You hear it from well-mannered guests, "Is there anything I can do?" It is the polite question to ask the hostess. She gets up to make the final preparations for the meal, leaves the living room. You say, "Is there anything I can do?" Usually the answer is, "No. Just sit there, be comfortable, everything is taken care of."

That question is asked more rarely after the meal. It's 11:00 p.m., people still sitting there in the living room, talking. It is not often then that a guest will ask, "Is there anything I can do?" More often they will say, "Well, I guess it is time to go home now." If anyone were to ask me as a host, at that hour, "Is there anything I can do?" I would say, "Yes. You can do the dishes. Then put the light out when you leave."

At other times people will ask, "Is there anything I can do?" when someone is in trouble, or when they are in sorrow, or sickness. "Is there anything I can do?" That is so appropriate and most welcome, even though there is probably nothing that you can do, except express your concern and keep them in your prayers. There are just times when it is the right thing to do. It is good manners and a sign of thoughtfulness to ask, "Is there anything I can do?"

There was a time 2000 years ago when it was the most commonly asked question of serious-minded people. "Is there anything I can do to prepare the way for the Messiah?"

In those days it was believed that the Messiah would not come until everything was ready. Not until the forces of evil have been defeated. Not until this world was put into shape, tidied up. Then the Messiah would come...and the Kingdom. That is the difference between the Jewish expectation and the Christian understanding of the Messiah. The Jews believed that the world must first be put into shape, then the Messiah would come. We as Christians believe he came before the world was ready.

I have been reading about the big paint job over at Qualcomm Stadium. They are going to paint it blue, I guess because it will look better on television. I remember in the old days of television they always told people to wear a blue shirt, because it would look better on television. I thought maybe that was the reason they are painting it blue, although I think the stadium looks all right the way it is. Poured concrete looks like poured concrete, all over the world. But there is something very big coming to San Diego, so everybody is getting ready. It is just natural to want to spruce up the place when somebody important is coming.

Years ago I was pastor in Sierra Madre, a little suburb of Pasadena, up against the San Gabriel mountains. There is a British Home there. A lovely community of little California bungalows. A lot of California live oak trees grow there. And camellia bushes, they seem to thrive in that decomposed granite soil.

One day it was announced that Queen Elizabeth was going to visit the British Home. She and Prince Philip were making a stop in Los Angeles, and said they would take an afternoon and go out to the British Home, this little province of the Commonwealth.

You can imagine the excitement in the British Home among all those old folks, all of them immigrants from Great Britain. It was amazing. The day before the Queen came to visit, there were landscapers all over that property, planting blooming flowers, placing shrubs in tubs along where she would walk. Making "the crooked straight and the rough places plain." They even got a new British flag and put that up. Because when the Queen visits, you make preparations. You want everything to be ready.

Because you do that for royalty, maybe they thought when the Messiah comes, the King of kings, we should do the same. We should make things ready. Then they began to think this way. Maybe the Messiah is waiting until we do get things ready. Then later they thought: When we get everything ready, then the Messiah will come. That is what the prophets preached. Only the prophets made it clear, to get ready for the Messiah is not to clean up the yard, but to clean up your life. That is why John the Baptist is here.

Old John shows up every Advent, right on time. Just like clockwork, the second Sunday he's there. You heard about him in the Gospel lesson for this morning from Luke. Incidentally, there are only two nativity stories in the gospels. There are four gospels, and only two of them have nativity stories. But all four gospels, right at the beginning, have John the Baptist there. He's the one the prophets are talking about, who will prepare the way, get us ready, for the coming of the Messiah.

Luke used Isaiah's prophecy of who this prophet coming before the Messiah would be.

The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked made straight, and the rough places a plain. And all flesh shall see it together.

That was Isaiah, writing four hundred years before Jesus, saying that one day a prophet is going to come out of the desert whose vocation it is to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah.

We stopped reading this passage at the sixth chapter. It goes on. Next week we are supposed to read the verses that follow. We aren't going to do that, so I will tell you what it says now. It describes John baptizing people in the River Jordan. After he baptized them, the people would come up to John and ask, "Is there anything we can do?" John says, "Yes. Whoever has two coats must share with him who has none. And whoever has food must do likewise. Even tax collectors came up to him, and asked, `Is there anything we can do?' He said, `Yes. Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.' Soldiers asked him, `Is there anything we can do?' He said, `Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with your wages.'"

This scene gives us a wonderful picture of social life in the first century in Palestine. There were the poor, and there were the rich. The rich, in order to get ready for the Messiah, were to have compassion for the poor, to feed them and to clothe them. The powerful were to stop using their power for personal gain. A common practice among tax collectors, since their fee was taken right off the top of the taxes they collected, was to tax as high as they could and as often as they could, in order to get more money. And soldiers, carrying arms, all they had to do was walk into your house, and there was the implied threat if you did not do what they said.

Sound familiar? Lack of compassion for the poor. Misuse of power for personal gain. "Is there anything we can do to prepare for the Messiah?" "Yes. You can stop doing those things."

"Is there anything else?" "Yes." Look at the Epistle lesson for this morning from Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Paul writes, "My prayer is that your love may abound." That's for beginners. That's where he starts. That your love may abound, that it grow and grow. Because we all know, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of."

