December 7, 2008 | 8:00 a.m.

Saying Grace

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 85:8–13
Isaiah 40:1–11
Luke 3:7–18

Our struggles and pain and frustrations are part of the process which levels hills and fills valleys for others to step more surely toward God’s love and toward life abundant. What a strange thought, to be “landfill” for Jesus. A concept unpalpable to all but those who have the courage to risk hope through obedience.

Hilary McDowell
On the Way to Bethlehem

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, a few blocks from here, there is an aluminum and Plexiglass signboard that is typically in front of churches to announce the sermon title for Sunday. It is by the elevator on the second floor. I saw it and thought the museum was also the meeting site for a congregation. On the top, the sign said, “Evenings at 7 in the Parish Hall.” It listed these activities:

Monday                 Alcoholics Anonymous
Tuesday                 Abused Spouses
Wednesday            Eating Disorders
Thursday               Say No to Drugs
Friday                    Teen Suicide Watch
Saturday                Soup Kitchen

“Wow, this congregation is really active in community issues!” I thought. Then I read the bottom of the sign: “Sunday Sermon 9 a.m. ‘America’s Joyful Future.’” (Erika Rothenberg’s artwork “America’s Joyful Future”). It took me a moment to realize this was a piece of art, full of irony—like a preacher wearing a happy-face shirt when surrounded by people whose faces try not to show how much pain they are in.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes that religious practitioners often “become the good-humor men and women, for who among us does not want to rush in and smooth things out, to reassure, to cover the grief?” This happens among political leaders and some news commentators as well—late in naming a recession, announcing success in Iraq, boasting about laying a foundation of trust between Israelis and Palestinians, claiming peace where there is no peace.

Brueggemann says, “In a hospital room we want to be cheery, and in a broken marriage we want to imagine it will be all right. We bring the lewd promise of immortality everywhere, which is not a promise but only a denial of what history brings and what we are indeed experiencing.” Such false cheeriness denies the reality of suffering and death around us and makes us numb.

“Psychic numbing” is how Robert J. Lifton describes the widespread denial of the horrendous threat in nuclear weapons and their proliferation. He has done a study on Hiroshima survivors and written extensively about the perils of nuclear arms. Joanna Macy is another leader who has been activating people around threats to our world. She says a great toll has been taken on younger generations quite aware of the threat of nuclear war and environmental disasters. Twenty-five years ago she wrote, “The rising incidence of drug addiction, crime, and suicide among teenagers and even children is sad evidence of the erosion of meaning. More pervasive still is a sense of alienation, both from family and from the future. This manifests not only in anti-social and self-destructive behaviors . . . but in the loss of the capacity to make meaningful choices and commitments.”

The church is called to help the world face the truth—to look suffering, death, and evil in the face and name it for what it is. Through worship, people of faith give public expression to our anguish, our grief, our sin, and fears before God. Through sermons, classes, and advocacy work, the church seeks to awaken people to the need for change. Through scripture study, prayers, and ministry, the church calls people to live into hope—not sugarcoated optimism but hope in God and what God is doing as proclaimed by the prophets. Brueggemann says, “The task of prophetic imagination is to cut through the numbness. . . . The prophet engages in a futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation.” Brueggemann goes on: “Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. . . . It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures” (The Prophetic Imagination, p. 45).

John the Baptist fulfills this prophetic tradition. Picture this: John is out in the wilderness, surrounded by folks gathered to hear what he has to say. He is dramatic! Living on a diet of bugs sweetened with honey, wearing a camel-hair cloak and thin sandals, his voice urgently trumpets, “Repent!” He adamantly makes the point that just being the children of Abraham doesn’t mean anything. Don’t live with a false sense of security, he says. Don’t be complacent. You’ve got to turn your life around 180 degrees! Live a life worthy of repentance. The question is, how are you living now? If you don’t bear good fruit, what use are you to God? No use. The ax is lying at the root of the tree. Of what worth is a tree that does not bear good fruit? It’s going to get cut down and thrown into the fire!

