December 4, 2011
(Second Sunday of Advent)
(From The Lectionary Page)
Full Immersion
by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
My ancestors in England raised Dorset sheep. Journals and letters that have survived through the generations mention a variety of chores related to this particular kind of animal husbandry; among other things, sheep-shearing, an event which apparently happened in late spring, after lambing season and before what passes for summer heat in England set in. But before the sheep were sheared, apparently, they had to be washed. Nearly two hundred years ago, this involved herding the flock into the sheep pool, which was constructed in one of the low meadows. It basically was a stream of water that was enlarged at one point. The sheep, whose wool was thick with a year's worth of impurities...were herded one by one into the pool. The force of the flowing water washed out the impurities. The sheep would then be herded out of the pool and left to dry and fluff, thereby being prepared for what would come next.
Well, I was thinking about flowing water washing away impurities when I read over our Gospel passage for today. Mark, in his typically exuberant style, bursts open the Gospel with virtually no preamble, and tells us that John was baptizing all the people from the Judean countryside and from Jerusalem in the River Jordan. I've seen the Jordan River as it flows through the Judean wilderness, and I can tell you that our world is blessed with many rivers way more impressive than the Jordan. I can also tell you that few rivers carry with them more symbolic meaning. It was through the Jordan that Joshua led the Chosen People into the land flowing with milk and honey. It was by the banks of the Jordan that Joshua set up 12 stones, symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jordan was not the only source of water available to John the Baptist. He could have baptized in any of the naturally-occurring springs that exist there in the wilderness. But he chose the Jordan River, perhaps one of the most powerful symbols of the fulfillment of Gods promise to Gods people.
John is supposed to remind us of the prophets who went before him Malachai and Isaiah whom he quotes, and Elijah, whom he resembled in clothing and in diet. All of those forerunners called the people of Judah to repentence. John, centuries later, did so too and apparently quite intentionally in a place other than the official seat of Jewish life and worship in Judea -- the Temple in Jerusalem. He was in the wilderness a place, which, to Jewish sensibilities at that time, was a place where Gods enduring presence and providential care encountered human frailty writ large. John was not founding a new religion. He was prophesying to the prevailing religiosity that had allowed people to ignore God's demand for authenticity and justice. Those at the center of religious life in Jerusalem had become so immersed in the status quo that they had lost sight of the purpose of the covenant -- which was to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk alertly in relationship with God.
John subverted all that by providing a different kind of immersion -- one whose symbolism was difficult to miss. All that weighed down the people, a lifetime of accumulated detritus, all the impurities of their old way of being were symbolically washed away in the flowing waters of Gods providential river, so that they might be ready to respond to the One who was coming.
The question for us this morning is this: Can we connect with the fervor of a wild man in the Judean wilderness calling a people to repentance? Do we hear this as a quaint story which bears no resemblance to our current existence, not unlike the image of my ancestors washing and fluffing sheep in Englands green and pleasant land? Or worse, are we actually rather more like those sheep my ancestors raised, utterly oblivious to all the stuff we carry around with us with us, so that the call to repentance seems at best unnecessary and at worst, little more than a baffling yearly event?
It is easy for the Church and by Church I mean Christians everywhere to get so hide-bound by the status quo that we neglect our day-to-day call to do justice and love mercy. It's easy for the Church to say with all sincerity that we renounce the evil powers of the world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, but it is something else entirely to choose that renunciation day by day. It is easy for the Church to want to prepare the way of the Lord, but to get bogged down in the complexity of institutional life and simple challenges of day-to-day living. It is easy for the Church, especially in this time of the year, to shut down and simply concentrate on the Holiday 21 days away.
What might get washed away from us, were we to immerse ourselves in the Baptizers call to repentence?
Its a question well worth pondering. We are invited, on this Second Sunday of Advent, to prepare a place in our lives, in our hearts, for the one who is coming. Ultimately, what makes that possible is God's endlessly flowing gift of grace, flowing like the Jordan from mountain meltwater, flowing like the ancient rivers in our own part of the world -- eternal and yet ever new. May we wade into that grace, and allow the love of God that makes all things new to dwell in our hearts now and always.
