December 22, 2024
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus
“Draw Near to Justice”
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
December 22, 2024 Based on Luke 3:1-8
I’ll admit it: I usually struggle with passages like this one, not because of John and justice part, I love that bit of it though of course the brood of viper/repent is a bit too fire and brimstone for me. No, it’s the long lists of names and titles at the beginning. I usually just skip that part when planning for worship, choose not to have it included at all. It’s because normally when reading a passage like this my ADD kicks in, and my mind starts wandering. But this year, for whatever reason, I read this passage, and something about it struck me.
I thought … why is Luke choosing to start the chapter like this? By rattling off all these names? And then I realized who these names were. These are all the big shots of the time, leaders at the center of power and authority. There's Tiberius Caesar, the emperor of the entire Roman empire! Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the whole region, Herod, and his brother Philip and then Lysanias who were the local ethnic leaders of Judea and its surrounding regions, and then Annas, and Caiaphas the high priests who had all of the religious authority for the Jews. These were the people with power. These were the ones running the show, the ones you’d expect to be at the center of all the action. But then Luke flips the script. After naming all the people in authority Luke says The Word of God doesn’t come to any of them. Instead It comes to John, a no-name fringe prophet, living way out in the wilderness, far from the halls of influence and authority.
It would be like saying "In the days when Antonio Guterres was chancellor of the UN, and Francis was pope, and Joe Biden was president, Dewine was governor, Ginther was mayor, God's word came to a guy named Juan in Whitehall.
Luke is making a bold statement: God’s word, God's authority, God's Justice doesn’t dwell where the world places power, justice, and authority. It doesn’t show up where we expect it. It lives in the margins, in the places people consider too wild to live, God dwells in the lives of those who have been overlooked. And friends, that is good news.
Let’s sit with this for a moment. When we think about where God’s Word might show up, we might picture grand cathedrals, respected leaders, or polished sermons. But Luke reminds us that God can most often be found moving in the overlooked, the rough-edged, the messy. God’s word takes root in wilderness spaces, in forgotten corners, in the lives of people who are dismissed or ignored.
This reminds me of Father Greg Boyle, a priest, writer and speaker, but who is mostly known as the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, which is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry
program in the world. For over 30 years, they've provided training and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of their community. Greg Boyle has spent decades walking alongside gang members. He often talks about going to the margins of society—not to rescue or fix people, but to let them transform us. He says, “You go to the margins not to make a difference there, because then that’s about you. You go to the margins so that you can learn from the folks at the margins, you go because going there makes you different.”
John the Baptist is a voice from the margins. He’s not polished or conventional, and he doesn’t hold back. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he says. Don’t rely on your status or your family name. Live in a way that reflects God’s justice. John’s words are sharp, but they’re not meant to wound—they’re meant to wake us up, to call us into transformation, both as individuals and as a community.
Father Boyle often tells a story about Mario, a former gang member covered in tattoos. He says whenever he goes somewhere with Mario, people stare or try to cross the street because he just looks so rough. Father Boyle once took Mario with him to speak to a conference of a thousand people, and Mario shared his story in front of an audience. About what life was like on the street, and how he found homeboy industries and left gang life, and how he now works in the bakery there, earning a living feeding his community, and baking bread.
Mario shares all this not as you might expect a former gang member--with confidence and swagger, but trembling and unsure of himself. After they finished sharing during the Q&A that followed the first person to ask a question asked it of Mario. She asked what he hoped for his kids. He came to the microphone and got choked up, he was crying and had to take a moment away from the microphone. Once he gathered himself, he answered through a cracking voice, “I just don’t want my kids to turn out like me.”
The room went silent until the woman said, “Why wouldn’t you want your kids to turn out like you? You are loving, you are kind, you are gentle.” The room erupted in applause, and in that moment, Mario was returned to himself, and the audience was returned to their humanity.
This is a story of solidarity and kinship for the world, I think. It’s a vision of what God hopes for us in the world. God's word dwelling in the heart of a reformed gang member from the streets of LA, him speaking out and sharing his story to a community of privileged people who are transformed by his life and story. And they in turn help him to see the beauty in his soul. It’s a vision of what God's justice calls us to do, to go to the margins not to minister to, or change the margins, but because God's word dwells in the margins, and if we want to be in relationship with God, that is where we too need to dwell.
In this Advent season, as we prepare for Christ’s coming, we’re also preparing for the coming of God’s reign of justice. And that justice asks us to take a step toward the wilderness. It asks us to listen to voices we might have overlooked. It asks us to be changed.
This is how Greg Boyle Describes it, he says:
"You know, this is how Martin Luther King Jr describes the church" He says ‘It's not the place you've come to, it's the place you go from’, and you go from here to create a community of kinship such that, God in fact, might recognize it. In fact, that is God's dream come true. A community where there is no us and them, just us. And you imagine with God a circle of compassion, and then you imagine nobody standing outside that circle, because you know that God does not share in the demonizing and othering in which we all engage in.
And so, you choose to go from here, and you dismantle the barriers that exclude, and you go out to the margins, because that's the only way they'll get erased, if you stand out at them, and you stand with the poor, and the powerless, and the voiceless, and you stand with those whose dignity has been denied, and you stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear.
You go from here to stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop, and you stand with the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.
For no kinship, no peace, no kinship, no justice, no kinship, no equality. You go to the margins not to make a difference, because then that's about you. You go to the margin so that the folks at the margins make you different."
Friends, God’s Word still dwells in the wilderness places. It is there where God's vision of justice is still crying out. It’s still speaking through the voices of those on the margins. And like John, those voices are calling us to draw near to justice—not the kind that maintains the status quo, but the kind that turns the world upside down. The kind that makes the crooked paths straight and the rough places smooth.
Friends, in these final days of advent, let’s aim to draw near to justice. Let’s look for the wilderness spaces in our lives and listen for God’s Word there. Let’s go to the margins, not to fix, but to be transformed. Let’s imagine with God a world where no one stands outside the circle of compassion. And as we prepare the way for the One who is coming to be born in the margins. May we be people who move away from the center to find and be transformed by God's word.
May it be so.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
One: This is the day that the Lord has made
All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
POECTIC READING AND CANDLE LIGHTING
“Draw Near to Justice” by Rev. Sarah Are Speed
*HYMN 88 “O Come, O come Emmanuel” Vs 1 and 7 VENI EMMANUEL
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION Mike Ayers
God of the wilderness, we confess that we have strayed from your path. We have looked for you and your word in the seats of power and in elite communities of privilege, and in the process have missed the voices of those on the margins. Forgive us, O God. Help us to “repent,” help us to turn our lives around and get back on your path. Prepare our hearts and our lives for your coming that we might live as people of your justice and peace. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
*CONFESSIONAL RESPONSE “Lift up Your Heads” vs 3 TRURO
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
*RESPONSE OF PRAISE “Lift up Your Heads” vs 1 TRURO
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM “Creator of the Stars of Night” Plainchant
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
SCRIPTURE Luke 3:1-8
In the fifteenth year of the rule of the emperor Tiberius—when Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea and Herod was ruler over Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler over Ituraea and
Trachonitis, and Lysanias was rule over Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—God’s word came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. John went throughout the region of the Jordan River, calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. This is just as it was written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
A voice crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make his paths straight.
Every valley will be filled,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled.
The crooked will be made straight
and the rough places made smooth.
All humanity will see God’s salvation.”
Then John said to the crowds who came to be baptized by him, “You children of snakes! Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon? Produce fruit that shows you have changed your hearts and lives.
Holy Wisdom, Holy Word
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Marie Boozer
SERMON Rev. Trip Porch
*HYMN 163 “Wild and Lone the Prophet’s Voice” ABERYSTWYTH
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE followed by the Lord’s Prayer as printed on screen
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www. indianolapres.org/give
OFFERTORY
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 79 “Light Dawns On a Weary World” vs 2 TEMPLE OF PEACE
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
God of abundance, we dedicate these gifts to your work in the world. Use them to lift up the lowly, feed the hungry, and bring your justice to life. Transform our offerings—and us—into signs of your coming kingdom. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
*HYMN 87 “Comfort, Comfort Now My People” GENEVAN 42
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE & BENEDICTION
CHORAL RESPONSE “May the Love of the Lord” Swee Hong Lim
POSTLUDE