Turning Around

“Jesus, of course, wasn’t interested in our re-paving the streets, but in re-paving hearts and minds.”

Turning Around

A Sermon by Jeffrey K. Krehbiel

Second Sunday in Advent

December 7, 2008

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isa. 40:6-8)

Church of the Pilgrims

2201 P Street NW

Washington, DC 20037

(202) 387-6612

www.ChurchOfThePilgrims.org

W hen I think about all the issues that are plaguing our nation right now, from the financial crisis to the war against terrorism, I wonder if maybe what we need is to enter into some sort of collective 12-Step program. Let’s walk through the twelve steps together, shall we? The American Psychological Association summarizes them in this way:

• admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion;

• recognizing a greater power that can give strength;

• examining past errors with the help of a sponsor;

[We might name that sponsor a spiritual guide, or even a community of faith.]

• making amends for these errors;

• learning to live a new life with a new code of behavior;

• helping others that suffer from the same addictions or compulsions.

It seems to me if we are ever going to emerge from our current financial implosion it will only be by a fierce moral reckoning of the steps we have taken that got us in to this mess, the real people who have been hurt in the process, and the changes in behavior that will be required if we are ever going to regain a healthy equilibrium. The first step is to admit that we are powerless over our addictions. There is a lot of righteous anger about the greed on Wall Street, but it is hardly confined to those in the financial services industry. The same culture that produced CEO’s with 100 million dollar bonuses also spawned “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “The Apprentice” on television, the legalization of slots in just about every state of the union, along with ubiquitous state-sponsored Instant Lotteries.

We’re addicted to greed. We’re addicted to get-rich-quick schemes, whether it is selling drugs on the streets or mortgage-backed securities to the insurance industry. We’re addicted to endlessly rising home values. We’re addicted to energy. We’re addicted to consumption beyond our means. We’re addicted to violence. And, worst of all, as we’ve now discovered, we’re addicted to debt.

I t is striking that both John the Baptist and Jesus begin their ministries with the word “repent.” To repent does not mean to be remorseful, it means to turn around and go in the different direction. John said that repentance was necessary in order for the messiah to come, and Jesus announced that repentance was now required because the kingdom of God had drawn near. And while the mood of the passage from Isaiah is one of comfort, the passage includes a recognition that the Israelites were not going to get themselves out of their current mess by their own efforts. “All people are grass,” Isaiah says. “The grass withers, the flower fades... but the word of the Lord will stand forever.”

Isaiah was writing to the Israelites during exile. The prophet had earlier told them that they had been carted off into captivity in Babylon because they had ignored God’s commandments. Now Isaiah offers words of comfort, but not without reminding them that they will return to Jerusalem only by God’s efforts and not their own. God will lead the flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs in God’s arms, and gently leading the mother sheep. Thinking of God as a shepherd is a comforting image, but being compared to sheep requires some humility. Sheep don’t do much for themselves.

That’s the paradox at the heart of AA. In order to make a change in our lives, we must first admit we are powerless to make a change. The freedom to act is preceded with an act of surrender to a higher power. You can’t turn around until you admit that you are going in the wrong direction. The exiles couldn’t go home until they came to terms with their own betrayal. The healing of our nation won’t begin until there is contrition for our past mistakes.

W hich is not to say that the exiles are to sit on their hands. The imagery from Isaiah that the gospel writers all capture to speak of John the Baptist describes a sort of first-century construction crew. They are to prepare the way in the wilderness. Make a highway in the desert. Smooth out the uneven ground. Make a way through the mountains. God is coming back to Jerusalem, but they are tasked with building the road that God will ride in on.

It sort of reminds me of all the frenzied preparations for the Pope’s visit last year. There is a stretch of Rock Creek Parkway that I drive nearly every day that had a series of enormous potholes. They had been there virtually the entire time I have lived here. In the week before the Pope’s visit, the entire section was re-paved. It took less than a day.

Which makes me wonder, how would our lives change if we had to prepare for Jesus’ coming? That’s the question that is at the heart of the season of Advent. I used to have a coffee mug someone gave me that said, “Jesus is coming, and boy, is he pissed!” but I don’t really think that captures the heart of the season. How do we live our lives with a lively expectancy of Jesus’ advent? To return to an image I coined a few weeks ago, borrowed from the Obama transition, the church is called to be Jesus’ “permanent transition team,” preparing the way for the coming kingdom by smoothing the uneven ground, making a way in the wilderness, a highway in the desert, a pathway through the mountains. Jesus, of course, wasn’t interested in our re-paving the streets, but in re-paving hearts and minds.

Y esterday afternoon a few of us attended the dedication of the Habitat for Humanity house that we helped build over the past two years. Our part in it, of course, was rather small, four days of work out of hundreds that it took to put the house together, a couple of thousands dollars out of the $150,000 or so it cost to build. Many of the other partners were there yesterday too, including other Presbyterian churches and of course the new homeowners themselves, the Powell family, who contributed to the house through their own sweat-equity.

I thought to myself, the presence of Habitat for Humanity is a sign and symbol of the very core of what went wrong in the housing crisis. Instead of homes being about households and families and the well-being of society, mortgages were bought and sold and traded like a commodity without regard for the lives of those who owned them, certainly not the most vulnerable among us. Regulations that governed the financial industry were abandoned not to enhance the lives of the poor and the vulnerable, but to enable the uber-rich to become even richer. The collapse of the financial industry was preceded by the collapse of our values. And please, let’s not blame that on Wall Street. All of us who have investments went along with the scheme because we got a few bucks out of the process, including the church who watched our own modest investments grow all through the nineties and into this decade, not just Church of the Pilgrims, but the larger church as well, with nearly a peep out of anyone the entire time this was going on.

But Habitat is not just a sign and symbol of what went wrong with the housing crisis, it is also a sign and symbol of what it means to live into the season of Advent. I can think of no better example of what it means to shine a light in the darkness. I can think of no better activity to be involved when Jesus comes and catches us unawares. In the very next chapter in Isaiah, the prophet places such activity at the heart of the vision of the what life of earth will be like when the kingdom comes, when he writes:

[Thus says the Lord] “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

Until that day comes, may the work of our hands be the work of the Lord. ✞