single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 3
Jan 01
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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An honest
mistake
Reflections on the
lessons for the Third Sunday of Advent
17 December 2000
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Zephaniah 3:14-20 / Psalm 85:7-13
Philippians 4:4-7(8-9) / Luke
3:7-18
Good morning . you brood of vipers. You look pretty lazy to me. Can I see some kind of evidence that you really mean business about hooking up with God?
Is that any way for a preacher to greet a congregation? Not for me. Not here. Not now. So don't worry. I recognize that I'm no John the Baptist.
And even John admitted that he could only go so far when it came to holding up the standard of God's judgement to the community of faithful people.
There's no use alienating everyone with a fire-breathing exhortation. Jesus shows us that the preacher's job -- the prophet's job, the disciple's job -- is to open the community of God's people to anyone who'll come in. And then trust that as many people as possible will begin to see the world in God's way, begin to "repent" and prepare for the Kingdom's birth all over the world.
John knew that he could get people's attention. And he was really good at it, too. But he admits that he is only a forerunner. He points to a more authoritative prophet yet to come. One with such integrity and insight that John is unworthy so much as to untie the thong of his sandal. Sandals. In the time of Jesus people wore only sandals -- if they wore any shoes at all.
And even though our own streets today are hardly sanitary, just think about the streets Jesus and his friends walked. They were dirt streets. And they were filled with animals wandering all over -- doing what animals do in streets. And people probably threw things out into the streets that we wouldn't throw there today. The Encyclopedia of New York City (Ed: Kenneth Jackson, Yale, 1995) gives a pretty ripe picture of the streets of Manhattan from Colonial times right up to the beginning of World War I. The horse-drawn traffic and the sanitation policies (or lack thereof) left the cobblestones covered with inches of manure and garbage and mud to the point that even paved streets looked like dirt roads.
You can imagine that foot washing was important in the ancient world. When the man of the house came home -- or when guests arrived -- it was the most basic of courtesies to have someone get out the water and wash up the feet. And it was a not a pretty job -- reserved for entry-level slaves and, lacking those, the women of the house -- always candidates for doing the dirty work when no one else is available for it.
Knowing that makes today's gospel all the more interesting. John the Baptist was not a nobody. He was the great and famous prophet of his time. He was a bona fide celebrity. People came from great distances to hear his preaching and to have him baptize them in the Jordan River. It was a kind of initiation rite that said publicly "Sign me up. This guy hits the nail right on the head." John was so famous that Herod, the Roman governor of Palestine and a very important national figure, had John arrested and executed because Herod took John's criticism of the court's private life so seriously. So how could this man -- one so ferocious and authoritative about God's message -- be unworthy to do even the humblest service for the one who was coming? The one -- whoever it might be -- who would be the real spokesman for God?
Well, John didn't believe that he was himself the Messiah. People just know these things. And the Bible leaves us still to wonder just what Jesus himself thought about the whole subject. But John was convinced that whoever came along to turn the whole Jewish world around would be so holy and so righteous that the Israelites would turn back to godly ways and never stray again. Something John never thought he could do on his own. But he thought he could get the ball rolling at least.
John was probably -- no, certainly -- thinking of himself as somewhat like Moses. Being just a mortal, Moses was never allowed to see God with his eyes, but he was chosen to have a close encounter with God on Mount Sinai and to be a messenger for God bringing them the Law, the commandments. When Moses came down from the mountain, it is said, his face was glowing so much from getting even a little closer to the presence of God that he had to put a veil over his face before people could look directly at him.
The great Judeo-Christian legend says that after God made a covenant with the Hebrews at Sinai -- agreed with them on how to live a good life -- the God consented to dwell among them in a particular way. They would be the Chosen People. The tablets of the commandments and Moses' staff were put in a special chest -- the Ark of the Covenant -- and carried around on long pole wherever the wandering Jews went on their long journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. It carried with it -- in the people's hearts and minds -- the presence of God. Later, when David was King of Israel, he had the Ark moved at last into the grand Temple he had built in Jerusalem. At last, a permanent home for the Holy One.
