Well, John the Baptist sure knows how to get your attention, doesn’t he? I can only imagine the frustration he must have been feeling to blurt out, “You brood of vipers!”
After he gets their attention, they ask him, “What should we do?” And, he tells them exactly what he’s been telling them all along: Repent. Stop what you’re doing. Do something different. Take a different direction. Make a new path. Change your ways.
Except now, he tells them in very specific terms. Got two coats? Share. Got food? Ditto.
Tax collectors? Stop being corrupt. Be fair.
Soldiers (Police)? Ditto. Do not abuse the power you have. Take only what you earn.
Essentially, he is saying to them – and to us, all these many centuries later – You are responsible for paving the pathway for salvation. You contain the seeds of joy and hope. Be the joy you desire. Be the hope you seek. And, share.
I was a newly ordained priest when I learned this very important lesson. I was assistant to the rector of Memorial Episcopal Church on Bolton Hill in Baltimore, Maryland. The church had built a large, first of its kind in that city, state of the art apartment complex for the elderly called Memorial Apartments. Part of my portfolio was to preside at Wednesday noon Eucharist in the Chapel there.
After mass one Wednesday, I was asked to see a resident who refused to come to chapel. She was the recent widow of a well-known and loved Baptist preacher and was having a very difficult time adjusting to her new residence. That was partly because she was not Episcopalian and partly because she was one of the few African American residents.
Would I please go and visit with her?
I found her to be a very formal lady, holding herself with great dignity, the kind which demanded immediate respect. I wondered what indignities she had had to suffer until she learned that for some people, respect is earned but for others, it must be demanded. For some, as a mechanism of self-defense, respect must come as an expectation.
The sadness in her eyes, however, was enough to break your heart.
Our first few meetings together were awkward and uncomfortable, but slowly, slowly, slowly, she warmed up to me, even favoring me with a little half smile every now and again.
At the end of our visit, I would ask her if she wanted me to pray. She would nod her head affirmatively and I would open my Book of Common Prayer and launch into the collect of the week, or, perhaps a prayer from the back of the book that suit the occasion – such as “in time of trouble” or “for the earth” or even “for public life”.
After awhile, when I would ask her about prayer, she would sniff and ask, “You mean, those words from your prayer book? The words are pretty but do you call that prayer?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I would say, “Don’t you?”
“Well, when my husband prayed, he prayed from his heart. Those are the best prayers.”
I was young. I was newly ordained. I wanted to do my best. So, I started looking for books on “extemporaneous prayer”. I was not only young but I was also foolish so I went looking specifically for “how to” books on “extemporaneous prayer”.
Had I thought about it for 10 seconds I would have seen that studying technique on extemporaneous prayer is a bit of an oxymoron. In the end, it’s simply a matter of the heart – a prepared heart, to be sure – but something that flows from the heart rather than scripted from memory.
The next week when I saw her, I was a bit anxious. I wanted so to please her, to bring even a faint smile to those very sad eyes. When our visit was coming to an end, I asked my usual permission to pray and she gave me her expected sarcasm about my prayer book.
This time, I held onto my closed BCP – a little too tightly, as I recall – closed my eyes just as tightly and launched into my first experience of extemporaneous prayer.
I have no idea what I said. None. I had probably said too much. I worried I hadn’t said enough. When I opened my eyes, I looked at her face and immediately realized that my worst nightmare come true.
She was crying. “Oh, no, no, no!” I said.” I’m so sorry. Did I say something to offend? Something that upset you?”
And then, she smiled the warmest, most gentle and loving smile I could ever have imagined her capable of giving.
“Why no, child,” she said. “You were just fine. That was beautiful. It’s just that, when you started to pray, well, it was then that I realized just how lonely I really am.”
I sucked in my breath as I took in her words. And then, I heard myself say, “Well then, why don’t we talk a bit about that loneliness.”
And, over the next two hours, we talked and laughed and cried as she told me some of the stories of her life.
It was the first of many times we would talk and laugh and cry and she would tell me stories of joy in the midst of great sadness; of peace in the midst of tremendous turmoil; of the light of hope in the presence of foreboding darkness; of love in the face of horrendous, evil hate.
I realized that, when I opened my heart to her, she could open her heart to me; that, when I took a risk to trust myself with her, she could take a risk and trust her stories – her sadness, her loneliness – with me.
I learned the secret buried deep in the message of John the Baptist: Jesus came to save us – yes, ready or not, deserving or undeserving – but our lives are part of the ongoing revelation of salvation history.
Indeed, our lives are part of the path that prepares the Way of Salvation. The simple acts of love – the hope in our stories – pave the way for the hope of Incarnate Love to come again and again and again into our lives and so, in turn, into the lives of others.
Are you unhappy with the direction of your life? Repent. Turn around. Go in another direction. Got two coats? Share one. Don’t give into the temptation of corruption and sin. Be fair. Take only what you need. Don’t abuse whatever power you have.
Take a risk. Open your heart. Be the love, be the joy, be the peace, be the hope you seek.
This is the message to us from John the Baptist. If we listen to him we will hear him proclaim the Good News of the coming of Jesus: Be the hope you seek. And, share.
Amen.
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