He has our attention—waking people up, shaking us out of our complacency! It is strange that after all his ranting and raving, this account ends, “So with many exhortations he proclaimed good news to the people.” Good news? That sounds like the Iowa State University college basketball player Tracy Gahan, who remarked about Coach Bill Fennelly bellowing at her to be more aggressive: “It was hard, but it also made me mature a little faster. I had never been yelled at by a coach. He was doing it to make me a better player” (Des Moines Register, 14 December 2000).

John the Baptist is bellowing at us to make us better players, more faithful disciples. He calls this good news. So what’s good about it? One good thing is that we don’t have to simply shrug our shoulders, sigh, and shake our heads at the headlines as if they describe the way the world will always be. The prophet is announcing a new era is about to begin. God is about to do a new thing. God intends to fulfill God’s purposes for a new creation on earth.

Another reason this is good news is that when John the Baptist was asked, “What can we do?” he had something concrete to recommend. There is something we can do. Being able to do something to make a difference has an amazing way of energizing people and lifting hope.

This became evident to psychologist John Holt, who studied children undergoing the psychic stresses of the civil rights movement in the South, particularly amidst all the fear and occasional violence that happened with school desegregation. He found a higher level of emotional health among those whose families were actively engaged in the struggle, in spite of the dangers to which it exposed them. Similarly, years later, a teacher told of a second grade class in which all but one of the children said they expected a nuclear war to occur. When the remaining child was asked why he was so confident of the future, he answered, “Because my mother and father go to meetings to stop nuclear war” (Joanna Macy, Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age, 1983, pp. 51, 54).

When you are around people who are hopeful about a world that’s better than the one we know, their passion is contagious. It feels like God comes closer. Think of the high-pitched hopefulness, even tears of joy, that were evident in Grant Park while our president-elect made his acceptance speech. In this recent election, we saw citizens turn out in record numbers to vote—especially young adults, energized by Barack Obama because he envisioned and articulated a different reality for our country and world. The number of resumes sent to his transition team so far number 310,000 compared to a total of 44,000 in 2001 and 125,000 in 1993 for previous presidents-elect (Chicago Tribune, 3 December 2008). People want to join the effort to bring about change for a better future, even in these challenging times of war and economic upheaval.

God created us in such a way that we find meaning by using our energy and our abilities to work for justice and express love for others. We see this in the guests who come to our Elam Davies Social Service Center seeking emergency assistance with food or clothing. They often say, “I don’t have money, but is there some other way I can help out?” I hope Fourth Church will increasingly find ways to honor their desire to give back somehow.

The good news is that we can actually do something to make way for the coming of Christ. John the Baptist preached that bearing good fruit is doable. It is within reach. As David McMillan said in an Advent sermon,

He preached: “Soldiers, rob no one by violence.”
We thought he would say to put down their arms and walk away from war.
He taught: “Tax collectors collect no more than is appointed you.”
We thought he would tell them to get out of the filthy business
of collecting for the Romans.
He urged: “Those of you who have food, let them share with those who have none.”
Is that all? We have always known that was the right thing to do.
“If you have two coats, share with anyone who has none.”
Is that all there is to bearing good fruit,
nothing more glamorous than sharing my extra coat or food?
(“Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent,” 15 December 1985)

Hey, this is good news: we can do these things. And when we do even these basic things, it makes a difference. It makes way for Jesus Christ, who is far mightier than we, whose Spirit can do far more than we can imagine. Christ is coming as our Savior. He transforms the world to be a place where no one goes unnoticed, no one goes hungry or cold, no one abuses the power of weapons, and no one swindles anyone else to get more money. Rough paths will be made smooth, obstacles overcome, crooked places straightened. Jesus Christ is coming, igniting us with his fire and Spirit. Make way for him. Live into your highest hopes and deepest compassion. Pave his way by bearing good fruit, doing what you can to love your neighbor.