ADVENT II - A -- December 5, 2004

There is a true story told about a woman who was a member of St. James Cathedral in the Diocese of Chicago. She was well off financially but had one daughter who was very sick with a very rare disease. Dr. Adolf Lorenz was only one man in the world who knew how to treat that particular illness. This woman wrote letter after letter to him begging him to come to her or allow her to bring her daughter to him for treatment. But she heard nothing. She was convinced that he received hundreds of letters such as hers everyday.

She was desperate. So one chilly fall afternoon she asked her family and the Dean of the Cathedral to come to her house so that they could all pray together, asking God to bring Dr. Lorenz to her. After the service was over, everyone departed. As the people were leaving, it suddenly started to rain, a cold, chilling rain, as it often does in Chicago. Just then an elderly gentleman, who was walking down the street, his head hunched into his overcoat trying to avoid getting any wetter and any colder than he already was, asked the lady if he could stay on her porch to get out of the rain. She said that he could and went back inside. She thought about inviting him in, but one never did that in Chicago.

The next morning there was a story in the Chicago Tribune about this Dr. Lorenz. He had been in Chicago but had to cut short his stay. He had been out walking the day before and got caught in a sudden outburst, caught a bad cold, and headed home. The story also mentioned the fact that although he was given shelter on the porch of a kindly lady, she never did ask him in to get out of the chill and get warm. The lady of the house went insane. Her prayers had been answered. God had indeed sent her Dr. Lorenz but not in the way she had expected. So often, I suspect, you and I do the same. We prevent God from answering our prayers because of our own limited expectations.

A story is told about a group of travelers visiting the famous Moscow Zoo before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The zookeeper, a devout Communist, took the visitors to the lion's cage. On the way over he said to them, "You Christians, really don't believe what you say about the lion being able to lie down with the lamb. But here in Russia, it is true." Then he showed them the lion's cage. There lying next to the lion was a lamb.

After the fall of Communism the truth came out. Every night after the gates of the zoo were closed, the lion keeper placed a fresh lamb into the lion’s cage. The real truth is neither believing Christians nor unbelieving Communist expect that a lion and a lamb can occupy the same cage for very long. Once the lion gets hungry, the lamb's days are numbered.

Thus, when we read or hear read today's Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, our thoughts are "this is the way it will be in heaven". This is not the way it will be here on earth. But that is not what Isaiah is saying. Isaiah is saying that God expects lion and lamb, man and lion, baby and snake, to be at peace with one another right here on earth. St. Paul, in today's Epistle, expects Christians to "live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Isaiah, Paul, God expect that. We, it seems, do not.

God expects the best. We expect, all too often, something less than the best. Awhile back a B.C. comic appeared in the Sunday paper. B.C. is siting under a tree writing a poem. It goes like this: "Oftentimes I wonder what this world is all about. It can't be just a place for coming in and going out. It surely can't be just a place for terrorists and crooks, and dirty rotten scoundrels that sell pornographic books. It wasn't made for wallowing in sickness, death and sin; or people who give drugs to kids, or beat-up on their kin. Our world was once a perfect place, a gift of love, not war. And we still have the power, through grace, to make it like before." Isaiah's and Paul's sentiments exactly.

Our expectations, unlike those of Isaiah, Paul and B.C., our expectations of what can be and should be and even will be are so very limited because of what was and what is. They are limited by past experiences. We expect a one-time offender to become a two-timer and more. We expect those who use force once to use it again. We expect our political candidates to be less than the best. As with our expectations with God and with man and animal, so are our expectations one with another. They are limited because of how we expect people should act, how we expect people can act, how we expect people to act.

On the reverse side of this B.C. strip is Doonesbury. A reporter stops a man and says, "Excuse me, sir, are you a man in the street?" "Why, yes I am," he replies. "We’re doing a follow-up on last month’s elections. How do you feel about the candidates for governor?" the reporter asks. "The candidates for Governor? Well, I didn’t feel anything at first. I just didn’t know very much about either man. But then I started watching their campaign commercials. It turns out one of the guys was a tax cheat who abused his wife and favored giving crack to furloughed sex offenders. The other was a corrupt alcoholic who favored murdering babies and burning the flag." "So who’d you vote for?" asked the reporter. "The wife-beater. I thought he had better denials."

We live a life of limited expectations. We hope for the best but so often expect the worst. Why don't we hope for the best and expect the best? Isaiah did. Paul did. B.C. does. God does. That's why Jesus was born among us and why He died for us.

Expect the best: that was also the message of John the Baptist. We tend to picture John as one who yelled and screamed and condemned, one whose basic message was negative, whose message was to warn people that they had better shape up or else. But that was not exactly what John was saying.

John's message was not a mere negative denunciation about the inability, if you will, of lion to lie down with lamb. His was not a modern political campaign of negative advertising. Rather John's message was a positive one in which he expected the people to accept the moral standards that God had set up from the beginning. John not only denounced people for what they had done; he summoned them to what they ought to do. John not only condemned people for what they were; he challenged them to be what they could be.

John’s was a voice calling us to higher standards, higher expectations. He not only rebuked evil but, like Isaiah and the other prophets, like Paul and B.C., John set before us a picture of the good, of what can and must and should be. Unfortunately, back then and even today John's was a voice crying in the wilderness: a wilderness, a world, of limited expectations.

The Dr. Lorenz’, the Isaiahs, the Pauls, the John the Baptists, the B.C’s and even Doonesburys in our life remind us that so often our problem is that not only do we have limited expectations of what this life should be like but so often we also believe that it is only the miraculous that will make dreams and visions of a better life come true. It doesn't work that way. What works is work.

In many ways that is what Advent is all about. It is a time when we read the daily newspaper and admit the harsh reality in what we read and ask "Why?" But Advent is also the time to look at those ideal pictures that Isaiah and Paul and John and B.C. paint and wonder "What if?" and then ask, "Why not?" Advent is the time when we take the time to reflect on that marvelous line by George Bernard Shaw: "Some people see things as they are and ask 'Why?' I see things that might be and ask, 'Why not?'" Advent is the time not for being satisfied with what is but rather is the time for asking "Why not?" And then getting to work and doing something about it.