Out in the Wild (12.6.20)
Out in the Wild
Mark 1:1-8
December 6, 2020
Second Sunday of Advent
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church
Last week gave us poetry, this week gives us prophecy
Last week gave us light shining in darkness, this week gives us a voice crying out in the wilderness
If it’s clarity on the meaning of life we’re after, well, I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. But if we’re paying attention and looking for clues on what the Way of this Christ-child waiting to be born is about, then there’s much to add to our observations today.
And once again, we aren’t heading into the seats of power or even the great temples of worship. We travel to the wilderness
to the bizarre man in camel’s hair eating locusts and honey
We witness the people traveling to see him, to confess their sins, to be baptized in the water by him
What was this ritual cleansing?
From what and into what are they being baptized?
What’s going on out there in the wilderness?
Why this guy? Why now? Why this story? Why all the way out there?
We know John is part of the 1st century Jewish tradition, but he isn’t practicing the way the folks in Jerusalem are practicing. He is rooted in tradition and he’s a reformer. He has one foot planted with the ancients and another planted in what is waiting to be born. He is in between and just beyond. His message grabs the words of the ancient prophet and links them forward to the not yet baby Christ is waiting to be born. With one hand in the past and one hand in the future, John ties the two together in some kind of cosmic web as he declares this One is coming soon.
Last week we were told to stay awake and keep alert. This week the message is: be prepared. Get ready.
Gracious. For what? Why? I’d just like a really long nap and a couple of weeks of Christmas movies!
John interrupts that whining with old, old words calling from the past. He speaks in poetry but it seems the embodiment of that poetry still lies before us, on its way, ready to be discovered and known by us.
John’s posture out there is an invitation. If the proverbial tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a noise? Same for John—he isn’t out there preaching alone and living as a truly wild man. There is an audience. There are pilgrims. There are note-takers.
His message invites the curious to journey and join a dreaming movement. The words he speaks may be rooted in what has been, but everything else about him is pointing to a different way of knowing and experiencing that ancient truth and holy mystery.
The journey just to FIND him is an invitation for brave travelers only. Take only what is essential as you head out into the wilderness, and that includes not just the physical stuff you carry but the spiritual, too. Whatever this faith tradition/belief system/ways of honoring God you may be holding onto—out in the wilderness, you just need the ancient teaching that is capital T Truth. Anything else is heavy, unnecessary baggage. You won’t need that heavy extra stuff out in the wilderness.
Do you hear what John is inviting us to imagine? It’s a journey. It’s an experience. It’s a reckoning. It’s a truth-telling. My word, it if isn’t something like this year we are wrapping up right now—knowing what matters most and what does not, shedding what we thought was essential and discovering much of it was just comfort. What are we left holding right now? What is holding us right now?
John’s wild call invites us to reach into the space we can’t quite see yet and follow how the light is already shining over there. This is a layered preparation. This is a poetic and prophetic invitation to leave your life behind to exist at the edge of the inside. John’s not just inviting people to be baptized and renew their belief system. He is talking about a ritual purification to wash all of that old stuff off and leave it in the river. He is talking about taking an axe to the old ways and burning them in a fire. He’s inviting people to chase after a hunch, get in on the dance, join the Divine flow, and risk dreaming something new into being, especially if that something is you.
Now if you’ve been with me for any time at all now, the words that come next aren’t new. But unless and until I find something better to capture this posture John is taking, and that I hope we are taking, I will keep turning to Fr. Richard Rohr to guide us.
He writes, “To take your position on the spiritual edge of things is to learn how to move safely in and out, back and forth, across and return. It is a prophetic position, not a rebellious or antisocial one. When you live on the edge of anything, with respect and honor (and this is crucial!), you are in a very auspicious and advantageous position. You are free from its central seductions, but also free to hear its core message in very new and creative ways. When you are at the center of something, you usually confuse the essentials with the non- essentials, and get tied down by trivia, loyalty tests, and job security. Not much truth can happen there.
To live on the edge of the inside is different than being an insider… Yes, you have learned the rules and you understand and honor the system as far as it goes, but you do not need to protect it, defend it, or promote it. It has served its initial and helpful function. You have learned the rules well enough to know how to ‘break the rules properly’ which is not really to break them at all, but to find their true purpose: ‘not to abolish the law but to complete it’ as Jesus rightly puts it (Matthew 5:17). A doorkeeper must love both the inside and the outside of his or her group, and know how to move between these two loves.”
Ooooooooh, what beauty. What are our loves? We are holding these loves gently and tenderly.
In Advent, particularly, and in our worship, generally, how are we discovering how to move between these two loves—the inside of our tradition and way and what we have known and the outside of our tradition and way and what we have known. Moving effortlessly between these two loves is our work today.
And out there in the wild, John is holding a magnificent bridge between the two loves. In being clear about who he is not, John is also very clear about who he is and what he is doing. That is to say that John has a keen sense of knowing about him because the wilderness invites him into that gracious, exploring, dreaming space before he begins to invite others. John knows who he is. He knows what matters most and what can be released. He knows what Truth anchors him to the ground like the roots beneath an oak tree and moves from that anchored, steady, open-hearted place of honoring the loves.
John knows what no longer serves and what is deeply essential. He is clear.
The fanfare and rule propping up and maintaining religiosity for its own sake cannot be who John is. The ego and the attention of charismatic leadership is not for him, either, or else he’s be back in town where he could really make a scene. No, John has purposefully, thoughtfully, and deliberately moved to the edge because that’s where the space to move between the two loves is.
Out there beyond the routine and habits and inertia, John can draw people to alignment with ancient poetry and eternal mystery. That’s the poetic, prophetic path that gives John abundant life, and it’s so much life that John is making a ritual out of what folks begin to imagine and dream on this wilderness journey. He makes space to call their dreaming holy and their awakening sacred. John is baptizing people into the ancient-future, already-not yet Way so they can go and invite others to join the Way.
By drawing people from their routines, holding space for them to wake up from their sleepwalking, gathering people together to bless them, redirect them, invite them into something fuller, John is guiding them to reimagine most everything they thought was set in stone. Then after ALL of that, he gives an opportunity to mark that whole waking up process with water. He baptized with water to mark the first step onto the dreaming path of God—this path between the loves. He testified to the light by preaching like the prophets: the way of the Lord is possible. Here and now. In the midst of what is crooked and low and bent, God can and will make a way if you will dare to dream and work with God to make it so.
Friends, in the wilderness of this year
in the isolation of this Advent
in the aching for normalcy against the absurdly abnormal
may we somehow find rest in the wild invitation to leave everything behind that is non-essential
may we hear a delightful, energizing call to live on this path between loves
may we be clear about who we are and what matters most
as we move into this meal of remembrance, renewal, and recommitment