Sermons

“The Wonderful Story of John the Baptist”

Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 16, 2018

 Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might be transformed by seeking your presence until all is joy.  In the name of the One coming into the world we pray, Amen.

I have always been a big fan of the writer Roald Dahl.  Do you have a favorite?  The “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” books?  “Matilda”?  Perhaps something more obscure like “The BFG” or “The Witches”?  Or my early favorite, “James and the Giant Peach”?  Having read all of those, you might still not know that Roald Dahl also wrote stories for grown-ups.  I bring this up because I need to tell you about one of them.   “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is exactly what you might guess: a story about a man named Henry Sugar.  I can’t do it justice, of course, just telling you about it, so you should really get it from the library or borrow my copy and read it for yourself.  But let me try to describe the basics.

At the beginning, Henry Sugar is not a nice person.  He is one of the worst examples of the idle rich.  He inherited a fortune and, like many rich people, was always trying to make more money, as long as he didn’t have to work for it.  So as you might imagine, Henry really liked to gamble.  And not just gamble, because of course, simple gambling doesn’t actually make anyone any money.  Henry liked to gamble because he usually cheated so he would win.  Apparently, he was pretty good at it, because it seems his friends hadn’t caught on yet.  He was still being invited to hang out.  Thus it was that one rainy weekend, Henry drew the low card and got left out of a game of canasta at a friend’s country estate.

With nothing else to do, Henry wanders into the library at his friend’s house.  And there he discovers an odd report from a doctor working in India who met a man who could see without his eyes.  Now Henry isn’t much of a reader, but this story catches his attention, especially when he gets to the part where the man is explaining how he learned to do this amazing trick and reads that he practiced by seeing through playing cards.  Henry suddenly gets really excited about what his life could look like if he could see through playing cards.  As I mentioned, Henry liked to gamble, and he liked to win, so a new way to cheat was an intriguing idea for him.

To make a long short story shorter, three years and three months later, Henry could tell what a playing card was by focusing on the back side for just four seconds.  He was ready to go.  So he headed over to his favorite London casino, Lord’s House, to test out his new skill.  Henry cheated and won to the tune of 6,600 pounds that night.  He could have “won” more, but he got nervous that he would attract too much attention.  And here’s where it gets interesting.  Henry took his winnings home in cash but slowly realized that he didn’t really want the money.  So instead, the next morning, he stood on his fourth story balcony and threw it all down into the street to the passers-by, slowly at first, with some shouts of “That’s yours.  Take it!” and then eventually, the rest of the wad of cash that was in his hand all at once.  As you can imagine, it’s a bit of a mob scene, and a police officer eventually knocks on his door, which turns out to be another pivotal moment of Henry’s story, but not the one we’re interested in today.  Indeed, there’s more to the story, but this is the part I needed to tell you about.  A man obsessed with money devotes himself to a training process to gain more money, discovers once he can do it that he doesn’t want the money anymore, and gives it all away.  I had to tell you about that part because the liturgical season wants me to preach about Joy today, and the lectionary gave me John the Baptist exhorting a “brood of vipers”!

You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?  This is a challenging world in which to preach joy.  For two weeks, we’ve been celebrating Advent already, trying to find hope and peace, and hearing the good news that, yes, it’s not just you, those things are hard.  And now it’s the third Sunday of Advent, when our candle is a gaudy pink, instead of somber purple, and we’re supposed to be taking a break from our solemn reflections on hope and peace and just celebrate and rejoice.  But the news hasn’t gotten any better.  Indeed, what was a border crisis two weeks ago has escalated into a matter of life-or-death, not that this was a surprise.  The peace talks for the conflict in Yemen yielded some positive agreements, but who knows if there will be substantive follow-through?  Our politicians are turning out to be crooks, and life as we know it is still threatened by climate change.  It’s no wonder John the Baptist is calling us to repent!  But joy?  How do we get to joy?  Or as John’s congregation asked “What then should we do?”  And the answer is the same.  Share.

This is how we prepare the way of the Lord.  This is how we get ready to welcome the Christ Child.  Sharing.  And that sharing, as Henry Sugar learned, will lead to joy.  The world is a mess, but just for today, we are giving ourselves permission to revel in the sharing we’ve been doing.  Just for today, we’re putting a barrier around the forces of chaos and despair, and saying, “No.  Today we will rejoice, for the Lord is near, and God’s blessings are abundant!”

There are so many examples here of people doing exactly what John the Baptist was exhorting us to do: this food up here on the chancel, the presents you all brought in for the families at the El Nido shelter, the homeless woman and her son you housed for another week.  I literally had someone who had two coats bring one of them in this week to share with our Welcome Saturday guests.  In another two weeks, we will invite in whole families who need a place to rest their heads.  These are things to celebrate!

In the face of a world that tries to tell us to just “look out for number one”, where human dignity is treated as a commodity unavailable to some and children are literally dying from lack of welcome, this church and our wider community are coming together to re-humanize ourselves and our neighbors by sharing what we have to provide for those in need.   This isn’t mere happiness; this is gaudy, defiant Joy!  This is the joy of the repentant and redeemed.  This is Henry Sugar-after-he-spent-three-years-in-focused-meditation joy.  You see, if we were to transplant Henry Sugar into the context of our story from Luke, I think we would discover that his three years and three months of training were, in a sense, a season of repentance.  He was no longer idle and without purpose.  Though in theory he was just working on a new way to cheat, he got there by honest means, through hard work and practice.  When he finally emerged, he was a different person.  That is what repentance does to us; it transforms us.  Instead of seeking cheap thrills, we come to realize that true joy lies in sharing what we have with others.  It is that joyful, life-giving generosity that we’re celebrating today.

It is true that our offerings, varied and generous though they may be, will not solve all the world’s problems.  But just as important as our sharing is this chance to take a brief break from the serious work of human dignity restoration and peacemaking to re-kindle the fires of joy.  For the forces of despair are strong, and sometimes what is most effective against them is not strategic action but celebration.  “Hard times require furious dancing” goes the proverb.

We are a beautiful brood of repentant vipers here at Vista La Mesa Christian Church.  “What then shall we do?” we asked.  And we found a dozen different answers that are all some variation on sharing, and each and every one of them sows the seeds of joy.  This is a joy that can hold its own against the horrors of a broken world.  This is a gaudy, pink joy that fits in just fine amongst Advent’s more solemn purple hope, peace and love.  This is a joy worth sharing.  Let us spread the news, like Henry Sugar tossing cash down from his balcony.  Alleluia and Amen!