Advent 3, Yr B
December 14, 2009
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
G. Hendree Harrison, Jr

CAN I GET A WITNESS?

Last week was a dark and rainy week. For a couple of days it seemed like it would not stop raining. All that rain makes short winter days feel shorter and just a bit gloomy.
The headlines weren’t all that bright last week either. News of corrupt politicians, the continued floundering of the auto industry, and the consistently rising unemployment rate added a touch of grey to each dimly lit day. And as if the days weren’t damp enough, we sprang a leak here at the church.
That is, the roof above the hallway behind this space leaked as it rained with a persistent drip, drip, drip.
It’s Advent and so we’re supposed to wait on the light to come forth from the depths of the current darkness. But some of us grow tired of waiting. And so, we whisper the question, Where is God in all of this?
As the darkness stretches on and the dripping water builds and builds into a stream of water running through the roof, we raise our voices to a crying groan, Where is God in this wet and darkness?
And finally, as the days grow shorter and darker, we shout, Where is God in all of this!?
For an answer we turn to the scriptures.
This morning’s piece is from the gospel account of John. Our passage is from the first chapter and it begins with a couple of simple sentences about another John, not the gospel writer.
You know him as John the Baptist. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light. He told everyone who would listen The light is coming into our dark world.
You know John’s Gospel.
John has a beautiful and difficult, poetic way with words. His is the gospel that begins- In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
But you know, of all the strange and wonderful sentences, and themes in this first chapter the bit that really strikes me on this Third Sunday of Advent is that simple line – There was man named John; he came as a witness.
We need a witness.
I want a witness.
We want to know, is there a witness to God’s presence or God’s coming presence like John out there, who will testify to us that God has been here, that God is here, that God will be here as a light in our darkness?
Watch what you pray for.
A witness came by the church last week. Some of us have joked that our parish is becoming like a downtown church. What we mean by that is that we have a steady and diverse stream of people coming and going from here most all of the time.
We have gotten a reputation around town for our outreach efforts, so we have a growing crowd who come by the church for help. In addition, you all come by to see what’s going on, and to participate in what’s going on.
I mean to say that all sorts of people come in off the streets looking for something at our church, which is good.
Last week a man came in off the street to see me for help with his rent. I’ll call him John. He was in a tight spot.
He said, “Man, anything you can do to get my landlord off my back, 20 dollars, whatever.” We had a lot going on when he came by so I had to ask him to wait.
“Let me see what I’ve got”, I said, “I’ll be right back with you.”
So he waited in the parish hall, outside of my office, by the Christmas tree. I wrapped up what I was doing and checked our funds to see what I could do for John. Then, I made out a very modest check from my discretionary account, and I came out of my office to tell him that I would mail the money to his landlord that afternoon. As I approached him, I noticed he was holding something in his hand. As I got closer, I saw that it was an ornament tag off of our Christmas tree.
Now, most of you know that our Christmas outreach project was making gift bags for some needy senior citizens in our community.
Our Christmas tree was decorated with ornament tags, each of which had the name of one of the recipients of our project on it.
We all took tags and bought gifts for the person on our tag.
John took a tag too.
John, who was here to see me hoping for any measly bit I could offer to help on his rent, had taken a tag! The tag had the name Carl on it.
So, being the broken human creature I am, in the middle of a grey week, I immediately thought, Oh great, John has Carl’s tag and there is no way he is going to be able to get a gift for Carl much less, get a gift and bring it back by the due date, wrapped and ready to give!
I said, “What have you got there?”
John said, “Oh this, I thought I would get this old guy, Carl, a little something.”
I said casually, “Cool, thanks man.”
And I made anxious mental note, okay he’s got Carl’s tag, when he leaves I’ll write that down and ask Kim and Becky if we can get another ornament tag for Carl because John is not going to bring a gift back!
As I scribbled that worried note in my mind another thought occurred to me. It was fleeting thought, Maybe he will. Who knows, maybe he will bring a gift.
John turned to go. He wore heavy winter work clothes and steeltoed boots. As he opened the door to outside he closed his jacket and braced against the cold wind that whipped up the street. He stepped off the front porch of the parish hall, and he was gone. I went back to work and quickly became immersed in other things. I all but forgot about John and Carl’s ornament tag.
On the day the gift bags were due back at the church I forgot to bring my bag. Several others of you were a bit late with your gifts too, and you called the office and asked if you could bring it in the next day.
We said, “Oh yeah sure, I don’t think they’re picking them up until tomorrow.”
Late in the day I was here alone. I was working in my office. I was sort of lost in what I was doing when I heard the parish hall door open. I got up from my desk to see who was here.
It was John. He poked his head in the door. He had a thick sweatshirt on with the hood pulled over his head.
“Hey preacher,” he said, “I got that guy, Carl, a little gift.”
I said, “Well come on in, thanks, put it under the tree.”
He said, “Sure”.
And he walked across the parish hall over to the tree. And he put his gift deep under the tree, behind all the other big gift bags, up near the trunk.
And he said, “Take it easy man, I gotta go hunt me a job.”
He turned to go, and I thought surely before he got out the door he would ask me for some more help with something.
But he didn’t turn around. He hit the door, and he hit the street. Gone.
I went to the tree and dug his gift out from under the tree. It was small, wrapped in newsprint and duct tape - for Carl. And he brought it in right on time, before I managed to get mine in.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. And he came as a witness, to testify to the light that is coming, even now, into the dark, wet world.
I don’t guess I know definitively if John’s gift for Carl is a sign from God. But it sure feels like it. It feels like a subtle, or maybe not so subtle, witness to some ray of God’s hope breaking into the bleak cold winter.
Funny, I don’t know if John knows what he did. I don’t know if John knows that he came to our church as a witness to God’s presence in our world. I don’t know if John knows that God used him as a witness.
I do know this: he makes me want to be a witness to the light. I mean, if John, with no job and few prospects, can wrap up a simple gift for Carl, what can I do?
What can we do?
God is coming into our messy world. I believe that. I think maybe we are in the middle of some kind of reformation, or some measure of restoration. I wonder, is something new going to rise up out of the ashes of these burned, hard times?
I think maybe we should look more and more for strange signs and witnesses to whip in off the streets, blown our way by the wind and maybe--sent from God.
We should also, likely, look more and more to be witnesses out in the broken world to the light we find.
All is not lost. Hope is not gone. The darkness will not overcome. There is light in this world. The light is of God. The light is God.
Can I get a witness?
Amen.