John 1:6-8, 19-28
Advent 3 - Year B
I am not G*D. I am not G*D's messenger/prophet/messiah/etc.
I am a witness to lightly lived life. I am a pointer on point. I am a gentleman's gentleman. I am a water-splasher in puddles.
We get caught up with the heaviness of John the Baptist out there crying and yelling in the wilderness or thundering in the wild. We hear his intensity.
How would you respond to the question, "Who are you?" this day. Would you be bold enough to say. "I'm not President W." Would you go on to say, "I'm not Rummy." (Though I do hope we have some budding Rumi's out there.) Would you further respond, "I'm not the Governor."
So then might come a question behind their question, "So why are you protesting a war against Iraq if you don't have the right credentials and obviously are not privy to the quality of information our leaders have?"
Would you be bold to say, "I am simply concerned about water." (You do know what I high percentage of a human being is water, don't you?) "I am here to bless the water people, where ever they might be."
Sometimes we need to be a joker, no matter how seriously serious our reputation has become. Would it lessen the presence of John if we saw him testifying to the light more lightly?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Who has become exasperated lately by not knowing your source of authority?
This is part of the prophetic, progressive tradition - simply to go ahead.
The powers that be will send queries about who you are with the intent of putting you on the defensive - justify yourself, explain yourself, place yourself, categorize yourself.
All of this is an attempt to get you to self-censor yourself. It makes it a lot easier for the powers if you begin to second guess yourself instead of claiming your authority and joining with others who claim theirs.
So, lets practice.
Powers: "Why are you doing what you are doing?"
John and You: "Because. And if you think you are having trouble with me, just wait for what is coming next."
Now, how can you take this freedom of being beyond the border and bring it into legislatures and congregations? Hang on to your head, but bring it on.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/december2002.html
Witnessing is a strange and radical activity in a land made passive by a "Pox Americana".
To give witness or testimony here is based on the Greek word "martyria" (yes, the word "martyr comes from this). At base this is "confirming something by referring to one's own experience."
What have you experienced so directly and concretely that you would expect martyria to be about life – not death? Can you see it as "living fully in such a way that death is the outcome"? Bishop Munib Younan says that there are three necessary and equal components to martyria: word, deed, and suffering. To speak about an issue, but hypocritically not act upon it – to act upon a matter without educating others about it – or to simply inflict suffering upon one's self or others without proper justification and explanation are all incompatible with the concept of martyria. Indeed, to become a true martyr, one must contribute equally to "witnessing in word, witnessing in deed, and exposing oneself to danger, whatever the cost". If this "cost" so happens to be death, then one will have become a martyr. However, to simply kill one's self in a desperate act of hopelessness does not constitute martyria, but murder – a sin against God in all three Abrahamic faiths.
If Bishop Younan's interpretation of "a theology of martyria" is correct, then it's about time more Christians step forward and offer themselves up as martyrs for a true and just resolution to the Palestinian Issue. excerpted from A Call for Christian Martyrdom].
Our experience can also be described as what it is we turn our eye toward. To Set Our Hope on Christ, Study Guide for The Windsor Report from the Episcopal Church, USA addresses another issue that needs our witness as it addresses the question, "How can the holiness and faithfulness to which God calls us all be made manifest in human intimacy?" How will you live your experience of the sacredness and blessing of a variety of gender orientations among us?
Where else are you witnessing to the light of your experience? Health care? Economic structures? Environment? War propaganda? and on through what seems an endless list of that which would cover the light of creation . . . . Where else are you, at least, supporting those who are so witnessing?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
"Adam" was to testify, witness, to the light of creation, a relationship with GOD. Down through the years this has been passed on - "Original Testimony", so to speak.
We are all called to the task of Adam and John and Jesus, etc. - to testify to the next, best, part of life.
There are different testimonies in different arenas of life. We each have our place to testify - whether from a riverbank or an empty tomb or where you happen to be.
This testifying is Advent work -- Remembering back to our Original Testimony that we might Testify Forward.
How's it going?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/december2005.html
Gaudete Sunday is a moment of joy while waiting. It plays the same role in Advent as Sunday's do in Lent - a reminder of resurrection. In these lections that joy is connected with justice, renewal, and a voice from the wilderness, calling forth renewal through justice.
Given the devastation of many generations it takes a call from an unexpected source to get through to us regarding the source and location of renewal. These forgotten, avoided, and fearful waste places of life lie across and away from our usual religious Jordan boundaries.
A way in which this shows up is found in Psalm 126.
We can look back:
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
"The Lord has done great things for them."
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced.
In our present:
The joy of justice revealed comes to the fore, the straight-jacket of the past with all its apparent fatalism has changed streams in ways we could not predict. We rejoice at having come thus far.
In our present:
The recognition that justice has not yet been completed raises its reality. We yet stand in need of not getting trapped in the fatalism that today will be extended into the future, ad infinitum. We rejoice in anticipation of going further.
We can look ahead:
Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home
with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves.
Or, as Paul puts it:
Rejoice always,
pray (be renewed) without ceasing,
give (renewed) thanks in all circumstances;
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus
for you.
- - -
where is there not trouble . . .
Darfur, Iraq, Figi . . .
poverty increasing, hunger growing . . .
abusive homes in our community . . .
divided hearts within ourselves . . .
trouble enough for any day,
particularly one after Human Rights Day?
where is there energy to renew
broken dreams, dashed hopes
if not in laughing justice
connecting
re-connecting
restoring
shouting for joy
revived with a flood of justice
we pass this gift forward
shedding light abroad
testing a wasteland voice
echoing
repairing
rejoicing
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
Thunder in the desert, even lightning, can happen with there being no resultant rain. The clouds on the horizon never seem to actually arrive. Crying in the wilderness often bears similar results – lots of sound and fury….
We are waiting for the rain, for the streams to flow again. All this straightening of roads and leveling hills is fine for job-creation, but loses something in regard to bringing forth a revival. A Baptist needs water for their work and to get sidetracked into construction work doesn't seem like the best use of resources.
At best there is value in the development of disciplines in times of dryness. But it would be helpful if there were a connection between a discipline and a desired outcome.
Rephrasing, John might be seen as a storm cloud that fulfills a promise that needed refreshment will actually arrive, that showers of blessing will revive our perspective. This then raises questions about the work we are called to not being slavish thong tying, but cloud seeding.
Perhaps we might shift job descriptions from being a sunbeam or a narrow-way maker to being a rain seed. Is that worthy enough for us, or still too humble, too esoteric, too elitist.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html
If the criterion is being a witness able to testify to what you have experienced as a source of meaning, anyone and everyone can be identified as sent by G*D. The worth and dignity of every person grows from this seed of integrity between the courage to trust experience and the strength to share this truth in the midst of other truths.
This is a measure of one’s own way in the world, not another’s. When we remember and participate in our journey, there is not a need to judge another in relation to our journey, but for an encouragement of them to engage their own journey. What is a next step for one is not a universal.
A further measure of our way in the world is the clarity between what our experience is and what we make of it (our belief).
So, who are you? You can’t be measured against any other model. You can be measured against what you hear - “Make a better way.”
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/12/john-16-8-19-28.html