of a sudden her focus was me and not the computer.  She lost that . . . for lack of a better word, spunkiness that she had had.  She commented on my cross and then invited me to go ahead when she realized I was a real priest.

     Folks, I am here to tell you the deflation was real.  Her shoulders slumped.  Joy went out of her eyes.  She was clearly ready for an attack.

     So, I asked, “go ahead with what?”

     “My tattoos,” she answered.

     “You mean they look painful or beautiful or what?”

     She looked at me like I had lost my mind.  She told me to tell her she was like a cow who had branded herself and was going to hell or to tell her that she had marked herself with the sign of the Devil and that God could not love her.  I think she had another couple examples, but I’d quit listening by then.

     “Do people really come into AT&T to tell you that?”

     She responded they did.  Several times a week.

     I told her I was stunned.  And sorry that was her experience.  I shared with her I like AT&T better than Comcast, but few other companies, and the last thing I wanted to do was to come into companies I hate and tell them they were beyond salvation, except maybe Comcast.  No, not really.  Hell, really, I want to get in and out as quickly as possible.

     She got back to work on Christ’s account, but she was clearly waiting for me to pick on her or judge her.  So I took a risk.

     “Look.  I’m willing to give you a bit of knowledge, but I need you to be super judicious in your use of it.  Can you promise me you will use this wisely?”

     I had her attention.  “About what?”

     “Tattoos.”

     I got that hopeful but distrusting “OK.”

     So I warned her.  “If you use this wrongly, assholes who would judge your salvation against our Lord’s direct command will likely yell at your manager to fire you.  It’s like that Spiderman warning: with great power comes great responsibility.  Do you understand what I am saying?”

     Recognition and humor flashed across her face.  “I got you, but can you say asshole?”

     “I just did.”  We laughed.

     What followed was the discussion about the marks of the dead.  In some cultures it was the practice to try and spiritually channel the deceased by having their name or likeness or whatever drawn on one’s body.  It was a form of channeling.  Maybe like a premodern séance, if that makes sense.  God forbid its practice in the torah.  It makes sense.  We cannot cross that chasm.  After discussing that teaching and the suggestions that she ask winsomely of their church does not use the Old Testament or other likely sputtering causing questions to start that conversation, I also needed top reassure her.  So, as long as her marks were not of the dead in her life, and she was not trying to channel their spirits, I did not think God was too upset with her.  Better still, if she was, all she needed to do was repent and stop.  Jesus had dies for those sins, too.

     Now, I will say her countenance was greatly improved.  She’d gone from service person to kind of shrinking expecting a religious judgment and now to a bit of feistiness in fifteen or twenty minutes.  She quickly reassured me that her tattoos were not channeling the dead.  In fact, she started showing me the ones on her arms.  All reflected her life.  She shared how, as a youth, she’d made some bad choices.  But, then, along the way, she’d met people who had introduced her to God and Jesus.  Make no mistake, she said she had done things of which she was not proud.  But, over time, she found her way to God and claimed Jesus as Lord.  She described some of her covered tattoos.  I have to say, I think, if I understood her correctly, the tats on this side of her body were more that black or greenish black ink, but the one ending on her forearm proclaiming her song was in all kinds of color.

     So, I stopped her and told her to forget that Bible Study lesson I had just given her.  I said her artwork was the very opposite of channeling the dead.  It recounted her salvation story.  So, it was a celebration of her being lost and found, of her choosing life and the Lord.  It’s the very opposite of channeling the dead.  She should point that out rather than my Bible Study lesson to them.

     She beamed.  “you think so?”

     “I know so.  It’s YOUR testimony to His faithfulness and love and mercy and grace.  He knows the intricacies of your tats that you would never be able to explain to me.  Why that curve there?  Why that tat in that spot?  Why the red ink there and the blue there?  He knows all your art’s significance.”

     “You’re like the passage that teaches He knows every head on body and every sparrow.”

     “Well, to be fair, that was His teaching.  You can’t blame a pastor for believing, right?”

     We finished up paying Christi’s bill and I turned to head out, back to Karen waiting in the car.

     “I’m glad you came in, pastor, and we got to speak.  Thank you, too, for giving me a couple ways to argue with the judgmental ah . . . difficult customers.  But can I ask you a real question?”

     I laughed and told her sure.

     “Why are so many Christians jerks?”

     I told her the easy answer was that they were not worshiping at Episcopal churches here in Tennessee.

