A Christmas Rant: What Are We Waiting For?

This Christmas, I have reached an important conclusion.  The conclusion is this; Paul McCartney’s “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime” is the most likely the worst Christmas song ever.  What makes it so bad is the fact that Paul wrote it.  What do I mean by that?  This is the man who wrote “Hey Jude”.  He wrote “Let it Be”.  He wrote “Yesterday”.  How could the same person write  “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime”?

 It would be like meeting Michelangelo and asking him, “What’s that over there in the hallway?”

“Why, that’s my statue of David,” he would answer.

“It’s beautiful. And what’s up above us?”

“That’s my ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” he says.

“Amazing.  What is that hanging on the wall over there?” you would ask.

“I call that dogs playing pool with Elvis on black velvet.”

Artists have ups and downs in their careers.  They have high points and low points.  The same is true of celebrities.  We’ve certainly seen that in the news the past few weeks.  During the low points, the key is to turn your image around.

I am neither a celebrity nor a public relations expert, but I think I know the secret to boosting the sagging career of a celebrity.  It’s simple.  Say or do something offensive.  Insult an ethnic or racial group, a city or a religion.  Have an affair. Get in trouble with the law.  Take a look at some recent examples; Kanye West, Michael Richards, David Letterman, or Chris Brown.  It’s not so much the insult or misdeed that will boost your career.  It’s the apology.

When famous people do something wrong, it has been become obligatory that they do their apology on an episode of their show or in an interview.  The apology is surefire ratings winner.  Our culture loves to see a good apology, in fact, we demand it.  We demand an apology, but not so much a change in behavior. Once a celebrity apologizes, the story is over.  We lose interest.  We never see if their behavior changes, if they reconcile their marriage, work in a battered women’s shelter or get help for a sexual addiction.  Our culture doesn’t demand that.

When we stop and think about it, we’re pretty shallow about such things.  We equate repentance with merely saying, “I’m sorry” and not a change in one’s life.

As we saw last week, such cheap repentance angered prophetic preachers like John the Baptist.  In his preaching about the massive sea change God was about to bring into the world in Jesus, John warned his hearers that merely telling God we we’re sorry was not enough.  True repentance, a turning of one’s heart, meant that one’s repentance had to bear fruit, or produce results.

When John’s audience heard that message, they asked, “What shall we do?” I imagine they were hoping to hear an answer that involved waiting.  Maybe, “Go home and pray about.  See what God lays on your heart” (that’s religious lingo for procrastinating). Perhaps they were hoping for John to lie out some abstract spiritual teachings like, “Come live in the desert with me and be a hermit.”  Something so impossible for the average person to do, that it cold easily be dismissed as only applying to a select group.  Or maybe they expected him to predict some time in the very distant future when God would appear in the world and fix everything for them - destroy their enemies and elevate them to power.  Or perhaps they hoped John would promise them an otherworldly hope of an afterlife in heaven, something they wouldn’t have to deal with until after they died.  Since, like us, they were probably in denial about death, any real change in their own lives could be put off indefinitely.

But John the Baptist doesn’t pacify his audience with promises of far-off utopian realities distanced from is audience by ascetic lifestyles, centuries or death.  Instead, John hits them where they live - right here and right now.  He says if they have two coats to give one to their neighbor in need, and tells tax collectors and soldiers to start behaving ethically.  In other words, John invites them to live lives that create a more just world, not centuries from now or after they die, but right here and right now.  Rather than vague spiritual principles, John says the fruits of repentance manifest themselves in the things that matter most to us - our money and possessions. 

That’s true repentance.  That’s truly turning your life around and literally putting your money where your mouth is. Likewise, if we are truly turning our lives around, our lives must also bear results. Merely having regrets or being sorry may be enough for celebrities, but as the people of God, God calls our lives to change - right here and right now.

That’s a scary proposition.  Not so much our lives changing, but the right here and right now part.  If you’re anything like me, you want God to change your life.  You want a God-filled and God-centered life.  You want God to change the world.

Eventually.

It is no secret that I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.  [I guess to be fair, I should name a bad Bruce song, but I can’t think of one ;-)] My favorite Bruce Springsteen line is not a lyric from one of his songs.  It is a quote from a 60 Minutes interview.  After going through a tough time in his personal life, Springsteen told an interviewer that his life came together when he stopped waiting for the man he was going to become and just started being the man he wanted to be.  The same goes for all of us.  We can just start being the husband or father we want to be.  Or the wife or mother we want to be.  The family we want to be. Or the church we want to be.

Sure, following Jesus may sometimes require patience.  When we need direction from God about where to go in life, sometimes we need to wait.  However, the proclamation of the arrival of God’s Kingdom, and the invitation for us to be a part of it, are always immediate.  There’s no need to wait.  The time is always now.

John the Baptist told his hearers to help their neighbor in need, not sometime in the future, but right now.  In Jesus, God had arrived in the world in a whole new way.  The proper response to that inbreaking presence of God is compassion and justice. 

You may have a dream of what you want your life in Christ to be like, but you put it off.  Maybe you want to help the homeless, start reading your Bible and praying everyday, serve more in your church, give more to you church, go on a mission trip, start a new ministry, get help with an addiction, fix your marriage, join a small Group, or simply give your life to Christ and say your life is going to be one of following Jesus - so much you want your life to be.  But not yet.  You’re waiting.  Waiting for the right time, the right circumstances.  There are some things you need to do first, hurdles you need to get over; get your finances in order, fix some relationships, maybe even figure out what you believe.

Here’s the good news.  The Kingdom of God has arrived.  You don’t need to have all those things resolved in order to experience it.  In fact, if you just dive in and participate in it, you may just find what you need to get your finances in order or heal your relationships. 

You don’t even have to have your beliefs all figured out to it.  That’s why they call it faith.   Sometimes we think the only way to be a Christian is to first figure out our beliefs and then practice Christianity.  Yet, in much of our tradition and throughout much of church history, people practiced following Jesus first, even when they weren’t sure, and encountered God in the process and let their beliefs emerge from what they actually experienced.  Look what happened to the disciples.  They left their fishing nets behind and followed Jesus without even asking for a brochure with a statement of beliefs.

While it may be terrifying to think that God is changing the world right now, it’s also good news.  It’s good news for people like me because I don’t have my act together.  I know many people cannot begin a new phase of life or make a big change until they get all their ducks in a row.  I never have all my ducks in a row.  I’m not even sure I have any ducks.  The good news of John is that the Kingdom of God has arrived and we don’t have to have all our ducks in a row to participate in it.

John’s rant is immediately followed in the text by the story of Jesus’ baptism.  God doesn’t wait to for the crowd or the world, or even  Jesus to get all his ducks in a row.  God sends, not a duck, but a dove from heaven and anoints Jesus where he is.  His ministry begins and the world is changed forever.

Perhaps it’s preaching against the grain of Advent, but I think waiting is overrated this time of year. Advent is about waiting but it’s mostly about someone arriving. There’s no need to wait any more.  Stop waiting for the Christian you’ll become and just start being the Christian you want to be.  You will find that the Spirit will come alongside you and transform you into the human being and Christian that God wants you to be.

What are we waiting for?