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Advent Cycle C December 9, 2012
Malachi. 3:1-4
Song of Zecariah
Philippians
1:1-11 Luke 3:1-6
The words of the prophet Malachi were used for
a baritone aria in the oratorio by George Fredrick Handel, The Messiah. “But who may
abide the day of his coming. Who shall
stand when he appeareth. For he is like
a refiner’s fire.” And Handel’s Messiah
did not include the phrase, “he is like fuller’s soap.”
In broad terms one could say that the ministry of the ancient prophets
was one of education. The prophets were
teachers who tried to motivate people to live well. They believed that living well had to do with
knowing how to reach beyond what people already knew and to seek further
horizon in human experience. And beyond
the horizon was the realm where God beckoned people to continually surpass
themselves in excellent behavior. The
prophet often went to the edge of society to avoid distractions and hear the
calling from the far horizon of human experience.
How did God function in the experience of the prophet? The prophet used the metaphors common to
metallurgy and to the production of cloth.
The work of God is like the production of a pure metal; it requires heat
to burn off the impurities until the silver or gold attains their purist forms. The work of God is like “industrial strength Woolite.” Fuller’s soap was combination of ash and alkali
used on newly woven wool to soften it up to be used to make clothing.
So the process of education is like the process of making pure
metal. It is like the process of softening
harsh wool to be useable for making clothes.
There seems to be an emphasis in the prophets about the painful process
of education. The assumption for the
prophets was that the teaching process of history for God’s people both on the
personal and corporate level involved a painful process. There is a phase of nurture that is
painful. Growing up involves painful experiences. Education involves the painful unlearning of
some habits in order to take on new habits of mind and practice.
The church uses the liturgical calendar to present two distinct seasons
of learning, Advent and Lent. And the
church has often emphasized the painful side of education and learning. It is painful to give up old habits and take
on new ones.
We have in our religious tradition a tradition of educators who are like
military drill sergeants. Many of the
prophets often seemed like drill instructors.
And in the season of Advent we have the ultimate drill sergeant arrive
on the scene, the one and only John the Baptist. John arrives on the scene and immediately we
feel like he is saying to us, “Okay maggots, drop and give me 100 pushups now!” We probably do not like the boot camp style
of John the Baptist. We aren’t boot camp
people, we think. That’s for people who
are in prison or for the proverbial problem kid who is sent off to military
academy for disciplinary training. Instead
of John the Baptist, I’d rather have my Advent teacher be Mister Rogers who
would simply tell me that it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood and that I’m
special. I think that I would learn more
with Mister Rogers’ style than with boot camp sergeant, John the Baptist.
Perhaps what you and I can ponder during this season of Advent is what
further education means for each of us.
Why are drill sergeants needed in life?
They are needed to prepare us for things that we don’t just naturally
want to prepare ourselves for. Probably,
it is not natural to be prepared for the conditions of war; that’s why marines
and soldiers go to boot camp to be forced to harden themselves for the
conditions of war. And they need to be
forced to do some things that they wouldn’t just do on their own. Why does a coach want the team to practice in
a strenuous way? The coach wants the
team to be prepared for the game.
Discipline for excellent performance in extenuating circumstances requires
a departure from our normal patterns. In
some way discipline implies an out of the ordinary learning process. What do we call persons who embraces a
discipline? We call them disciples. Often we are happy to celebrate that Jesus
had twelve disciples and so he didn’t need to have any more disciples and that
term “disciple of Jesus” would be too austere and too pretentious for any of us
to aspire to.
Are we to be congratulated for our modesty today for not aspiring to be
disciples of Jesus? “Oh, I would not want
to be a disciple of Jesus, that would be much too pretentious and the 11 of the
12 did it so well. “
Advent is a season to remind us to embrace education as a metaphor for
what is happening to us in life. We can
say events in our lives are but happening to us in some random way without any
purpose or we can read all of the events of our lives to have a purpose. And even when the purpose that we assign or
discover might seem a bit individual or arbitrary, assigning or finding purpose
in the events of our lives happens because we have faith. Faith is the attitude of accepting that from
the horizon of human experience from the God-world we are loved and called to
surpass our own horizons with future excellence. We are to accept life and history as our
teacher. Being a disciple of Jesus means
that we view ourselves as being mainly in life as those who are willing to be
taught, those willing to be educated.
Life is sometimes a hard instructor and sometimes harsh and painful and
sometimes life is a seductive teacher and sometimes joyful and sometimes fun
and sometimes humorous and sometimes musical and sometimes artistic and
beautiful and sometimes awesome and breath taking.
During the season of Advent we need to remind ourselves that we are ever
the students of life. And as students we
need to also be willing to be mentors and teachers to each other. We need sometimes to be drill sergeants
ourselves. We need to be those who
intervene, particularly on behalf of children and the vulnerable. There are children in this world who are
being given inappropriate and untimely learning experiences in their lives, like
for example the children refugees in Sudan.
This world is full of situations where God’s lesson plan of love has not
been learned.
John the Baptist is the one who became a hermit; the word hermit comes
from the same Greek for wilderness. John
went to the horizon of human civilization to hear another voice and another
word. And because he went there, he
found that others became interested in what he had heard in the far fringes of
human society in the God-world. And when
John saw people’s interest in the God-world he warned them. He in effect said to them, “Don’t play with
religion. I am not the latest guru
circus bear to entertain you. If you are
curious and interested in what I have found in the God-world, then make a
serious commitment to education.”
Repentance is but a fancy religious word for education. Advent is about repentance; it is about education. Education is a more accessible word for us in
our lives and we need to embrace the broad implication of education for our
lives. How can I read the signs in the
events of my life giving me indication of some different choices that I need to
make now to achieve the next insight and the next plan of action?
Advent is also a time of education for our parish? What is God trying to teach us as a parish as
we finish this year and as we begin 2013?
What do we need to do differently?
What changes do we need to make?
How can we respond with greater faith to the educational experiences
that are upon our parish right now?
Let us not be threatened by the word education. Let us not be threatened by the vision of the
self-surpassing people that God calls us
to be. Let us not be frightened by the
possibility of a newer parish life that beckons us to commitment and
excellence. And let us not be modest
about our primary educational vocation, namely, being disciples of Christ in the school
of life. Amen.
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