December 6, 2009
2 Advent, Year C
The Very Rev. Mark B. Pendleton
Christ Church Cathedral

God’s Ultimate Reality Show

Each month the Gallop poll interviews about 1000 adults and asks them the same question:  “What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?” It is one of those recurring benchmark or baseline kinds of questions: no horse race projections between this or that candidate, but simply an open-ended question that allows people to speak for themselves about what is on their mind. How might you answer the question if asked? The results in October, to no one’s surprise, ranked the economy as the issued that topped the list. Healthcare was next, followed by unemployment and jobs, then dissatisfaction with government, the federal budget deficit, and the lack of money. Far down on the list – 4% and lower, were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the decline of morality and the family. That was October’s snapshot. 

There’s a lot that didn’t rank high on the top of people’s concerns. No mention in this survey of global warming – perhaps the issue is still too remote and controversial to keep people’s focus. But coming off a very warm November, and warm sunny days last week – when is snows in Houston before Syracuse, New York, global warming or climate change or wacky weather seems plausible. The abundance of nuclear weapons was not high on the list either – or for that matter concern of an impending terrorist attack. Very little concern about crime and urban and gun violence. Education didn’t fair much better. Or the impact of the media on young people. 

Public opinion pools are limited but helpful tools to gauge what people say they care about at a given time. Clearly these instruments did not exist in Biblical times. What the people did have to express and measure the concerns of the community -- and more importantly God’s concerns – were the prophets. Elijah, Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, Micah and the prophet we read today Malachi.  

The word Malachi means “messenger” which makes its reading a perfect companion to the Advent focus on John the Baptist, the messenger who prepares the way for Jesus’ ministry.   It is believed that Malachi was written in the period of time after the exile in Babylonia – roughly 450 years before the life of Jesus. The people had returned to populate Judah and the beloved Temple – the dwelling place of God on earth -- had been rebuilt in Jerusalem. What is clear, however, is that the homecoming and the return had some rough patches. The prophet, speaking for God, was not at all pleased with how the priests were conducting themselves or offering worship in the newly rebuilt Temple.   The verses we read today – “for he is like a refiner’s fire” that Handel set to music in Messiah give us the image of a very hot fire burning off the impurities. And fuller’s soap, a harsh soup used in the production of wool, painfully washes away anything that was unclean. 

The prophet was unhappy about the partial offerings that the people were giving.  “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse.”  (3:10). He was worried about too many Jewish men intermarrying with foreign women because then, like today, it is the women of the family who often determine if and when the children will go the church. And finally, the concerns for the most vulnerable.  If one could take away one thing – week in and week out – of the heart of the Biblical social teaching it is the concern of God for those on the margins of society. Malachi warns those who “oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust against the alien.”  (3:5). When the church and individual Christians concern ourselves with public policy issues like the minimum wage, the social safety net, and immigration and refugees, we do so on the shoulders of the Biblical and prophet witness. Our faith may be personal, but it never private. 

Part of the job of Biblical prophets was to get noticed and grab the attention of the kings and common people. Thus a messenger – one sent to disrupt, teach and remind – would prepare for God’s fuller and ultimate emergence to create a new time and a different way of living. This time -- so closely linked with Isaiah and John the Baptist in Luke’s gospel -- when valleys would be filled, mountains made low, the crooked made straight and rough ways made smooth. 

We are clearly in a quite bizarre phase in our popular culture when it seems like getting noticed is all that some people are interested in – even if it’s getting noticed for all the wrong reasons. Look at what we have witnessed in the past few weeks. Colorado parents so eager for the spotlight that they would conspire with their own children to create a hoax of reporting the youngest boy trapped as a stowaway in a homemade helium balloon. Now “balloon boy” ranks as one of biggest stories of 2009.  And then the party crashers – the Virginia couple – also in search for their own reality TV show, who made it past the Secret Service to be arrive uninvited to the White House state dinner. Performers would rather shock than to perform on award shows – guaranteeing them the object of website site searches and Twitter tweets for 24 hours at least.   

Now I would be the first to say that there is no reason to be serious 100% of the time and we all need our healthy outlets to remain grounded in today’s world, but when does a diversion become a distraction from what matters.

So how do you and I allow God to get our attention during this busy time of year, through the clutter of the many comforts of our lives? By simply keeping our eyes and ears fully opened to what is going on around us. Part of the reason I feel called to urban ministry and why I think the Cathedral is a good place to make one’s spiritual home is for the daily opportunity to engage in what I call the real real world. We are not a homogeneous suburban church with a giant parking lot and playground out the back: that is the church I grew up in Ohio. The barriers of that pervade and define our society are harder to maintain in the city. You can meet people who were just let out of prison without much more than the clothes on their back. To come to know those who always appear down on their luck after a life of poor decisions and few people of influence who cared about them as they were making them. 

Let God and God’s messengers get our attention. That’s the message of Advent. Using us to make an already tough world a bit more just -- remember those filled-in valleys and lower mountains of Isaiah. How do we make the lows bearable the obstacles for dignity and survival more possible for more of God’s people? Some in the public sphere might call that protecting our social safely net, increased opportunities and open doors. Making the crooked more straight involves holding the mirror up to ourselves and our own leaders. Yes there is clearly corruption in Afghanistan: but how about City Hall, or union halls, corporate board rooms or insular church hierarchies? God’s concerns should be ours. Our joys are certainly God’s.  For God’s reality is not a TV show: it is found in the world all around us.