Year A
 Isaiah 35:1-10
 Canticle 15
 James 5:7-10
 Matthew 11:2-11

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

When there’s going to be a space launch…  like Thursday’s Falcon 9 rocket…  which deployed an array of low-Earth orbit satellites…  there are literally hundreds…  if not thousands of variables which must be seamlessly integrated and precisely coordinated before the final countdown is given…  the first launch of the Artemis Program’s Orion rocket for example…  was scheduled for August 29th…  that launch was scrapped when it was discovered that there was a hydrogen leak…  and there are not only technical issues…  but weather-related concerns which cause other delays… like Hurricane Ian which interrupted another targeted launch window…  Artemis was finally launched on November 16…  everything must be integrated and coordinated…

And those of you who bake…  know that not every award-winning recipe turns into an award-winning dessert…  the quality of the ingredients themselves…  their temperatures…  and the order in which ingredients are combined…  whether they’re folded or stirred…  the baking time…  whether there are “hot spots” in the oven…  even altitude can inform the oven temperature and baking time…  and whether you want to serve mom’s angel food cake…  or chocolate eclairs…  or baumkuchen…  for your Christmas dessert…  everything must be integrated and coordinated…

And so rocket launches…  and baking…  and many other things which we wish to accomplish and for which we wait…  are often waiting for circumstances and conditions to come together just right…  even our reading from James this morning reminds us to be patient in waiting…  like the farmer who waits for the early and late rains…  waits for the precious crop to emerge from the earth…

John the Baptist…  emerged in the wilderness…  his was a voice crying out…  waiting for the one whose sandals he was unworthy to carry…  for the one who would baptize with Spirit and with fire…  and now…  he is silenced in prison…  he anticipated that there’d be instruments of destruction and division…  an axe…  a winnowing fork…  and fire…  and he wonders if he got it wrong…  after all…  when Jesus asks John’s disciples to tell him what they see and hear…  Jesus offers them a litany not about destruction…  but about healing and restoration and new life…  John may have been like the father (in Mark 9:24) who asked Jesus to cure his son of a spirit which would make him unable to speak…  and foam at the mouth…  and make him rigid…  and when Jesus affirmed that all things can be done for the one who believes…  the father said…  I believe…  help my unbelief…  John’s doubt may have been like this…  or it may have been like the doubts expressed by Mother Teresa…  who wrote in a letter…  My God…  I have no faith…  I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd my heart…  I am afraid to uncover them because of the blasphemy…  if there be God…  please forgive me…  John’s doubt may even have been like Jesus’…  who called out from the cross…  My God my God…  why have you forsaken me…  John’s doubt…  may be like some of ours…  we may hear John’s words as though they are ours…  and we may feel silenced by the prisons of our own doubt…  but doubt is part of the Christian experience…  and claiming joy is an antidote to doubt and despair…  it is an act of holy resistance…

Today we celebrate Gaudete Sunday… when the church lightens the mood a little…  that’s why [TC] today’s altar hangings are…  [HT] that candle on the Advent wreath is…   rose-colored…  this color offers the encouragement… the joy…  for us to continue our spiritual preparation and wait for Christmas… for the Incarnation…  and for the subsequent fulfillment of God’s will for all of creation…

And this joy is reflected… in today’s reading from Isaiah…  the created order shares in the divine glory…  and in the work of reconciliation…  a land that was scorched by the enemy in war…  even as Ukraine’s has been…  will be renewed and restored… and the people are reminded that they and the land… belong to God… the promise of divine presence means that judgment also makes room for salvation… and while several readings from Isaiah during Advent [ Isaiah 2:4 and 11:1-10 ] celebrate the coming transformations of weapons… economies… social orders… and yes, even wild animals… today’s reading announces the coming transformations of locations… emotions… and of human disabilities… it sings of liberations…  jubilant homecomings… and the end of all sorrow and sighing…

This joy is also reflected in Canticle 15…  The Song of Mary…  in its proclamations and promises about how God will deal with the proud and the mighty…  and how God will satisfy all kinds of hungers…  and remember the promise made of mercy…  and like the Song of Miriam in Exodus (15:20-21) and the Song of Hannah in 1Samuel (2:1-10)…  The Magnificat was probably well established in the community by the time Luke used it in his Gospel… and Luke’s passage also makes the earliest connection between John the Baptist and the prophetic incarnate Word who he baptized…  Jesus who invokes Isaiah’s promise…  and reassures John that God’s promises are real…  and while we too hunger for the promises of God’s justice…  we sometimes doubt their veracity…  because part of our Christian faith is doubt…

There are many things which happen fast…  like snap decisions and smart-aleck answers…  like lightning strikes…  and 5G download speeds…  fast food regardless of the quality is pretty fast…  Amazon Prime delivery is fast…  instant karma is very fast…  but some things are not…  some things take a very long time…  it takes about 230 million years for our solar system to make one revolution around our pinwheel-shaped galaxy…  and the last time we were…  where we are now…  dinosaurs were just starting to appear on the Earth…  and when you consider that it took more than 225 years for slavery in this country to be outlawed…  when you consider how many decades it took black men to be given the right to vote (1870)…  that it was fifty more years before women were given the same right (1920)…  and that it was fifty more years before women could have a credit card in their own name (1970)…  when you consider all the precedents and laws which have come to be understood as discriminatory and prejudicial…  it can come as no surprise that change takes a long time…  but it does happen…  and the fulfillment of God’s plan for all of creation…  is just…  going…  to take…  some time…

Martin Luther King, Jr. said…  Morality cannot be legislated…  but behavior can be regulated…  and while judicial decrees may not change the heart…  they can certainly restrain the heartless…  that’s partly why Congress just passed the Respect for Marriage Act…  to protect Mitch McConnell’s marriage to his Taiwanese wife Elaine…  and Justice Clarence Thomas’ marriage to his caucasian wife Virginia…  and the nearly one-million same-gender marriages in the United States…

You see…  we are all in various prisons of our own making… those of us who know it are eager to get out of them… but when we leave those constraints behind…  we must be prepared to embrace more boundlessness…  and the truth of it is hinted at in Ps. 118:5 which says… I called out to God from my narrowness… and God answered me with a vast expanse…

You see…  we were not created to be small…  and God’s diversity was never intended to be divisive…  and what we are waiting for…  is everything…  not the biggest and best and most expensive things…  and not the power to constrain…  but the power to set free…  not the authority to diminish…  but the ability to empower…  we are waiting to possess the eternal now… the Ground of Being…  and our deepest human yearning is to be like raindrops falling into the river of God…  so that we and God become indistinguishable from each other…  and what we will co-create…  is the seamless integration of God’s will for us and for all of creation…  and we will leap with joy in the womb of our confinement when this freedom is at hand…  it will take some time…  but it will be so worth the wait…