December 4, 2011

2nd Sunday of Advent: Year B

The context of the first reading and the Gospel are very similar...in Isaiah's time God's chosen people are being held in captivity and are on the brink of liberation; in John's time they are being held captive and are anticipating the Messiah. At both times Israel is looking toward God for liberation. Isaiah and John are crying out, pleading with God's people, and beckoning them to the desert, to the wasteland. When I think of desert or the wasteland I think about a barren, dry, desolate place but that's not always the case. Sometimes the desert is bursting with life, John was baptizing out in the desert. It would be a mistake to think that nothing grows in the desert. The reason for going into the desert is to get us out of the urban/suburban centers, the hustle and bustle of our lives, and our routine. It seems that there are fewer distractions in the desert. Of course, we are not literally being invited to go out to the desert; it's more like an invitation to get out of our comfort zones. Well that's a nice invite and I can understand why the people in Isaiah's time; the people in John's time went out there (they were in trouble) but why would we? It appears that God's chosen people (of whom we are part) are in constant need of liberation and therefore in need of the desert experience. What do we need to be freed from of freed for? I suppose that each one of us must answer that for themselves but let me throw out some fodder just to get the juices flowing. What if we needed to be freed from our sense of entitlement; perhaps freedom from addictions; or from our racism/classism; from our obsessions with possessions; freed from the need to look a certain way (only a few people look like those folks in the magazines); maybe we need to be freed from our anger or grief or do we need to be freed from our fears so that we are enabled to choose for God...to embrace our discipleship and not be afraid to make Christ visible in the world, in our workplaces or God forbid in our schools? I'm confident that there are other things that we, the modern day chosen, need to be freed from and I invite you to reflect on what it is that is imprisoning you or holding you back from being everything that God wants you to be. But like I said each one of us must answer this question for ourselves; the fact remains that we are all still in need of liberation from something. Consequently, we are being called out into the desert but we don't have to go if we don't want to; not everyone went out to listen to John. This is an invitation and it is entirely up to you. God will not think any more or less of you. What Isaiah is promising, what John is promising and what I am promising is that if you move toward God then the probability of encountering God is increased. Somehow by going to the barren, desolate places in our hearts enables us to have better access to God. If we have the courage and humility to remove ourselves from our busyness, from our self importance then these things that are lying dormant in the wastelands of our hearts can be cultivated. The desert experience renews us; we can be remade and the obstacles - those seemingly insurmountable barriers - become manageable. Going out to the desert isn't going to get rid of the problems; it didn't for the Israelites and it won't for us, but if we dare to go out to the desert then maybe we'll have the strength to go into the world!