“Changing Perspective” 

12/10/06 Rev. Dr. Jon Smoot

 

Here we are - stringing up the Christmas lights, knockin’ around the Christmas Tree, having a jolly holiday, getting ready for the parties and festive cheer – and here comes John the Baptist, fresh out of the desert, smelly, long-haired, looking for all the world like some god-forsaken hippie; shouting: “Repent, get ready for God’s reign, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins!” How many Christmas cards have you received, depicting John the Baptist, and inside the message reads: “Our thoughts and feelings toward you this season are best expressed in John the Baptist’s words: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come? Turn on burn!’ Merry Christmas y’all.’”

 

Friends, this Advent, let’s not miss what John is saying: Change your perspective; from the way things are, to what they shall be, and act upon it. We Advent Christians are not just preparing for the incarnation of God in this season. If we rush to concentrate on the Christmas baby, we risk wallowing this season in empty sentimentality devoid of awe. We cannot first speak about the love that comes down at Christmas without remembering that this unearthly love also comes down with great expectations for us. John and Jesus are the last in a long line of prophets who preached, warned, and invited: “Get your house in order. Remove all impediments to the coming of God in your life. Look for ways to prepare ye the way of the Lord – in your personal life and in your life as a citizen of God’s world.”

 

Change your perspective from the way things are, to what they shall be, and act upon it.

What would happen if we were to switch off the auto-pilot treatment with which we usually travel through Advent and Christmas-tide? Most years we trade in awareness of God’s coming in the stealth of night for a more familiar friendly Spirit of Christmas best picked-up at Best Buy and Total Wine.

 

But what if it is true – that God has come, and is coming, and nothing in our lives and the life of the world can ever be the same again? How differently would we look at our lives and the world’s life if we changed our expectation of the way that God works? What if God’s reality were to break in on our stunted imaginations and our limited sight and hopes?

 

At the height of apartheid, while President Mandela was still prisoner Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, stood one afternoon in front of the South African Embassy just a handful of miles from here and challenged those within through a bullhorn: “Thos of you inside, are you listening? Do you hear me? You have already been defeated. Do you understand that? You have already lost, and we on the outside have won. Out here, we know how this struggle for black freedom and liberation will turn out, for God is on the side of the oppressed. It is not, ‘we shall win.’ Oh no! We have already won! Only you on the onside have not yet realized it. We outsiders have, and we know the future. We are the future!”

 

This is the Advent attitude: Changing our expectations of the way that God works, and then acting upon it. Easier said than done. Changing our expectations of the way God works means developing a faithful imagination, which is the greatest conversion in the Christian Life.   

 

Preacher and writer Barbara Brown Taylor gives us this illustration for faithful imagination: “Scientists have devised a game that proves how hard it is for us to notice something when we are expecting something else. Here is how it goes: They sit you down at a table in front of an ordinary deck of cards and they flash six of them at you, asking you to identify them as fast as you can – 9 of diamonds, 3 of hearts, jack of clubs – whoops! What was that one? Then they repeat the exercise, the six cards again, slowing it down a little so that you can get the ones you missed the first time. The third time is so slow that you think you must be a complete idiot because there is one card you simply cannot identify. You think you know what it is, but you are not sure, and it is not until the cards are all laid face up on the table in front of you that you can see what the problem is.

 

The mystery card is a 6 of spades, only it is red, not black. The deck has been fixed. Someone has changed the rules, rules that prevented you from seeing what was there. You could not see a red spade, because spades are supposed to be black. The lesson? Expect God to show up, but not always according to our rules. God does not operate by our rules. You never know when God will slip a wild card into the deck. What if God’s hand is all wild cards, including some greens and blues?”

 

You see, changing our expectation of the way God works means developing a faithful imagination. A faith-full imagination can see God’s ever-near reality breaking into our everyday lives.  Expectantly imagine God at work interrupting the way things are: Whether it’s Mandela exchanging his prisoner’s clothes for a Presidential wardrobe; a drug-riddle child breaking into emancipation; or a diagnosis of cancer opening up into an opportunity for grace.

 

Don’t let a little thing like God’s timing throw you off. God’s coming in Jesus is an event that shatters our time sequences and blows open our imaginations so that we find ourselves remembering tomorrow and looking forward to yesterday. Faithful imagination is the changed perspective that will save us, and save our world. This is where we are called to be in Advent. With changed perspectives and faithful imaginations and rolled-up sleeves – alert to the interruptions when they present themselves. Alert to the persons God brings across your path, alert to the changes in your life, alert to the material needs of people – alert to world events, praying strongly always and acting boldly where you can for God’s sake.

 

The Lord is near – thanks be to God. Amen.