12/14/03

Malachi 3:1-4
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

Two weeks ago, the first Sunday in Advent, we indulged in some dreaming, some hopeful dreaming. Last week in the snowstorm we played hooky and I told a Christmas story. Today, our Advent adventure, our pilgrimage to Bethlehem, continues, and we're encouraged to do something more concrete, to take a straight path to Christmas - or more precisely, to make a straight path. On occasion, God's way is not always direct, but may be winding or crooked. We're asked today to make that way straight, to make the rough ways more smooth. At other times, as we might admit, the way we choose to go - if we are honest with ourselves - is not always the straight and narrow way - and this way is certainly not God's way, but rather an example of a path that also needs straightening.

As I was thinking about the concept of a "straight path," I had fun indulging in a bit of word play on the various meanings of straight. There's the straight and narrow we just talked about - good or proper conduct, correct behavior, what the Bible sometimes calls "righteousness." Then there's the person who's called a straight arrow, always doing the right things, living an upright, decent life, someone who is moral and honorable. How about the expression straighten up and fly right - sort of like shape up or ship out! Straightening up implies tidying up, cleaning up a mess - like the condition my desk is in perpetually - or untwisting, unbending, unsnarling that which has gotten all wrapped up in itself, like a garden hose or extension cord. When we talk straight or are straight-shooters, we're being honest, truthful, and straightforward. The straight unadulterated truth is the pure kind - no deceit, no lying. Of course, we also talk about gays and straights, but that's another sermon for another time.

Keeping all these meanings in mind, how can we do what our text in Luke asks us to do - how can we "prepare the way of the Lord?" How can we make the Lord's paths straight? How can we prepare ourselves for the coming of God into our lives? What can we do in our lives to make God's coming a direct, straight path into our hearts? We can answer these questions by looking at them from several angles.

One way to look at this is to consider road construction. The Big Dig in Boston, so I understand, is the largest construction project in the United States - and the most expensive. This has particularly been a monumental headache for all who have had to hike up to Boston daily, and even for the rest of us who only go occasionally. I have gotten totally lost going to visit parishioners in Boston hospitals more than once. The roads may have been made straighter, but the way certainly was not simpler - not for me, not yet. The Big Dig has taken, it seems, forever to complete, but thankfully, the light at the end of the tunnel, literally and figuratively, is within sight. Roadwork, if it's done properly, requires much preparation, lots of preliminary groundwork before everything is finished and ready. It takes time and effort, and for those of us waiting in long lines of traffic, a great deal of patience.

There's a parallel here for you and me. Preparing ourselves to become better Christians is not a simple, easy job. For most people, it's something we work on for many, many years, probably all our lives. We cannot, nor should we, expect instant results. The pathway is a long one, and the journeying is at times difficult, and costly, but also very fulfilling. Patience is necessary; we can't do it all on our own, we need God's help and strength, and God's timetable is not always in sync with ours.

Another way to look at this is to consider how we would prepare for the Lord - what steps should we take? Abraham Lincoln was once asked what he would do if he were given eight hours to chop down an enormous tree. Most of us would probably grab an ax and start chopping away for all we were worth for the entire eight hours. But not old Abe. His supposed response was: "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six of the eight hours sharpening my ax." Using a dull ax requires a lot of energy and effort; a sharp ax saves strength and time. So also in life. It pays to adequately prepare - to think before we act. Advent is our ax sharpening time, a time to pray, to meditate, to prepare for the coming of the Lord. (i)

Yet another way to prepare a good straight path is to make very sure we don't get sidetracked. It's easy to get sidetracked this time of year. There are lots of distractions. John the Baptist calls us to repentance, but our culture invites us to spend beyond our means; our faith encourages us to look quietly for the mystery of the season, but society almost forces us into an endless round of busyness. It's easy, not only for children, but also for adults, to focus more on Santa's coming than on the coming birth of the Christ Child. Preparing a straight path to Christmas requires a discipline that resists the detours, but allows for alternate routes.

When Charles Kettering was president of General Motors, he would drive from his office in Detroit each weekend to his home in Dayton, Ohio. On one occasion he asked an associate to join him, commenting that the trip would take about 4 1/2 hours. The colleague gently rebuked Kettering, saying that he himself had driven that way often, and that it took considerably longer. So they made a friendly bet, and took off with Kettering at the wheel, arriving in Dayton some 4 1/2 hours later. The colleague said defensively, "No wonder you made it in this time. You didn't stay on Route 25!" The implication was that no driver in his right mind would leave the main highway marked in red on the map. But Kettering took the blue-lined roads, the back roads, a way that proved to be more direct and faster. Map-wise but life-foolish, how many of us go with the crowd at this season, expending not only extra nervous energy but also extra hours. The straight path may be the one off the beaten track. (ii)

But that alternate route often takes us through the wilderness, a place that can be one of despair and depression, of pain and turmoil, of barren hopelessness. Perhaps some of us are in such a place this Advent season. But even in the wilderness we can hear a voice crying to us, if we remain still and listen, not a voice of judgment or condemnation, but one of love and forgiveness, of comfort and consolation. The wilderness can be a place where God's calming presence can be felt, where in spite of our feelings of anguish, we can also sense glimmers of hope and peace, where the promises of God can once again be heard, where "all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

Finally, when God through the prophet Isaiah calls us to prepare the way, to make the paths straight, to fill in the potholes and valleys, to level the bumps and the mountains, to straighten the crooked and smooth out the rough edges, this is also a call to repentance. It's the same as what John the Baptist, and, of course, Jesus after him, calls us to do, to repent, to straighten up our lives. We are called to clean up the messes we have made, to untwist, unbend, unsnarl those things in our lives that have gotten entangled - including relationships, habits, behaviors, attitudes, whatever has kept us from becoming the kind of people that we know deep down God wants us to be. But repentance is more than just turning from these things, turning away from our sins, it is equally, turning toward God. (iii) In the little town of Bethlehem that has been suffering turmoil and unrest for well more than a decade - pray for peace there and throughout that region, will you, my friends? - in that town remembered in Christmas carols and stories, stands a beautiful church, claimed to be the oldest church in all of Christendom, the Church of the Nativity. Inside the church, through a narrow doorway, and down some stairs into a cave, is the spot, marked by a silver star set in marble, where tradition has it that Jesus was born. Nearby is a stone slab surrounded by a metal fence, where the manger is supposed to have been, where Jesus was laid right after his birth. Of course, after all these centuries, no one is certain that this is the exact spot, but when you're there, it doesn't really matter. As far as I was concerned when I was there, 17 or 18 years ago, it was close enough. And as our group sang "Away in a Manger," the words and music echoing off the dingy walls of that cave, darkened with the soot of candles lit there for close to two centuries, I got goosebumps, and I still do, just thinking about it again.

On the first Christmas, there was no elaborate church, no signs to show the way, no shopkeepers peddling their olive wood donkeys, just a single star overhead, but that was enough to guide the shepherds, who were watching their flocks out on a hillside on the edge of town, the star was enough to show them the way, and "they went with haste," and made a straight path to the manger. That starlit straight path is enough for us also. Come, let us take that path to Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall