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.’“
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The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) along with Jet Propulsion Laboratories and some partners from other countries have been working, working, working to find a way out for a little Mars rover named Spirit stuck for over six months now in an area on Mars where the ground is made up of very fine sand.

Spirit’s six wheels cannot seem to get the traction needed to move forward. Teams here on earth are working with sample rovers in artificially created environments trying to recreate the actual conditions on Mars in order to find the perfect solution to the problem. Some of the attempts range from trying various wheel directions and speeds, to having Spirit try to dig itself out with its robotic arms.

Just before the Thanksgiving Day weekend, Spirit was commanded to move its wheels forward. Based on the command, the rover should have completed a 13 foot spin.
The rover, however, actually only moved 0.2 inches forward, 0.1 inches to the left, and….. 0.1 inches further down into the sand.

It apparently doesn’t matter what planet we’re on or what century we live in: we human beings have always and will always find ways to get ourselves stuck. We will find ways for our best efforts and our very selves to get mired down, to be unable to get the traction we need to move forward down the valleys and up the hills of our complicated and demanding lives.

The experience of being stuck is what John the Baptist is speaking to as he stands in the sandy Judean desert as he proclaims a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, drawing on the earlier words of the prophet Isaiah:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, (John says)
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.”

John is speaking to a people who were stuck—stuck in political, social and religious systems which sharply delineated insiders and outsiders and treated them accordingly, but especially in the Gospel of Luke, stuck in whatever mental paradigm and attendant behavior kept the people from the fullness of a life grounded in God.

John’s message is one of repentance. For Luke, “repentance” a word meaning a “mind change,” an alteration to our way of seeing things, was an important precursor to fullness of life grounded in God. This was because Luke’s vision of life in God was a communal one, one in which all people were included, even those one would never dream of including. Repentance, therefore, (to Luke) was essential in that people would need a mind change to become “unstuck” from their old, limiting prejudices about those other people., the ones God now expected them to live with in community.

For us these many years later, the idea of repentance is still important. Whether it has to do with who or what is acceptable to us or whether it has to do with any number of things that keep us stuck and spinning our wheels, it does seem that it often takes a mind change, a shift in the way we see things for us to get on a path of forward motion and for us to become more of the person God has created us to be. (And what I’ve noticed is that
being more of who we were created to be often goes with our being in closer relationships to those God has given us to live and work with.)

Where are you stuck and spinning your wheels? What change of mind, what shift in perspective wants to get through to you and be yours? What assumptions do you have about the way things have to be that contribute to your being stuck and spinning your wheels? What alien assumptions or questions, what unacceptable ideas or ways of being want to come to you, bringing with them a possible change in your mind?

What would it mean for your mind to change? What fullness of life awaits you? What ways of responding or behaving might come out of this change of mind? What fullness might it bring to your life and to the lives of others?

This morning we have a mind change in our midst along with a hint of the fullness of life it can bring. Our deacon, Richard Buhrer, who has been at St. Paul’s for seven years, is leaving us today. This has come about through some tumultuous events. Many months ago Richard lost his job at the VA where he had served 21 of the last 25 years in just about every nursing job one could serve. Over that last years there, Richard served both as a nurse practitioner and a consulting nurse helping patients manage their care in a more arms; length kind of way and keeping statistics that would assist in implementing systemic changes in the care provided at the VA. After many months of unemployment, Richard was hired as night charge nurse at Bailey-Boushay House, a residential facility for those living with and dying from AIDs as well as other life-threatening and life-ending diseases. In this job, Richard gives more direct care to those who need it most. He’s also daily in the midst of the dying.

All of this has brought about something of a mind change in Richard. He’s lighter, more connected to himself, more at peace. And, of course, such a mind change doesn’t stay put. It led to conversations with our Bishop that finally led to Richard’s own conclusion that it’s time to move to another parish, a place of new relationships, new expectations, new questions, new demands, new levels of intimacy and new joys

And so while we’re sad to say goodbye, here on the second Sunday of Advent what we get to witness and to celebrate in Richard’s choice is his an our own contribution to the ongoing dynamic of repentance and redirection toward fullness of life that God delights in and that Advent is all about. For Advent is not just about a season of the Church, about candles and greens and the holy excitement of the birth it heralds, it is about God always and forever working through the upsetting, the enlightening, the confounding repentances of our lives, all of which prepare the way for the fullness of life we are meant to have individually and collectively.

But there’s more. The only thing that has troubles me about the idea of being stuck and having a mind change and by the grace of God getting unstuck is that it has seemed so linear, so before and after as if God only shows up once we “get it.” Late last night, I went back to the website to have a look at the progress that the Mars rover named Spirit is making on getting unstuck. Much to my surprise this headline is what I read: “Sandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery.” The new article described that fact that in the spinning of Spirit’s wheels something important had happened. The wheels had broken through a crust on the surface of the Mars, allowing scientists to make an important discovery in the disturbed soil. The soil, they found, contained minerals that helped to elucidate the presence of water on Mars and the possibility of conditions there that may have been hospitable to life.

For me, not a scientist, and only a theologian on a good day, this was somehow heartening and connected to some of the best news of all in this season of Advent. Even before that change of mind that Luke calls repentance, even as we sit stuck and spinning our wheels, somehow God is with us, with us in our learning and our frustrations, with us in the darkness of our not knowing, with us in our waiting and our hoping, with us in the very ground beneath our feet. God is with us.

Works Cited or Consulted

Faith Lens, A Blog sponsored by the ELCA: December 2009. Description of the rover predicament with its link to the gospel reading paraphrased and at some points taken word for word from their posting.

For the information on Spirit making a big discover go to: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/02dec_troy.htm?list46156

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