     She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  But I explained that it’s easy to get stuck in places when we don’t take the full counsel of Scripture.  We might like to focus on the hard work we think it takes to follow Jesus.  We might like to focus on the cross-bearing to which He calls each of us.  There is, to be sure, lots of serious work to be done.  But we liturgical churches get forced along the church season and through more of the Scripture.  My mind, as a result, is focused this week on Gaudete Sunday.

     “Gaudete Sunday?”

     It’s the Sunday in the somber season of Advent when we remind ourselves that we are commanded by the Lord to Rejoice!  She knew the psalm and laughed that being commanded to rejoice was like being commanded to eat your brussell sprouts and like them or eat or broccoli and enjoy it or listen to music you can’t stand and tap your toes.

     I laughed with her and told her I understood.  But I reminded her our primary act as Christian believers is to give joyful thanks to God for the saving work He has done for all of us, for us individually, and through His Son, Jesus, our Lord.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the hard, dark work, work that seems never-ending and un-impacting, but that command reminds us that He has already won and that our work, by virtue of His victory, always has meaning.

     She laughed again.  She confessed she got a little worried when I started talking about marks of the dead.  In her tattoos, apparently, are the names of some of those who first reached out to her, who first taught her that God loved her.  Some of them, she had no real way to thank other than to, you  know, remember their names all her life.  They’d given her way more than thank you’s would ever cover; some may assume they failed in her life.  Some might even be dead now; hence her fear about the marks of the dead.

     So, I reminded her that is why He commands us to rejoice.  We need to be reminded, over and over and over and over again that He has won and that nothing He gives us to do is without meaning.  We may not understand it.  Heck we may think we do but totally miss the real purpose of His.  But He is glorified in our faithfulness just as we will be in His.

     “Kinda like you paying the cell phone bill?”

     “What?”

     “You came in to pay the cell phone bill for those ladies, but you met a lady with tattoos.  You helped me with my fears and taught me how to deal with judgmental jerks.  You listened to my story and reminded be we are supposed to be a joyful people.  Heck, maybe one of these other customers or guys I worked with needed to hear our conversation, too!”

     I’d say she got it.

     Our Gospel lesson today focuses on the John the Baptist and us.  John is in prison.  Things have gone dramatically wrong from his perspective.  He baptized his cousin Jesus, saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus like a dove, and heard the voice of God proclaiming Jesus His Son.  He was the herald!  He was the prophet to whom it had been given to fulfill the words of Isaiah.  He was tasked with the glorious responsibility of announcing the coming of Messiah!  But he was in prison.  Life had not worked out the way he expected.  No glory comes in prison.  The powers that be do not tremble and bow before the authority of God.  So, he questions whether he was right.  Did I hear what I thought I heard?  Did I see what I thought I saw?  Did I understand my role, and His role, correctly?

     He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One.  In a move that infuriates modern theologians and commentators, Jesus does not give the simple yes or no answer.  Jesus tells John’s disciples to go and tell John what they see and hear.  Demons submit to His commands, signifying His power over the supernatural.  Storms submit to His commands, Fish and loaves multiply, diseases are cured, the blind see, the lame leap for joy, signifying His power over nature and what you and I call the natural order.  He heals on the Sabbath and in synagogues.  And He proclaims the arrival of God’s kingdom.  But John, like you and I, must decide who He is for ourselves.  The signs point the way, but we must decide their interpretation.  Could any but one sent from God heal on a Sabbath?  In a sacred place?  Could any but God Himself cast out demons with barely a “by your leave.”  And what of the healings?  Can we regenerate nerves 2000 years later?  Can our optometrists and ophthalmologists restore sight to the blind even today?  Can our nerve experts tell the lame to leap for joy?  And interspersed among all those miracles is His message of forgiveness and assurance that faith has made us well.  That we might know He has power to forgive, He demonstrates these signs of power and authority.

     John, of course, realizes this.  He is in a dark moment of his life, doubting himself, but he knows that what his disciples report are the signs of the messiah.  We know he finds solace in this answer because he instructs his disciples to begin following Jesus, even as he faces his looming death thanks to Salome’s dancing, alone.

     After John’s disciples leave, we might expect Jesus to fuss about John’s lack of faith.  I mean, John heard the stories from his mother and father.  How the angel silenced dad for his unbelief during work in the temple.  How mom felt him leap for the first time at the voice of Cousin Mary.  All his life was dedicated for being a fit vessel to proclaim the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promises. 

