“Prep Time.”
Do those two words have as much meaning to anyone here as two other new words to the English language: “Thanksgiving pants.” [Those are pants with elastic or expandable waists.] I won’t ask how many of you are still wearing those “Thanksgiving pants” to church this morning.
Anyone who is trying to organize and host a get together during this busy holiday season knows that what takes the most time is “prep time.” Even Rachael Ray, who cheats by having all her veggies pre-washed, her chicken skinned and boneless, and a refrigerator that is not stuffed with two dozen old Cool Whip containers holding scary and unknown left-overs: even Rachael Ray has to keep chopping and slicing during the commercial breaks in order to make a “30 Minute Meal.”
The other big time-consumer when you move into “party prep” mode is cleaning out all those corners that magically and magnetically collect piles of junk, lost gloves, wadded up sweatshirts, and cascades of catalogs. In fact, isn’t one of the best things about hosting a big party when it’s over, and everyone goes home, you actually have an unusually clean house to live in, at least for a while.
Tim Forbess, senior pastor of First United Methodist in Dayton, Ohio, got to thinking about how and what kind of preparations had to be made for that first Christmas, and realized there is no mention in any of the gospels of who got to be the “official” stall cleaner. Think about it. On the night that overflow guests arrived to use the animals stabling place as a birthing place, there had to be a stall cleaner. And what does a stall cleaner do? The task is known as “mucking out.”
Every one of you here knows the meaning of that phrase, “mucking out.” It is every bit as nasty as it sounds, the nastiness only less or more depending upon how long it has been since the last “muck out.” Considering the hygiene habits in the first century I’ m guessing the muck out accomplished before Mary and Joseph moved into their stall, aka birthing center, was on the high side of horrible.
But prep time, cleaning out time, is necessary if we are going open up space, transform space, re-envision space in our lives for the miracle that is Advent approaching.
Today’s gospel text is the prologue to the earliest of the written gospels: The Gospel of mark. The focus of this prologue is on preparation. God’s preparation of the world, God’s preparation of the people, involves far more than mucking out one stable stall. John the Baptist is called by God to be the ultimate “preparer,” the Advent stable cleaner.
John’s assignment is not limited to one stall he locates in the Judean wilderness.
*John the Baptist “preps” for Jesus’ arrival by cleaning out his civility and relocating in the wilderness, God’s favorite “prepping” grounds.
*John sheds the accepted stability of food and dress expected of those with priestly religious status by feasting on a diet of locusts (a protein delicacy in the 1st century) and wild honey (the 1st century equivalent of Godiva chocolates) — eating a diet truly fit for the kingdom.
*John challenges the moral and spiritual stasis of the people by proclaiming the need for a baptism of “repentance” and “forgiveness of sins.”
But more than anything else John the Baptist lives, says, or does: John the Baptist is a beacon and bastion of preparedness to the people. His lifestyle, his subject matter, his ritual of baptism, all are “prep work,” cleaning out the old muck of an old life, preparing people for the new work, the new miracle, that God is about to land in their midst.
What John the Baptist did for “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Judea” was the same as what that stall cleaner did for the holy family as they entered the stable that night when Jesus was born. Preparing the Way. Making room. Opening doors for a new incarnation, a new world of possibility, that God was offering to the world.
“Preparing,” “cleaning out,” “opening” takes some genuine labor. It also takes some “mucking out”— moving out old, decayed matter, false ideals, bad attitudes, and faulty assumptions, in order to make room for God’s new miracle among us.
So I ask you this morning: What are the things in your life that need to be “mucked out” in order to prepare room for the 2008 Christ Child? What cluttered, “stalled out” place in your life could be swept out, swept clean, readied and remedied to prepare and purpose you for God’s new presence and God’s good pleasure?
1) Some of us need to clean out a nest of apathy.
Have you created a comfy, secure place where you can safely nestle in and do nothing, where you can observe instead of participate in the world? Is your life a happy den of inertness and ineptness?
