Advent and the I-35 Express!

Text:  Luke 3:1-6

Theme:  “Advent and the I-35 Express”

Second Sunday of Advent

December 6, 2015

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.

5

Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

the rough ways smooth.

6

And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

It’s a bit of challenge getting into church what with the pylons and roadwork here on University Drive.  To say it’s a bit of a nuisance is to put it mildly.  My brother-in-law’s company, Jagoe Public, is big into this particular project, yet they are rather “mum” on a completion date.  A report from about a year ago revealed that nothing was scheduled, in the city of Denton roadwork project (different from I-35 Express), for Hinkle Drive; there was something about the soil underneath the asphalt and the infrastructure that had to be dealt with first.  Meanwhile, we drive up and down Hinkle and our teeth chatter as we hit the blips and bumps on the aging surface.  I wish I had better news for you on that front. 

This past Tuesday was quite informative.  I sat in the morning Rotary meeting at Oakmont Country Club in Corinth.  The representative from the “I35 Express” project was on hand – complete with a PowerPoint presentation that seemed up to date.   We were briefed on the progress made so far on this massive expansion project, 28 miles in all, from University Drive here in town all the way down south to 635.  The project is in two phases.  First phase is set to be complete in 2017. In addition, it is paid for – or, at least, the money is accounted for.  Phase II, however, well, they don’t the accounting – or the money, I should say – for that.  It’s a 3.5 billion dollar price tag.  Total price is five billion and some change.

Now we throw the Bucee’s convenience store – with, reportedly, 95 gas pumps, into the conversation.   Supporters had their Bucee’s t-shirts on at City Council last week.  Proposed site is there just south of I35 and Loop 288.  One councilman whose business has interest in the potential Bucee’s property recused himself from the discussion.  Then, in an “11^th hour” change of heart, he went ahead and voted for it anyway while giving his word that he would not a make a cent of personal profit on the effort.  Uh huh. 

Meanwhile, back at Oakmont on Tuesday, I-35 Express as it relates to Bucee’s was discussed.  Then we turned to the I-35/Loop 288 interchange.  That’s slated for Phase II (unfunded), and Bucee’s won’t pull the trigger until that bridge/overpass is done.  Well, that throws everything into a tizzy, doesn’t it?  A city manager-type that I know acknowledged that big brother was watching us – or, at least, our traffic patterns – with all these cords stretched across our neighborhood roads; they want to see what routes we are taking.  Hopefully, they’re just planning ahead. 

I sat there thinking to myself:  “This all had to be done eventually; it was not a matter of if but of when.  You can only patch things up for so long.  Roads crumble; bridges become unstable.  The sheer number of cars that motor over these interstates, exchanges, and overpasses has taken quantum leaps.  Without change, we won’t be able to handle change.

When word came to John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, he thought nothing of profit and did not recuse himself.  The word of God came to him, and he began the project.  It was Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, who had the original engineering blueprint and plan.  But now the time had come to start the word work: 

Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.  Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.  The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.  And all people will see God’s salvation.

All the things, the old worn out things, patched up over time but ultimately crumbling down, will be removed so that the Lord, the bringer of salvation, has safe and easy access to you and me.  His plan countenances no detours, no pylons, no side streets.  His road is smooth and direct.  It comes straight to us, for He is our Immanuel (which means “God with us”). 

Practically speaking, it was not a bond issue that ties us in to the project.  It was what John preached:  a baptism of repentance toward the forgiveness of sins.  Those old, well traveled, worn out, crumbling down ideas about God are washed away.  Something – someone! – new is on the horizon.  Minds are changed; that’s what repentance means.  And what of the forgiveness of sins?  No longer would it be transaction after transaction after transaction  -- our bloody sacrifices of animals in return for ritual purity. 

John the Baptist’s message did not trumpet forth from the warm confines of a synagogue or church closeted behind closed doors.  He was out there!  He was in the wilderness.  His word from God drew all kinds of crowds, and His word hit home.

I remember my wilderness times, as I call them.  I was “in-between” my pastoral work (which began in the Lutheran tradition and is now, happily, in the PCUSA.  I met fellow travelers, trying to recover from alcohol and drug addiction, who grew up like I did.  They had a staunch if not strict religious background.  They tried to follow it.  God was this invisible, all-powerful being who would punish you if you did wrong and bless you if you did right.  The standards were set high; they couldn’t keep up.  Some rebelled and gave up on God, faith, and/or spirituality altogether – as many in the young millennial generation have done too.   As it usually happens, something can come in to fill the void – it can be a drug, or a drink, or a relationship, or, as we’ve seen in other countries and our own, a radicalization into violence.  I’ve known friends; I have friends who have known from the start that God made them, but they are wired differently sexually.  Because of a strict, fundamentalist, inerrantist view of Scripture, some of them have been shunned from the church – and their own families.

I’ve seen people tossed around over and over again in a world that seeks to “identify”, profile, and even judge them by way of race, gender, income, religion, ideology, politics, mental condition, by what their peers think, by whether or not they have tattoos, by what kinds of clothes and jewelry they wear, AND who they are drawn to love.    They are so “identified” that they n longer know who they are, how to make their way in this crowded and conflicted world, or find the next worn out detour they’ll be forced to take.  Maybe they were told once but it has long since been forgotten; maybe they were never told at all.

THE WORLD DOESN’T IDENTIFY AND DEFINE YOU.  GOD MADE YOU; GOD LOVES YOU; GOD IDENTIFIES YOU AS HIS CHILD AND THE APPLE OF HIS EYE.

My brothers and sisters, I love Advent and I love Christmas.  Lord willing, I always have and always will.  I also love the church; I love this congregation through which God called me back to ordained ministry.  I also love the Protestant, reformed, and mainline tradition. But love can hurt; it hurts as bad as it does because we’re dying.

There were times when this church was pretty packed on Sunday mornings.  The same was true with many of the mainline churches.  But that is no longer the case; to carry the analogy through, the old “infrastructure” has crumbled down. 

Certainly, one option would be to simply blend in with the Americanized version of “Evangelical” Christianity that is so much in vogue today.  I suppose there is safety in numbers, in a certain kind of anonymity and conformity, and so forth. The transaction would be relatively easy – and some have made it. 

There is another option, but it is more difficult.  That is, for our church and for those like us in the PCUSA, to take the “road less traveled by” as the poet Robert Frost put it, to be a “John the Baptist” kind of church, an “Advent” kind of church. 

With this option, we are a wilderness church, a prophetic church, a church that is down for changing the infrastructure and rebuilding the spiritual and moral pathways. It’s a church that offers an
I35 Express, if you will, for the ravaged human soul.

We’ve known the detours and the hurt; we’re not going to go that path anymore.  We’re not going to see religion as one transaction after transaction that aims to make us more ritually or ethically pure than the next person.

We are here, like John the Baptist, to share with everyone that minds can change, that forgiveness is a gift and not an earned commodity. 

We can do our part not to prepare ourselves but to prepare the way for the Lord, to make sure His paths are straight, to fill in the valleys, bring down the mountain, smooth out the rough places.

Why?

So that, as the ancient prophecy and road plan said, “all people will see God’s salvation.”

Choose wisely and travel bravely, dear church – through Advent, Christmas, and in all your days to come.

Amen.