Rejoice! We have been set a daunting task. Praise God! Our job is difficult. Alleluia! We face a strong challenge in our life of faith, one that will demand much from us: it will exhaust our intellects; it will wear out our bodies; it will break our hearts. But we are glad about this, because what’s worse than having no purpose, feeling underemployed, lacking direction? Happily, that is not our fate. We are delightfully busy with an immensely important mission.
And even better, we know that we can rely on one another, passing the tasks back and forth, spotting each other, caring for each other. And of course we do everything with the great benefit of God’s power.
Now, there are many different kinds of tasks in our mission. Some of them are practical ones, like filling snack packs and stocking the Little Free Pantry. Some of them are more, well, literary — joining or leading faith formation events, writing for the newsletter to define and support our various ministries. Some are technical, like auditing our finances or working with vendors to renovate our mission base. And all of us are called to the mighty task of prayer: holding on our hearts all the people who call this their spiritual home, and all the people we serve. In our prayers, we join the Body of Christ world round whose prayers rise like incense before God. And so we have many tasks, from deeply contemplative prayers to lugging wagons around the neighborhood. And as you can see, I am excited about all this. I hope you can join me as I rejoice.
All of our spiritual work grows from our particular identity in the dominion of God. The prophet Isaiah tells us that when we join the tradition handed down to us, we become “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display God’s glory.” Isaiah says that we will “build up the ancient ruins, [and] raise up the former devastations; [we will] repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”
An “oak of righteousness” is strong, but strong for a purpose: oak wood forms floors, walls, and ceilings for the unhoused; oak branches provide shade for those who swelter in the sun; and the acorns of the oak of righteousness can be ground into flour for the hungry.
As oaks of righteousness, we do not “display God’s glory” simply by being beautiful. In fact our beautiful liturgy is never only beautiful, as if we could adore God simply by dancing gracefully before God’s altar. Oaks of righteousness do not just stand in the field, or along the river bank, looking lovely. God is a subject, not an object: God is a subject of creation and formation, not an object of passive adoration. God is dynamic. God is dynamism itself, and yet always more than that, too. When God tells Moses that God’s Name is “I AM,” the Holy Name defies easy translation: we know God is not just saying that God merely is, that God simply exists. We know that God’s Name also means that God abides with us and is faithful to us; that God is active, and provocative; that God is beyond our safe grasp; that God is creating, eternally.
And so we, in turn, do not simply exist. Our faith is not about mindlessly adoring God. Our faith is not about contentedly resting in God’s inert presence. Our faith is not about passively basking in God’s glory while the world burns. No. We say a firm No to that lackadaisical understanding of faith. If we were to practice our faith that way, our righteousness would merely be window dressing: we would set a modest “outreach” budget, and trust that because we’re throwing a few dollars toward charity, we can rest comfortably inside a small “church bubble,” enraptured by the insular beauty of our prayers, closed off from God’s good world.
No, we are oaks of righteousness, through and through. We do not do so-called “outreach,” because that word completely misunderstands both us and our mission. Reducing our faith to mere charitable “outreach” fails to recognize that we are all recipients of God’s lavish grace. Note well that Isaiah’s oaks of righteousness are the same people as those who were oppressed, brokenhearted, and held captive. We always, always share what we first have been given.
We do not feed the hungry; we eat with them. We do not “reach out” to those in need; we welcome them authentically into the center of our life, and we recognize that every human person has deep needs. We do not do charitable acts as afterthoughts of our main task; we understand that acts of justice are the whole point of our faith.
In short, we claim John the Witness as the sibling in Christ who teaches us how to practice the faith. John the Witness: this is an odd title for the one we usually call John the Baptist. (The Lutheran pastor and scholar Karoline Lewis gives John this new title.) It may sound odd to call him this, but if you read the fourth Gospel carefully, you’ll see that in this version, John the Witness does not baptize Jesus. And because he does not baptize Jesus, we do not then experience the thundering voice of God, as we do in the other Gospels, just after the baptism. In the other Gospels, as Jesus comes out of the water, God tells us who Jesus is. But in this version, John the Witness tells us. John the Witness “testifies to the Light.” John — not God — tells people who Jesus is. And for his part, Jesus says nothing.
But who exactly is this witness? “Who are you?” the authorities ask him. He assures them he is not the Messiah. “What then? Are you Elijah?” “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” “No.” The authorities are reaching the end of their patience. “Who are you?” they ask again. “Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John answers them by evoking Isaiah, borrowing an image from Isaiah chapter 40: John is the voice crying in the wilderness, the one who calls out to God’s people to make a straight path, to follow a royal road, to God’s realm of justice and mercy and peace. In doing this, John also evokes for his listeners the post-exile Isaiah, the one who sings in chapter 61 about all the things we do as oaks of righteousness, along that royal road: we bring good news to the oppressed, we bind up the brokenhearted, we proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, and we proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor — a jubilee of liberation for all who are crushed under the heel of the emperor.
So… no theophany in this version of the story of John the Witness. No pierced clouds and descending dove, no thunderous voice, no wondrous vision of God’s power breaking into our mundane world. No, in this version, we oaks of righteousness are the vessels of God’s wondrous presence. We bear on our own shoulders God’s devastating, liberating power. We testify to the Light.
We are the miracle.
This is part of what we mean when we say that God in Jesus “becomes flesh.” God does not just become a human person, though of course in Jesus of Nazareth God did do exactly that. But our theology of the Incarnation proclaims more: God “becomes flesh”: God is present in my human body and in yours; God is present in the elbow grease of our labor; God is present — and vibrantly powerful — in all created life. God dwells even in inanimate objects: God pulses through our SPiN wagons, and makes a tabernacle in our Little Free Pantry; God’s power runs along a surgeon’s scalpel and a poet’s pen; God even rises up powerfully from the outstretched hand of a child, reaching for their parent: God dwells in our bonds as kinfolk.
And so, again, we rejoice. In a world gone mad, a warming world, a world where the human race fails to learn even the easiest, most ancient lessons (basic lessons like, “Share” or “Try to get to Yes” or “Practice gratitude”) — even here, even now, we rejoice that God forms us into oaks of righteousness, holding and nourishing the soil, blessing the landscape with delicious shade; cleaning the air with green leaves; anchoring a garden that nourishes the desert.
Are we the Messiah? No. Are we Elijah, or the prophet? We are not. Who are we, then?
We are God’s oaks of righteousness, testifying to the Light. We are the miracle. We embody the Good News that God is on the move; that God is coming soon; that even now, in this dire hour, even now, all is not lost. We are here, manifesting the presence and power of God. And we have much to do.
Shall we get back to work?
***
Preached on the Third Sunday of Advent (Year B), December 17, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8. 19-28