But, as the Ark was being transported there, one of the men carrying the poles slipped and fell. Another one of the carriers, Uzzah, threw up his hands and grabbed the side of the Ark to keep it from hitting the ground.
Who knows what happened next? Instead of being rewarded for saving the precious Ark, the holiest thing in the world to the people, Uzzah was struck dead on the spot. He had come too close to the Divine. And he was just a sinner, unworthy. Unworthy to touch the vessel that contained something real about God and he paid the ultimate price.
Later, in Jerusalem, people believed that God lived among the Israelites in the Holy of Holies -- where the Ark was kept -- in the very center of the Temple. There were many levels of approach to God. Outer courtyards where anyone (that means Gentiles and women) could go. Father in, Jewish men could go. Still closer to the center, only priests could go to take in people's sacrifices. Finally, in the Holy of Holies, only the High Priest could go -- then only once a year. Dressed in his finest robes, walking backward, looking down, face covered (lest he accidentally see the glory of God and be struck down just like Uzzah) he would make the greatest sacrifice of the year on the Day of Atonement -- Yom Kippur -- daring the presence of God to beg mercy for the sins of the whole nation.
All that was behind John's statement about loosing the strap of the Messiah's sandal. John didn't know what to expect when the Messiah would come. But reason and tradition led him to assume that someone so close to God would be so holy and righteous that to touch him -- maybe even just to look at him -- might cause an ordinary sinner to drop dead on the spot.
So, in our part of the story of God, we think of Jesus as that one who was coming. The way the events get told to us by the gospel writers, as John exited the stage, Jesus entered -- to fulfill the big, big role John saw coming next. And what Jesus did would have shaken John to the core -- maybe even made him faint dead away -- had he lived to see it.
The Holy One from God sat down and ate at the table with sinners of all kinds: Prostitutes, tax collectors (notorious cheats and bullies), foreigners who weren't even aware of the Law of Moses or Jewish living. The Messiah -- as people eventually came to believe -- let lepers and a woman with a hemorrhage and people who clearly were being punished by God for some secret sin (deaf and dumb and lame and blind people) touch him. And what did they get in return? Struck dead? No, healed. Were they made to pay dearly for their sins and their mistakes? No, the sins and the mistakes were forgotten, forgiven. It was a whole new way of thinking about God. A new way of living with God.
Remember that the Bible is not a hastily filed newspaper report by a harried journalist. It is an interwoven poem developed over thousands of years by sophisticated religious philosophers. So, it really does matter that John says "I am unworthy to take off the coming Holy One's sandals" at the beginning of the story of God coming to live among us in a new way. And the story of Jesus of Nazareth draws to its close with him tying a towel around his waist and washing his friends' feet.
The revision comes full circle. An exceptional vision of how God wants to live with us is complete. It's not a rulebook in a box that's holy. It's a heart and a spirit in a human body. He takes off his disciples' sandals like a slave. He washes their feet. And they are not struck dead. They are filled with something they never felt before.
We aren't worthy to untie Jesus' sandals. And we aren't worthy to come to the altar and share the sacred meal he shared with the disciples after their feet were washed.
But nevertheless, Jesus has embraced us, and loved us, and loves us still. He asks that we love him back. And he wants us to love each other. He especially asks us to look after the poor, the sick, the dying, the prisoners, and the ones who can't seem to make it through life as well as some of us can. The ones people once thought weren't holy enough for God. It was an honest mistake -- and easily made. Who could blame John for it? But after Jesus we should know better. Always look for the good news in any sermon. And here it is in this one. We are sisters and brothers with Jesus, one big unworthy family. And in God's family there are lots and lots of people -- as holy as Jesus and as unworthy as me -- with dirty feet.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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