THE WORLD IS FLAT
Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 3:1-6
A Communion Meditation for the First Sunday in Advent
As most of you already know, I am a notorious thief when it comes to writing sermons, and most especially sermon titles. But, I claim to be an honest thief (perhaps an oxymoron)--giving credit to those from whom I steal. So once again, I stole today's communion meditation title; it's from a book I started reading recently, Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. It's a book about globalization. How the world marketplace--a world in which accountants in India can now do the tax returns of Americans--has become "flat"; has become now something of a level playing field. I think it's a very interesting book--and I do think that we can't really understand our present world without understanding these great social and economic and technological forces in play among us that are, in essence, "shrinking" and "flattening" the world.
And so as I was reading Mr. Friedman's reflections, it was funny then to read this text from Luke, this story about John the Baptist crying out there in the wilderness, making a claim for another kind of "flat world" that is coming into being: a claim that somehow, something was coming into the world through which mountains will be leveled, valleys exalted and rough places made smooth. What then do we make of this kind of "flat" world that John the Baptist was announcing?
First, this text from Luke invites us to examine how our world looks in light of that topographical metaphor; we are, I think, invited also to look at ourselves, and where we might be standing on the bas-relief of this shrinking globe. Because if we look out there, we do not see a flat world. We do see ourselves somewhere on a social map in which some are above, and some are below. We see a world in which some claim that there is perhaps now the greatest disparity between rich and poor in the history of the world.
Luke invites us to look at this topographical context in the very beginning of today's passage in the way he introduces it; this is a kind of socio-political topography at the beginning of the passage. Listen to how it begins (and I hope you're impressed too with my powers of pronunciation):
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.
Here's how it might sound in today's language, in the context of our own place and time:
In the 6th year of the presidency of George W. Bush, when Condoleeza Rice was Secretary of State and John Corzine the Governor of New Jersey, and Benedict was the Pope, the word of God came to John Smith in Jersey City.
See how the world appears there? It's not a flat world! He sets the context with reference to people who ostensibly moved the world in John's time; the people in charge. It was a standard technique in Greek historiography to set the story in time by reference to a famous person1 --but for Luke I think it's more than that. In the topography of his world, these were the people who literally could create mountains for themselves.
One of the things that was really interesting to me during our recent visit to the Holy Land this past month was to actually see the geography and topography of the land. It really does help immeasurably to understand the biblical text when you see the land where the story takes place. And most interesting to me was seeing some of the architectural legacies left behind by Herod the Great. When you see them, you realize they didn't call him "the Great" for nothing. We saw a site called the Herodion--a place where Herod the Great literally built a mountain for himself. He took a hill and used slaves to turn it into a mountain. And at the top of the mountain, he built a palace for himself, a summer retreat. (One of the reasons for this was also security--Herod the Great was constantly in fear, because of the cruelty he used to stay in power.)
And you look at that thing, that mountain, the huge monument to a human ego that is; how Herod put a hot tub up there--just because he could--when people below could barely find enough water to subsist on. That's the kind of topography we're talking about in that time.
And so then, picture John there below, crying out in the wilderness. Maybe we can imagine him looking up at that mountain.
You know, if we were to play around with these words from Isaiah that John is crying out, if we were to just have a little fun with what they really mean in John's context, here's another rendering of it:
Get ready for what's coming. For every exalted ego will be humbled, every humbled and crushed spirit will be lifted up, and from that level place, all beings will see his arrival.
That's in a way bad news if you think of yourself at the top of the heap. That's good news this Advent and Christmas season if you're depressed and downhearted and hurt, as many people find themselves this time of year. But a flat world, a level place--that's good news for everybody.
But you know, there's a problem here--a problem we face every Advent season. We believe that person has come; Jesus, the Savior has come, in the flesh, and we have seen him, and we await his return. But the world is still not, obviously, such a flat place, on the surface of it. The powerful do in some sense seem to be in control from their mountaintops. The weak do seem to get crushed down in the valleys. How can it be possible that this flat world has come, as John proclaimed?
Perhaps we can say that what has happened through Jesus Christ has changed the world for all time; it has ushered in "global forces" that, in some sense, have flatted the world, forever. But it does not necessarily mean that the world we see with our ordinary vision appears to be very different. No. But what Jesus has given us is new eyes. New eyes with which to see a world anew. Or perhaps more appropriate for today, new ears with which to hear.
As I read this text, about John's tiny voice crying in the Wilderness, I thought about the story that Kristen read for the kids for the Children's Message: Horton Hears a Who, written by that great writer of gospel, Dr. Seuss. It's a great story for Advent. If I were to have the power to give you homework, it would be to read this text from Luke, and then to read that story.
As you heard, it's about an elephant--with extra large ears. And he hears a world, emanating from a tiny speck of dust, which no one else can hear. And the whole story involves Horton's relationship to that world; his attempt to save that world. Everyone thinks he's crazy. But Horton persists. It's a wonderful story! It's a story about the kind of faith that gives us a view to this flat world. And it is, I think, an especially important story for us to hear now, as the tiny cries of God's humblest creatures are drowned in the environmental disaster that now is scarring the topography of our world.
That's the kind of hearing we need in order to hear the gospel--the elephantine, Horton-like hearing that enables us to detect that other world, invisible to those who think of themselves as in control of this one.
To see this world, we need new eyes--new eyes that come through faith in Christ.
New eyes that give us glimpses of a transformation that can happen--that is happening I think among many of us here!--in your life, even in ordinary things. Even by getting off your mountain and meeting your kid on a level place, just to listen.
We hear it in the act of listening to the pain of people we ordinarily would not hear: the single mother in Trenton, the Palestinian farmer, the orphaned child in Africa. Just through the act of listening, we create a world.
Oh, and we do see a glimpse of it when we give. When we give our money. When we give our time--people going to Gulfport next month will hear it in the banging of hammers, will see it in the dust of drywall on their shirtsleeves, as rich and poor come together on a level place, if not to build a new world, then to build a new house.
And perhaps, if you look and listen hard enough, you will see, you will hear--and most especially taste--the grace that is everywhere abundant in this new flat world, where Christ meets us, and where Christ reigns--as we break bread, as we celebrate the love sacrificed for us in this feast, the love that creates the world anew.
Look. Listen. Taste. Amen.
1Also a standard practice in the Bible itself; see for example Isaiah 6:1.
December 3, 2006 Jeff Vamos
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