A sermon preached at Central United Church, Windsor on December 4, 2011

Scripture Text: Isaiah 40:1-11,  Mark 1:1-8

Mark begins his gospel with words from the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah hears a voice: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The prophet announces that God is about to do something new.  Their captivity is over.  They are going home. 

Centuries later, the people were again in captivity –but in their own land under the Roman Empire.  The faith was that God is just, one who wants to see the world as he created it.  People had faith that God is going to clean up the world.  The general expectation of people in John’s time was that God’s action would be immanent – in their life time.  It is true for many today. 

People ask, “When is God coming?  When will we be free from evil – violence – war?  When will we have peace?  What is holding God up?” 

John’s answer is, “It’s up to you.  He won’t come until you get your life right.”

Mark cast John the Baptist in the role of the prophet’s messenger as the one calling in the desert to make a path for the coming of the Lord.  John’s message was that God’s action will be soon.  So be prepared –be transformed. 

We have become accustomed to the strange appearance of John, but in John’s time, his action was more significant, even radical.  He called people to a physical act of repentance.  Those who followed him entered the water of Jordan River – like the return from exodus.  Their coming up out of the water was meant to be an experience of rebirth, both spiritual and physical. But John saw his action as just a foretaste of the even more radical message of Jesus. 

There is a difference, however, between John and Jesus.  John preached that the kingdom of God will be soon – but not yet.  For Jesus, the kingdom of God is present – already here, now.  If we see the kingdom as still to come, we are likely waiting for God to do it.  But Jesus said God is waiting for you to do it with him.  But it is not all about us, either.  God is looking to collaborate with us. 

John Dominic Crossan at the lecture last week in London quoted Desmond Tutu:

“God without you, God can’t.  Without God, you can’t.”

In the tradition of the Advent candles, the peace candle we lit today is meant to light the way to God’s kingdom of peace.  In the past few years I have been asking myself, “How can we be faithful to the Price of Peace in a world that is dominated by the violence of empires?  What can the church do?  What can we do as individual Christians to change the nations’ view of peace as victory?”

The conflict in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, has been a deep concern of mine.  People in Palestine and Israel – Jews and Palestinians, with the support of Jews around the world - are working together in non-violent ways to resist the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli government.  The United Church has been supporting these groups by sending volunteers to participate in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program.  I have been following the blogs of some of the people who have participated in that program.  Their stories of violence against Palestinian children and families by the settlers and soldiers have been heart breaking.

But Palestine is not the only area where we hear and see empires using violence to maintain power.  What is God doing to bring peace to his world?  Is God doing anything?  Are we waiting for God to come with force to bring peace?  Or is God counting on us to pave the way?

John hears the prophet’s call to prepare a road for the Lord, and calls people to repent.  Repentance is about change – a change of heart, a change of will, a change of conduct.  But repentance is not easy, nor appealing.  Why should we change?  How should we change? 

The people of Israel needed to hear Isaiah’s message.  They had been taken from their homeland to a foreign land and surrounded by an unfamiliar culture and faith.  All that was permanent in their life, all that they had known and counted on, was gone.  The people are overwhelmed with doubt.  The exile has deepened their doubt.  They felt they could no longer be sure of what might be ahead.  In the midst of a changing world, they felt abandoned by God.  In their despair, the people begin to question if God is present and concerned for them.  This is the experience of all who are surrounded by violence.

In the midst of despair, the people hear the amazingly impossible good news.  After years of exile, there will be a return home.  God will be travelling the road across the desert, leading them home.

The road through the wilderness offered a way to new life.  God was preparing them for something new.

The people are given a vision of peace in which God is a shepherd that carries the lambs close to his heart and gently leads those that have young.  It is a vision of a non-violent God who cares for the vulnerable.  This says to me that God wants to collaborate with us in the search for peace. 

The call to “comfort my people” is a word of affirmation and forgiveness from God.  The message of the prophet is that God has not given up on them. 

When it comes to finding the way to peace in our world, do we wonder if God is present?  Have we sold out to the violence of the empire?  The task of reaching a peaceful resolution in Palestine seems insurmountable.  Some would say that it is futile.  Many of us – maybe most of us at some time or other – would defend the use of violence for the sake of defending other values – freedom, for example.  When we do, we collaborate with the empires of this world. 

But if we claim to belong to God’s kingdom of non-violence, we are called to live and act differently.  The church must understand its mission is to collaborate with God in his kingdom of non-violence. 

I have tried to persuade some of my colleagues and leadership in the church that the United Church should declare itself to be a peace church.  At the least, that would mean accepting its mission to act as the conscience of the secular world of empires.  But that can only happen if we believe in the road to peace revealed in Jesus the Prince of Peace.

When members of the Christian Peacemakers Teams were taken hostage in 2005, they declared their commitment to God’s way of peace:

[Our] hope [is] that "in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation."

In a violent world, pacifism doesn’t always make sense.  Their powerful witness is that they were prepared to lose their lives on the road to peace.  Unfortunately, the Arab spring, now in Syria, has shown that empires are threatened by non-violence and react with violence – as did Rome.  But the achievements of the non-violent protests also witness to the transforming effect of non-violence.

In Durban, the UN conference on climate change is trying to find a workable solution to the environmental crisis that threatens the planet.  Will the world turn and follow a new path to environmental peace, to live God’s vision of shalom?  Will the world take that new road that lives with respect for God’s creation?

Repentance does not persuade God to change God’s mind.  It is a change in us that opens us to follow God along a new road.  Global peace will come with global repentance.

God took a great risk by announcing forgiveness in advance.  Yet that is what grace means.  True peace – whether it is peace within oneself or peace between people and nations – means accepting God’s grace. 

In Advent, we are invited to collaborate with God in building a road to peace.  With God, we can.  Believe it.