“What Then Shall We Do?”
by Bruce J. Johnson
(Scripture: Luke 3: 7-18)
I came home one day last month and Lois was watching Oprah while correcting math homework. As soon as I was in the door, she was calling me to watch the interview in progress. Oprah was talking with a young woman named Jacqui, who was burned alive when the car she was riding in was hit by a drunk driver. Prior to the accident she was a really beautiful woman. Since the accident, she has had more than 40 operations and basically, has no face--- it melted away in the raging flames. A paramedic at the scene who heard her screams said he prayed for God to take her so her suffering could be over.
In
spite of being burned on more than 60 percent of her body, however, Jacqui
survived--- as she says, one breath at a time- through the excruciating pain
but by the grace of God. She told Oprah that day that she only allows herself
five minutes a day to cry. She said that she had to keep getting up and moving
forward. When she was asked if there were times she wished she had died in that
fire, she said:
“No, I was
being given the gift of life and I have too much left to do.”
Oprah has since, in her magazine, said of that moment that she realized that before her was a “woman with the face of a tortured soul and the heart of an angel.” And she also said of that moment:
“I knew in that moment that I was looking at--- a living, breathing definition of inner beauty, inner strength and love of self. And if she feels she has a lot more to do, then I, with every advantage of life, the primary ones being my health and the ability to take care of myself (for some reason she left out all her money!)…. had better get busy.”
(“O” Magazine, January 2004, p 174)
Moments
like that one are very humbling, causing us to reflect on who we are and how
we’re living our lives, maybe challenging us to get busy doing this thing we
call life --right.
I
guess that I much prefer that kind of experience as a motivation for reflecting
on life than the one retold in today’s Advent lesson from Luke. This morning we
return to the figure of John the Baptist, whose foreboding voice is harsh and
judgmental but obviously effective, at least for then. (I’m not so sure whether
his words would be that effective today. I got a chuckle out of an op-ed piece
a recent Chronicle. It was written for the Los Angeles Times. The title was
“Heavy traffic at the pearly gates?” It reports that better than 2/3 of all
Americans believe that they are going to heaven. Only .5% believes that they
have a place reserved in hell.)
Obviously,
there were more in John’s time that weren’t so sure! His mention of the axe
already being laid to the root of tree got their attention and then his mention
of the Messiah’s winnowing fork and fire, fired them up!--- so much so that the
gospel is clear when reporting that it was the “multitudes” --- not just one or two but the multitudes---
who asked:
WHAT THEN
SHALL WE DO?
In
other words, with pleading voices they cried out: “Tell us what to do and we’ll
do whatever it takes to avoid the heat!”
Fear
can be a great motivator, and if it got people to share their jackets and their
food, made them honest and not abusive of power, it’s a good thing.
Yet,
I would like to think that it is not fear but love;
not fear but gratitude ---that really motivates us
to make the necessary changes in us and how we live our lives;
not fear of
condemnation but a joy over our salvation-
that
motivates us to get busy doing what we have to do to be better people, more
loving, more forgiving, more generous.
Aren’t
we all fundamentally clear and convicted on what this season is all about? It
is the season that proclaims that the Word shall become flesh—that the Word in
Love and the Flesh is that of a baby born in
I’m
one of those persons who love most of the Christmas specials, most of which
have to with heart warming stories of personal transformation. I saw one the
other night, a story of some young and handsome high powered and high paid
executive who gets snowed in at the farm of a widowed mom and two children—to
whom he was delivering eviction papers. What happens? He falls in love and
looks at his life and his values and comes to a better understanding of the
scars of his pasts and embraces a new future. He does so as a better person—so
much less shallow and self- absorbed, so much more capable of loving someone
and reaching out to others who need help.
The
fact is that there is an ethical dimension to the Advent and Christmas season,
a time during which we hold fast to our faith and our hope that the world will
become a better place and learn how to offer its best—not its worst.
Leslie
and Bill Kennard sent us this lovely Christmas card yesterday--- with the
picture of a dove in flight heading toward planet earth with a red ribbon held
in its beak, shaped in the form of a heart. The inscription read as follows:
“Our wish for the world…
A
place where Christ can find a home,
hearts
that love each other,
Lives
embraced by heaven’s joy,
helping
each other.
An
end to terror, war and want,
forgiveness
of the past,
Children
safe from every harm…
and
peace on earth at last.
Jim
Willis, the well known and oft referred to commentator on ‘ethics and public
life’ said the following:
“The world will not change until we
do.”
Some
time ago, I mentioned a wonderful little book called The Four Agreements by
Don Miguel Ruiz. The final agreement is: “Always do your best.” Ruiz says that
your best may vary from day to day depending on how you feel. No matter. Give
your best in every circumstance so that you will have no reason to judge
yourself and create guilt or shame. That means that healthy living is all about
doing your best in intention and action, in giving and forgiving, in
graciousness and goodness, in effort, in struggle, suffering and strife, in
success and in failure.
Helen
Keller once said:
“When we do the best we can, we never know what
miracle is wrought in our life and the life of another.”
We talk of this time of year as being magical and miraculous and that’s exactly what it becomes when we do our best to change in response to God’s gift of love in Christ.
Pause:
I
have image in my mind when thinking about today’s passage. Although John
recognizes only the tax collector and some soldiers, I always imagine that there
were others. There were others among the multitude that day firing the same
question at this guy dressed in camel hair:
And
how about us? What shall we do?
It
is a scene that has never stopped reoccurring.
A
group of priests, pastors and rabbis came forward asking, “And what shall we
do? And the answer came back: “Get rid of the pretenses of office and stop
abusing your power, remember that your calling is “not to be served but to
serve.”
And
the politicians came forward, one of whom might have been a Governor and he
said: “What’s with the gifts and lies.” Honesty, integrity and honor, these are
essential. Watch out for the poor and it’s all about the common good above your
own.
And
TV Executives and advertising sponsors came forward and they heard: “Stop
filling the minds and hearts of the viewing public with trash; and right behind
them, the entertainers themselves, celebrities all--- “clean up your act! And
the public right behind them--- “don’t watch!”
And
then there were the stars of sports, the new religion of our culture and he
said to them: “Get rid the greed! Accept responsibility for your actions. You
are heroes to a younger generation and a whole culture worships you. Don’t ask
why or say that you didn’t ask for it--- simply be worthy of it!
And
husbands and wives came forward asking “How about us?” and they were told to
love and cherish each other—for love is from God.
And
parents and kids alike were told to honor and respect one another.
Some
school kids then came forward and they too asked: What shall do? And John said
to the bully among them--- “cool it” and be right with your schoolmates and
those of you who see it happening, stand up for one another.
We
could probably go on and on couldn’t we?
You
see, it is all about what we can do—hopefully our level best- to be better
people, more honest and honorable, more loving, more forgiving, more
compassionate and generous.
Let
me close with a wonderful poem by the great African American poet and
theologian, Howard Thurman. It is titled:
where doubts would
linger and suspicions brood.
I make an act of joy toward
all sad hearts,
where laughter pales and
tears abound.
I make an act of strength toward feeble things,
where
life grows dim and death draws near.
I make an act of trust toward all of life,
where
fears preside and distrusts keep watch.
I make an act of love toward friend and foe,
where
trust is weak and hate burns bright.
I make a deed to God of all my days---
and look out on life with quiet
eyes.
Amen