"Wash Your Hands, Buddy!"

 Advent II

“Wash Your Hands, Buddy”

If I heard that once I heard it a thousand times. When I was a boy, my grandmother insisted that we take our shoes and boots off in the mud room before we even came into the house. I can remember standing on a milk crate so that I could wash my hands with a scrub brush, soap and water and “scrub to the bone” as she put it, all the while her eyes twinkling with a severe kind of love that tickled me. 

She was in earnest, I must add. She had survived the Influenza Epidemic, a scourge that hit densely populated areas of Somerville and Boston especially hard. She had a healthy respect for cleanliness, which she regarded as next to Godliness. “God knows what kind of germs you’re bringing into this house after your’ve been out there playing in the dirt with all your friends!” And in our neighborhood we had a bountiful supply of friends. 

Then there was that time I got sick and Dr Hodos came to the house. They were afraid I might have polio but my leg moved when he struck my knee with a reflex hammer. The pronouncement followed, its just the flu. When Jonas Salk came up with the polio vaccine, I remember lining up in school with all the others to receive my shot. 

It was a different world then. We seemed to be more of one mind. We respected those in authority. The social fabric we lived in was more interwoven with mutual regard and respect, beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower all the way down. 

So long as you were of European origin, sad to say. In Somerville there were the Irish Catholics, the Italian, the French and the Portuguese and of course there were some Protestants each with their own churches.

But at that time, little did we know, recognize or understand of our nation’s history with racism. We knew of all the Native American place names where we lived and even what they meant, but as to the people who were systemically eradicated by our ancestors, we had very little knowledge. I must confess that it is not until recent years, especially during our time with COVID that I’ve had time to read up on our history. At long last many of us have just begun to scratch the surface of that side of our history.

The Scripture says that God will send his messengers the prophets ahead to prepare the way of the Lord. For he is like a refiner’s fire and a fuller’s soap “and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver”.

Our history is soiled with the stain of many sins. But history is not intended to be a witness against us as a source of guilt. Rather as we embrace our history God seeks to purify us and to make PEACE within our souls. God seeks a way for us to be reconciled with one another. When you lit this second candle today on our Advent wreath you proclaimed God’s PEACE within your spirits. And God will purify us.

Last week we lit the candle of HOPE, this week the candle of PEACE, and next week the candle of JOY. 

Like my grandmother, the messengers of God, the prophets and John the Baptist can be rather severe in their warnings to repent, but this kind of repentance is of the sort that makes our whole lives possible. The purpose of all our elders’ admonitions is to bring us life and to bring us life in all of its abundance. The dangers of physical disease or the diseases of the human heart and soul are real. They can impair, stain or even destroy us. 

But from generation to generation we learn and learn again the ancient lessons even though we do not always want to heed their warnings at the time. But it is the intention of the Gospel that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

One of my favorite oratorios is from Handel’s Advent Portion of the Messiah. By the way that was our very first date. I took Cindy to Symphony Hall on December the 8th in 1978 for a performance of Handel and Haydn Society’s Messiah. We heard these magnificent words sung as they have been sung for hundreds of years and read as they have been read for thousands of years before. 

“Comfort ye

Comfort ye my people

Saith your God

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem

And cry unto her

That her warfare is accomplished

That her iniquity is pardoned

The voice of Him

That crieth in the wilderness

Prepare ye the way of the Lord

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.”

That highway is paved within us, among us, and heavenward to God. The messengers of God have said so.

And continuing from the Prophet Isaiah quoted in today’s Gospel the theme continues; 

“Every valley shall be exalted, 

and every mountain and hill shall be made low, 

and the crooked shall be made straight, 

and the rough ways made smooth; 

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’

Please note the great joy embedded within these words. I did not particularly enjoy scrubbing my hands to the bone with the bristles of a brush and Ivory Soap, nor do we like wearing a mask, social distancing and curtailing our exposure to indoor gatherings.

But I can still see my grandmother’s eyes twinkling with delight from heaven because she knows her grandson is still witnessing to the Gospel long after his first 8 attempts at retirement.

What Joy there is in heaven and on earth as we seek to fulfill the Gospel words from today’s Epistle. “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

So then Ma, I’ll wash my hands, I’ll wear my mask, I’ll avoid large indoor gatherings, I’ll get my shots and my booster, and we’ll laugh our way on towards Heaven’s Gate with the PEACE of God woven into all our hearts. 

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided, and Everlasting Trinity.  Amen. 

Fr Paul

(Today’s sermon is based on the Scriptures below. I have highlighted those portions that speak to my heart and resonate within my spirit.)

Collect

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Lesson: Malachi 3:1-4

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Gospel: Luke 3:1-6

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”