Sweep it out. Embrace the spirit of possibility that redecorates that old nesting ground with new corners and cushions, new ambitions and dreams.
2) Do you need to clean out a compaction of competition?
Maybe everything is a win/lose battle in your life, with you needing to be the “winner,” no matter the cost?
Suck out the cut-throat competitive spirit and leave room for the growth of a collaborative spirit—
a spirit that can celebrate all successes, whether large or small;
a spirit that brings others along.
3) Do you need to clean out a legacy of lethargy?
There seems to be an increase in the spirit of “I’ll just let stuff happen, because it will.”
God does not design doormats.
God does want doorkeepers—-those who welcome, embrace, invite, actively engage others.
4) Do you need to clean out a smug, self-centered Little-Jack-Horner-sat-in-the-corner satisfaction?
Do you really think you are all you need?
Do you really think you are “good to go” on your own?
Good luck with that.
None of us are. God created a relational world of connectedness. From huge ecosystems to carbon-based molecules, life exists in community, in relationship, in networked connections.
There is only one time we don’t need anyone or anything else to keep us going. That’s when we are dead.
5) I know some of you need to need to clean out your perfectionism.
Are you not happy unless everything is tidy and perfect?
The Good Housekeeping motto has always been, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Not. Dump that. Life is all about thriving in the midst of chaos. Stuff happens. You are not going to have a zip-lock freezer bag to put it into.
Mary got pregnant. Joseph married her anyway.
Tiberius decided to call for a census when Mary was in her final weeks of pregnancy. A very pregnant Mary and a very worried Joseph traveled to Bethlehem.
And God was there, even in the midst of the most imperfect birthing conditions. Can you imagine Mary saying to Joseph: “I’m not having my baby except under the most perfect of conditions?”
God is with us. God doesn’t need vacuumed out “space bags” in order to let us accommodate more “stuff” in our lives. God will find a way to get a stable ready for all our needs.
6) Here is one of the biggest stall cleanings we all need this year: we need to clean out despair.
This is a tough holiday season for so many families in so many ways. The nightly news is not fun to watch. The economy seems to be about to crash and burn. Wall Street has already collapsed … on the second week of September. Acts of terrorism, even when they are happening far away, feel like they are at our front door. The mayors of Mumbai and New York City now feel like blood-brothers. Thailand’s airport is shut down, and the political atmosphere there feels like a muggy August night in the Midwest: thunder and lightening are imminent.
The truth is that in this next year we are looking eye-to-eye at some pretty dire situations.
Failures of economic systems (the government bail-outs just keep coming, and we’re bailing out with borrowed money and time)
Failures of moral systems (as each new terrorists attack makes painfully evident)
Failures of political systems (from Thailand to Pakistan to Bagdad to India)
Failures of environmental systems (as the threat of global warming becomes the reality of global climate changes)
But despairing is not an Advent attitude. Despairing is letting the fractures in this world cripple us, instead of embracing the Advent of God’s forever new, rebirthing, redeeming, fractal love in this world.
Mark’s gospel starts, like Genesis starts, with everything new — “a new beginning.”
The Genesis text introduces us to God’s original design for creation, for life, for humans.
The Mark text reveals the continuation of God’s “beginning” in the “gospel,” in the “good news” of “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” This is the Advent that we “prepare” for.
Nothing less than the continuation of the Creator’s creativity.
Nothing less than God’s presence and power brought down to each and every one of us.
Nothing less than “The Incarnate One,” Emmanuel, “God with us.”
A possible ending might be to close with this very non-Christmasy song, but a song that I grew up singing because it was one of my mother’s favorite choruses. The chorus is the Advent message in a nutshell.
1. He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.
Chorus: His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.
2. When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.
Chorus
3. Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision,
Our God ever yearns His resources to share;
Lean hard on the arm everlasting, availing;
The Father both thee and thy load will upbear.
Chorus