     Outside the family, of course, he has heard the stories.  God has been silent for generations, since the time of the prophet Micah.  Now, God is speaking through the voice of John.  They recognize him as a prophet of old.  And Jesus points this out to them!  What did you go to see?  A guy in fancy robes in a palace?  The ordinary?  The everyday?  No!  They recognize John is a prophet of the Lord God.  His teaching is compelling.  He is filled with the Holy Spirit and teaching people, instructing people, calling people to repent and to return to the Lord!  Better still, Jesus affirms John’s place in God’s plan of salvation.  John IS the one about whom Isaiah wrote who would proclaim Messiah!  And among those born of women, none is greater than John.

     A new age, of course, is upon them.  Some in the audience will understand the implications of Jesus’ teachings and of His miracles.  If John is the messenger ahead of the Messiah, Whom must Jesus be?  That’s right!  The Messiah!  The Savior.  His works testify to that truth, as does the teaching and preaching of John and, even the teaching and preaching of the entirety of what we call the Old Testament!  It is a time to rejoice!  Messiah has come among us!  Generations longed to see this day, and those there that day had the confirmation they needed, just as you and I today!

     And here’s the better news: all of us who belong to the kingdom of heaven, every one of us who proclaims Christ as Lord and lives as if we believe that to be true, are greater than John!  You and I have the testimony of the Empty Tomb and Ascension!  We can point people in our own lives to Jesus, the Messiah!  And just when we think we should be bursting with great news, we are reminded of the mercy and love and understanding of our Lord!

     Though some “experts” might want to condemn John for his seeming lack of faith, Jesus is uninterested in condemning him.  True, He makes John’s disciples report and testify and leaves the decision up to John, but He understands life does not go the way we want or expect.  When you and I leave the relative safety of this sanctuary to go back out into the world, sin and darkness are waging a terrible war against us and the Light we proclaim.  We may feel little better than apes on a treadmill, ministering and ministering and ministering in our plots where God has planted us, with little or nothing to show for it.  We may be impacted by the sins of our past.  We may feel the consequences of the sins of others.  We will be given tons of reason to doubt.  And Jesus accepts the doubt, understands the doubt, and gives us precisely what we need to combat the doubt.  What have you seen?  What have you heard?

     We gather as a congregation to hear the big stories of salvation and my exposition of them, but we also gather as a community of faith to share the little stories of salvation.  As cool as my illustration was from Thursday at AT&T, many of you have your own witness to share this week.  You have your own story of God’s faithfulness in your life, of God’s redemptive power in your life, and to others of us here gathered, it’s far more important than that of a stranger.  We know your struggles.  We know your faith.  We value your input or witness far more than that of a stranger.

     And what is the result?  You and I are part of a community that is not only called to rejoice, commanded to rejoice, but should be inspired to rejoice!  We are a people who experience God’s healing, God’s provision, and God’s care!  And when we feel the weight of the world, when we feel our work is worthless or nutty or not glorious, we have brothers and sisters in Christ to remind us of those things we have seen, those things we have heard, those things we have experienced.  And, if the absolute worst from the world’s perspective, death, happens to us or our loved one who loves Christ, we have the glorious remind of the Empty Tomb and Jesus’ promise that they and we will be with Him to end of the ages.  We can stare at our own graves or the graves of another and say that Alleluia like we mean it!  Like John in his prison, we get to evaluate those experiences and lessons in our lives and in the loves of those with whom we go to church and decide again for ourselves who He is, and recommit ourselves to the work He has given us to do, perhaps re-shoulder the cross He has given us to bear, and remind ourselves of a heralds job, that we proclaim His coming with heartfelt joy and wonder!  And on His behalf, and on His dime, we invite others to that Marriage Feast.  That is our job!  That is our privilege!

     As we speed past the halfway point of our patronal season and are commanded to rejoice, we have a great opportunity to self-respect.  Are we a rejoicing people?  Am I a rejoicing person?  Put in easier language, do I live and speak as if I believe Jesus was and is Messiah, as if He lived and died for the sins of all those in the world, and as if God raised Him on that glorious third morning to demonstrate to us and the world the truth of His identity and the truth of His words?  Make no mistake, it is a self-reflection that all Christians should undertake, but rejoicing is part of our identity as liturgical Adventers.  Yes, it is a somber season.  Yes, there are other lessons to be found in the readings during each three-year cycle.  But every year, God reminds us that we are to rejoice!  We are, as much as we are called to be heralds of His grace or heralds of His mercy or heralds of His first coming or heralds of His second Coming, called to be heralds of joy!  Heralds who know themselves to have been redeemed at ultimate cost!  Heralds who can truly and loving and all those other adverbs thank God for the saving work He has done, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of all those around them!  Like the lady’s tattoo whom I referenced at the beginning of this sermon, we should be heralds whose hearts and faces and minds are exploding with song, the joyful song of the redeemed!

In His Peace,

Brian†