On this, the second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist appears on the scene. In our gospel reading, he strides forth out of the desert, quoting the prophet Isaiah and calling for repentance.
But we actually get John twice in today’s lessons, and the first time he shows up is very different.
The Canticle we sang this morning is from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. It has several names, but it’s most descriptive title is “the Song of Zechariah.” Zechariah, you may remember, was married to Mary’s relative Elizabeth. Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist. Zechariah was a priest, who, like Mary, had received a visit from the Angel Gabriel. The Angel told Zechariah that his wife would conceive, and bear a son, who would help the people of Israel welcome their Messiah. Zechariah was a good priest, but very practically oriented. Instead of saying something like “Wow! Are you for real?” he said, “Sorry. It can’t happen. My wife and I both are too old for any more babies.” The Angel accepted his response, saying, “Well, okay. But I know what I’m talking about. And since you, a priest no less, refuse to believe God’s holy messenger, you will this day be struck dumb – unable to speak until the day your son is presented to you.”
Nine months of silent communication! That was a tough punishment, but Zechariah endured, and eight days after the baby’s birth, Elizabeth brought the child to the Temple, named him John, and presented him to his father. The words of Canticle 16 were Zechariah’s response to this first sight of his infant son.
Among other things, he said, “And you child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.”
We don’t tell this story as often as we tell the story of the baby born in the manger, but this story is a significant part of our faith journey. The birth of this other baby boy also has something to teach us.
Babies are an important part of God’s plan. Children matter in God’s scheme of things. Children hold for us qualities that are often lost by the time we become adults. Those qualities are a necessary part of our salvation. Remember Jesus said we would have to “be like” children in order to enter the Kingdom of God.
It makes me wonder what it would be like if we grownups could retain those child-like qualities. What if we had to be like children to live well in our present world? Imagine how things would be if we were measured not by our adult skills, but by a whole different set of standards. What if we were assessed by our ability to be childlike, to be vulnerable and spontaneous? What if it was important for us to be able to show our feelings and to live fully in each moment – never worrying about yesterday or tomorrow? Suppose each one of us had to receive an annual performance appraisal, done not by an adult boss at our jobs, but by our children, or grandchildren, at home. And those of us who don’t have children at hand would not be let off the hook. We would have one or two examining children assigned to us for the occasion, preferably children not known to us, so the evaluation could be fair.
Instead of getting a grade for being on time, we’d be graded on our ability to lose all sense of time for hours on end. Instead of being rated on our skills at the computer, or in the fields of medicine or law, we’d be rated on our ability to play with Legos or Barbie dolls, or our skill at the latest video game. Instead of writing manuals, or textbooks, or even sermons, we’d be asked to contribute bedtime stories, which would be reviewed by panels of children from the neighborhood. Instead of running hotels and restaurants, we’d be given points for making tasty tacos, pizzas and hamburgers like Big Macs at home
What a world it would be!! Of course, some of us would have let go these abilities years past. We would be in serious trouble. But instead of being sent to grad school for remediation, we’d be sent to the local Head Start program for a couple of weeks. Our priorities would change radically, because we would have a whole new system of values and norms.
Remember those rules in kindergarten? The one about “no hitting” would certainly change our foreign policy guidelines, now wouldn’t it? And how about those kindergarten report cards? Remember being rated on whether or not you could play well with others? That would certainly re-orient behavior in the political arena! And what if Matchbox cars replaced BMW’s as a status symbol? What if baseball cards became the coin of the realm?
It’s a fun vision, interesting, but not terribly practical. It does point to the fact that our present world does not value or cherish children or their child-like ways. We have only to look at the economics of it, for that is how value is declared in our world. Child-care workers are still among the lowest paid professionals in the country. Teachers and others in the field of education are far down the national salary scale, along with housekeeping, and indeed all forms of work that support the nurture and care of our little ones.
An African professor whose children were raised in the US had a outsider’s perspective on our culture. He said, “When I think how my own children have their routine dictated by school and violin, piano, and ballet lessons, and how they move fluently from baby-sitting for hire to video for rent and then to microwave popcorn and hot pockets, I realize how our society has dispensed with child-inspired patterns of living.”
“Child-inspired patterns of living.” What a wonderful phrase! What important ways of being, what values, what necessary characteristics have we lost by putting aside “child-inspired patterns of living? Jesus said only a child could lead us back to that which is precious and holy. If that is true then surely in this season of Advent, as we prepare to receive the Babe in the manger we must also work to re-capture of some of these child-inspired ways.
Zechariah looked at his baby boy and said, “You my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High.” Christian tradition understands his words as the prediction that young John will be the herald who baptizes Jesus and proclaims him as Messiah. But Zechariah’s words also hold a different truth. It is the reality of the child himself that prophecies to the reality of the Most High, for every child is made in the image of a loving God who sent his Son to live among us, to hallow our flesh forever. When we look at a newborn babe, then in our flesh, we see God, we see the fullness of divine love, the beauty of God’s creation, the holiness of right relationship.
That divine image is distorted and broken by our human desires to be first, to be strongest, to be right. In struggling for these things we let go of “child-inspired patterns of living” and sadly, we sometimes let go of children themselves. Do we really cherish the children of our world? Or do we prefer them to be seen and not heard? Do we make space in our lives for the messiness, the noise, the disruption that comes with the presence of children? I think, not so much. And we cannot deny that our TV screens and other media are haunted by images of children starving to death in distant lands, dying at the hands of terrorist bombs, and yes, being abused right here in our own nation.
Advent is a season of preparation. John the Baptist calls us to prepare. The media, the pressure of the calendar, and the coming holidays call us to prepare. But John also calls us to repent, to turn around, to try a different way of being.
Could this Advent season be the year in which we learn again the importance of children in our world, and in our lives? True repentance would call for different behavior on our part, both personally and corporately. True repentance would require us, among other things, to become advocates for children, to speak out, to be involved, not only in the lives of our own children and grandchildren, but also in the lives of children around the world.
I admit the problem seems overwhelming. My children and grandchildren will feast on homemade biscuits and country ham. The children of Haiti will eat cookies made of mud, clay and a bit of oil. My children and grandchildren will unwrap bright packages and thank me for giving them some token of my love and affection. In other lands, children will be handed guns and sent out to shoot the enemy. These children will learn hatred before they learn love. They will know death better than they will know life.
I don’t have any easy answers to any of it. But I do know this: we cannot learn to treasure children, we cannot teach others to treasure children, until we have first learned to treasure and cherish the child that is within us. Each of us was a child before we reached adulthood. Each of us once owned a complete set of the gifts of childhood. But we have allowed that child-like nature to be buried under layers of complexity, under masks, under a veneer of needless sophistication.
I suggest that we adopt a new set of spiritual practices for this Advent season. I suggest we go back and practice those “child-inspired patterns of living.” Pile the family in the car – even if you’re all grown-ups, and drive through the neighborhoods at dusk and wonder at the beauty of the Christmas lights. Put on a CD of Christmas music and just listen to it. Don’t do the dishes or read the paper while it’s playing. Just listen. Of course, if the music calls you to get up out of your chair and dance around the living room – well, that’s a good thing. Enjoy every minute of it. In fact, invite your neighbors in to dance with you. Learn all over again what it means to “play well with others.”
This year, in this Advent, prepare the way for the coming kingdom by turning from stuffy adult ways and reclaiming the joy of childhood. When the time is fulfilled, I promise Christmas will be very different. And, more importantly, you will know that you yourself are called, named by God, as a precious child, a prophet of the Most High, destined to prepare the way for the present coming of his kingdom in this world, in our day, in our time.