SERMONS

Luke 3:1-6
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ

December 6, 2009

How does God find you?
How does God find us?
It’s been one month since I returned from my sabbatical.

Colleagues warned me it would be hard. “You’ll hate going back; you’ll sink into your old bad habits” they said.

But strangely enough, I haven’t — not yet — and I know on this our ninth anniversary at Bethany, it is because of YOU.

You are not about building empire.

Not about looking to form a hierarchy of who is in and who is out.

You know the ways of Caesar are sexy and tempting, but you have come to worship God and God alone.

And you are not unfamiliar with being in the wilderness, where we do not have all the answers.

— Where our faith journey often leads us to ask more questions.

Where we can come across parch and very dry places in our lives and on the faith journey on the long way to possibilities that flow out like streams of milk and honey.

For, you and I at Bethany Church are learning how to be a wilderness people.

We are coming to learn this about ourselves as a community.

And as we learn this from our ancestors of faith before us, we remember that it is the wilderness people with whom God makes a covenant.

Nowhere do we read in Scriptures of God making a covenant with empire.

And yet, at times, it would seem in this beautiful United States of America that empire is the popular route to travel.

For when we travel the road to empire, we need only think of ourselves.

When we travel the road to empire, we are convinced that we must care about how to get ahead or at least ahead of the one who seems to be in our way.

Everyone is and becomes a suspect or a potential threat that can be isolated, ignored, made invisible or perhaps, bombed.

In empire, we teach our children that they are better than others, so we can keep our children separated by race and class.

We show them what money and greed can buy despite the cost — forgetting to mention the cheap labor at the expense of our brothers and sisters in places around the world and the depletion of the earth’s resources.

Through empire, when we do not get our way, we can blame, we can pout — we can easily find a scapegoat.

We can tell, if not label people — who is wicked and who is good, for in empire it is always clear as to who is who and who is better at manipulating the rules, so someone is always left out.

But how does God find us?
Paradoxically, as we look at Scripture, it is nowhere near empire.

Amidst an empire, an emperor, a governor and many rulers of power — God finds a people who can hear God’s word — in the wilderness.

A wilderness people.

A wilderness people who have to relearn, strangely enough, how to LIVE.

How to LIVE so God could know us, love us, find us.

Now the wilderness people do not get there by accident.

They had to see and taste and experience the ways of empire and only after being a part of empire, could they imagine, with the help of God, something completely different.

Even when they chose to follow God and not the ways of empire, when it got difficult in community, some wanted leave or others wanted to return to empire. It was easier than facing ones hopes and fears in faithful community.

Now the wilderness people have to learn that if they believed God would provide daily bread — they need not hoard, but rather share with one another, and only in the great giving and the great sharing would there be enough.

They have to learn that as a wilderness people — when the manna, which in Hebrew translates to “What is it?” or bread from heaven is given by God – we need only to take our share so each and all of this world can partake in the manna of God.

As a wilderness people, there will be some things we, as a community, will need to unlearn from empire in order to move and grow together as a people. This is true for each individual in the community.

Every day the people had a choice. Choose blessings or curse. Choose life or death.

Every week the people had to learn to trust God – and that even if their leader, Moses did not get them to the Promised Land — the next generations of Joshuas would.

How does God find us?

Perhaps, when we can live and be a wilderness people.

But as most human beings, there will be times we might forget —which is why it is very hard to find God by oneself outside of community.

For in community, when we begin to forget what it means to be a wilderness people and fall back on ways that are not healthy for ourselves or our community — someone in the community must remember and remind us how God finds us.

Someone will need to raise their voice and cry out as a wilderness people.

Notice that in Scripture, it is John the Baptist, who hears God’s word and remembers what it is to be a wilderness people.

As the Exodus people before him, John the Baptist hears God’s word in the wilderness.
God finds John as God finds us in the creation.

And are things of creation to be the same ole same ole as it was working under Pharaoh’s system of oppression and injustice?

Not at all, if God has God’s Word.

Why in the words of the prophet Isaiah, every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The crooked will be made straight and the rough ways made smooth and ALL PEOPLE shall see God.

I don’t know about you — but when John the Baptist raises his voice as a wilderness people — he is not leading them back to empire, but through repentance and forgiveness.

Look at what happened to his own father, Zechariah, a priest, who did not believe God could do a new thing let alone turn him around –– bringing new birth even at his advanced age. God did not let him speak for the nine months until after the new birth had occurred and Zechariah was again willing to participate in it.

For the sake of the community, God did not let Zechariah get in Zechariah’s own way.

Zechariah’s son, John the Baptist in turn shows the people how to find God by turning around — how to turn around —another word for repent and forgive.
Turn around —

So God can change us.

Change us from people of the empire to God’s wilderness people.

Which means as people of faith, things may not get easier, but rather more complex as our lives are turned around, upside down and inside out.

And yet, it may just be worth it.

But is this possible?

Can the mountains and hills of empire be made low and the valleys of the wilderness people be filled by God?

While camping in the wilderness near Crater Lake for nearly two weeks, which was not my idea during the sabbatical, we learned that the tall, steep mountains had in fact collapsed. That’s right. They imploded upon themselves.

As high and as mighty as they were — they, along with the hills near them fell and were made low — leaving only a large hole.

For years and years, there would only be a large gaping hole for all to see and experience.

No longer were they the towering structures over and above everything around them, and no peaks came to rise up in their place.

But a hole.

A large, gaping hole. Empty. Completely empty.

Until … in God’s own time God sent snow and rain, as God had sent the manna, down from the heavens.

And since, only God’s snow and rain could be found. The hole eventually filled with God’s hands.

And when it was filled by God, it was and is the most magnificent blue lake to behold.

People come from all over to experience the wilderness, and some to let God find them, whether they know it or not.

But even then, there will always be some who forget.

For as the ranger shared with us, when they asked people what trail or what road the people shared most — it was the one leading to the gift shop.

On this ninth anniversary of Bethany Church and as we begin year ten together — how will God find us?

From scripture, we hear that it is as a wilderness people —which means, we still have much to learn when God finds us as life is turned around, upside down and inside out.

And that is good news — good news that our voices together in community can cry out!