So old Paul says to everybody, "Let your love abound." That's one thing you can do. Then he says this. "Have knowledge and discernment, knowing what is excellent."

"Is there anything I can do?" "Yes." You can get rid of all in your life that is phony, trivial, cheap, and unworthy of a child of God. Just get rid of it, and know only what is excellent. Exercise some discernment. What a wonderful word, "discernment." It means making choices on the basis of having some standards in your life.

We live in an age in which just about everything is permissible, everything is tolerated, all in the name of freedom. Which is all right. Anyway, it doesn't matter because that is the way it is going to be. We live in America. Freedom of speech and freedom of most behaviors. But because everything is tolerated doesn't mean that everything is of equal value. So what is needed in an age in which everything is permitted is discernment.

Paul is telling the Christians, living in the Greek world, which was much worse as far as permissiveness is considered than the world we live in today, to use discernment in your life. Hold on only to that which is the highest, only that which is worthy of you, only that which is excellent.

Later in Philippians, in the fourth chapter, he will come back to this theme, and be specific about it. "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

You have a choice. That is what he is saying to you. Use your discernment in how you fill up the interior of your life. He said the same thing to the Romans. "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may know what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

That is the standard for Christians. That's why he says, use discernment. That is what is expected of Christians living in this world, that they will make choices for the good, for the true, for the beautiful, and the gracious, and the pure and the lovely.

"Is there anything I can do?" "My prayer is that your love may abound, and that you will have knowledge and discernment, knowing only what is excellent."

These two lessons are given to us in the season of Advent to suggest how we can prepare for his coming into our lives. Which comes dangerously close to suggesting that he is waiting until we shape up our lives. Which comes dangerously close to contradicting everything that I have preached from this pulpit for the last twenty-one years.

I have preached grace, because that is what the gospel is about. God didn't come when we got everything cleaned up, or because we shaped up our lives. Paul wrote, "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Which means, we are saved by God's grace and not by our works. That's the gospel. We are saved by what God has done for us, not because we deserved what God did for us. Saved by grace.

That is the clarion call for the Reformation, too. We are Protestants. We believe all that. I've got Martin Luther's picture hanging on my office wall. The old boy hangs there, overseeing everything that goes on. I couldn't write this sermon in my office this week. I had to write it at home. I was pondering saying something in this sermon that he may consider "unLutheran." I'm going to say it. There is something we can do.

Christmas proclaims that he came before we had everything ready. But it also says, only those who expected him, saw him. It's the same today. Those who don't expect a Messiah won't see one. He's here. Christ is here. He has already come. But they don't even look for him. Look at the Christmas story. Only two kinds of people saw him in that story: wise men, who saw the signs and had open minds, and shepherds, who heard the announcement, and had open hearts.

Even at the second coming, according to the Revelation to John, the so-called Apocalypse to John, he comes to those who are ready. The impression we have is that Jesus is going to come with fireworks, when everything is done. But according to John, he will come graciously, considerately, humbly, not forcing himself, but will come to us only when we are ready. Listen to the third chapter.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Simone Weil, the Christ-like Jew, who lived in London during the II World War, followed John the Baptist's instruction for preparing for the coming of the Christ. She identified with the poor. She reduced her living so that she would live like the poor. Then she followed Paul's advice to the Philippians. She prepared her inner life. She adopted a mystic's discipline, which she called "waiting on God."

She found different ways of waiting. One of the ways of waiting she found was to read poetry. She read particularly the poetry of George Herbert, the 17th century Anglican priest. She said that she memorized Herbert's poem on love so that she could use it as a means of centering. She said, "One day while reciting the poem, Christ himself came down and took possession of me."

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

She was certain it was grace that happened to her. But it would not have happened if she had not made preparation.

His coming is an act of grace, it's a gift. But if you are not ready, you may miss it. So, "Is there anything I can do?" "Yes." You have two coats. You can share with those who have none. And you have food, so do likewise.

And if you are not proud of what you are doing, the way you are living, even though it is permissible as far as this world is concerned, but it's not exemplary, then stop it.

And if your inner life is empty, think on what is excellent. Fill your life with excellence, and wait for grace.

For the time is rushing on. I heard somebody say, "I am almost fifty, but I just graduated from high school." "Time like an ever flowing stream bears all its sons and daughters away." That's why John the Baptist is there. That is why John the Baptist preaches repentance. That is why there is such an urgency in the way he preaches it. Every year he's here, like clockwork, the second Sunday in Advent. There he is. Same message, every year, he never changes the message: prepare, prepare, prepare. Not because he won't come if we don't, but because we may miss him if we don't.

Eleanor Roosevelt kept up a backbreaking schedule of public appearances with organizations she believed in. Mostly civil rights and humanitarian organizations. She got the reputation in her latter years of being a "do-gooder," which was used pejoratively when they spoke of her. But she kept it up. Even when she became frail in the latter years of her life and didn't feel like keeping these appointments, she always did it.

She came to one meeting. A man greeted her at the curb, opened the door of the car. She said, "You'll have to help me out, my head is heavy." He helped her out. Then she said, "You'll have to keep me steady now as I walk." He held her arm, and they walked over toward the crowd. A little African American girl came out of the crowd with an armful of flowers, and presented them to Mrs. Roosevelt. She turned to the man who helped her, and said, "You see I had to come. I was expected."