Why The Smell of Manure May Not Be A
Bad Thing
Pastor Mathew Magera – 12/6/15 – Sermon 131
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
When I was in college, I had
the opportunity to take a film class. This particular class was one that many
students would take on the notion that it would be an easy class they could
slump through in order to earn the easy A. However, this course was not for the
weak hearted. Luckily, I went into it hoping to learn something. I did. I
obtained a new appreciation for film styles and cinematic effects. My most
favorite classic film is Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and it was this
class that helped me to really understand why.
One particular effect that
was used in this film is what is known as a long take, which is a scene that is
shot with one camera without any cuts in the action. If the action moves, the
camera moves with it instead of changing the point of view. If you've ever
watched the series ER back when it aired on NBC, this show was full of long
takes, often called, one-ers. In these scenes there is often a lot going on and
it takes an incredible amount of work on detail to make a long take work
effectively as it often begins in one location and follows a series of actions
to a completely different location. They are meant to give the viewer a full
understanding of the setting and its relationship to the action that is taking
place.
The reason I bring this up
is because if we were to take the beginning of Luke Chapter 3 and make a movie
about it, the opening scene could easily be captured as a long take. Starting
from the grand setting and working its way to the smallest piece, Luke 3 opens
our attention to what is going around in the wider world with the attempt to
focus our attention on one, possibly insignificant, action in a very narrow
part of the overall scene.
Imagine it opening up at the
top of the known world, high over the streets of Rome as we pass over the
courts of Tiberius Caesar. Then we continue eastward over the Mediterranean Sea
to the residence of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, governor of Judea. Then after
catching glimpses of the tetrarchs, Herod, his brother Philip and Lysanias, we
continue all the way all the way down to the high priests of the time, Annas
and Caiaphas. But the scene doesn't stop there, we continue going down down
down into the wilderness where we finally meet John the Baptist. In modern
days, it would be as if we started over Washington D.C., headed west to
Michigan, down past Lansing, into Montcalm County and finally into Trufant.
Luke is showing us what is going on in the world, the powers in place, and then
takes us into a location that compared to the reign of Tiberius Caesar means
absolutely nothing, the wilderness, because it is in this small place that
something is going to happen. Not in Rome, not in Jerusalem, not even in the
home of the chief priests, but in the middle of nowhere.
In many ways this is what
the season of Advent is trying to do with us, to acknowledge the natural
surroundings we see in the world, from its top, but then to narrow our focus on
one small spot in the middle of nowhere. Last week, we talked about how when we
see signs of the end of the world, our focus should not be glued to the what
and the when, but rather on the who. Today, our focus remains on Jesus, but it
becomes even narrower as we look not to the political or commercial centers of
the world, but in the small places. Our long take ends at the feet of a man who
probably smells as bad as the ground on which he walks, dirty, covered in camel
skin, breath as foul as his last meal of locusts. And Luke says this is where
the Word of the Lord has come, to this foul smelling man with a big mouth.
This is as much unexpected
as the Christmas story itself. Jesus was born not in a royal villa, or within
the city of Jerusalem but in the middle of nowhere in the small insignificant
town of Bethlehem. So, the question that is probably on our mind, why here? Why
is Jesus born in such a small place? Why does the Word of the Lord come to John
the Baptist in the wilderness? Why does it happen this way? Because the people
it was meant to find are living there. The birth of Jesus, while yes it was for
the whole world, was also for those on the outer edge of society, the poor, the
outcast, the needy. Jesus was born in their midst, where the smell of sheep and
cattle could make you cringe. This is where Jesus was born. In the middle of
nowhere. This is where John the Baptist preached, in the middle of nowhere.
This is where our hope comes
from. And when you think about it, we also minister physically in the middle of
nowhere. You've experienced it just as I have in the past year, you tell
someone where you're from. Where's Trufant? How do you pronounce it? It gets
slightly better if I say it's near Grand Rapids. Ah, Grand Rapids, I know where
that is. But, still some can't even place Grand Rapids on a map. If the hope of
Christmas comes from the middle of nowhere and if John the Baptist preaches and
converts successfully in the middle of nowhere, perhaps the smell of manure
that lingers over town isn't such a bad thing. Perhaps it's not a bad reminder
at all that just like Jesus and John the Baptist, big things can happen in
small places. Big changes can start in small ways. But, it gets even narrower
than Trufant.
"In our world today, we
still mostly look to all the wrong places for hope. Washington, Wall Street,
Hollywood, etc." Luke is showing us that hope won't come from those lofty
and populated places. He guides us to the unlikely places. Look to the little
white churches surrounded by fields and trees. Look to the missionary preaching
the Gospel in eastern Africa.[1]
If we want change, we need to stop looking for our government to make it for
us. I don't intend for this to get political but the spreading of the Gospel
did not come from lofty places, but from low places.
Even we, who live in low
places, can be susceptible to have the wrong focus. If you take a look at some
nativity scenes out there, it might make you second guess where Jesus was born.
The people and the animals look so clean, well groomed, airbrushed like the
greatest Hollywood actors. It can make us forget that Jesus was born in a very
unclean and stinky place, a place in the middle of nowhere where at the time
everyone else in the Empire was paying far too much attention on itself than to
anything going on in Bethlehem.
But, just because God came
to earth in a smelly stable, doesn't mean that he stayed there. Just because
John preached repentance in the wilderness doesn't mean word didn't spread.
What do we remember about the Christmas story? Who came? The shepherds. Several
months later, who came? The wise men. Who, in Jerusalem, found out about it?
Herod. It spread. When John the Baptist preaches here in the wilderness, he
gains a crowd. And not only a crowd, but he gains tax collectors who want to be
baptized. Why would tax collectors be out in the wilderness? Even more so,
there were soldiers wanting to be baptized. Why were soldiers out in the
wilderness? Because the Word of God is heard in the small places, in the
not-so-well-known places, in the fields, as the smell of sheep and cattle
permeate the air.
God comes to the weak places,
to the hurt places, to the hungry places, to the sick places, to the violent
places, to the scared places. Yes, there is a world going on around us that we
can clearly see, but the Word of God begins not at the White House, not in
Congress, not in Lansing, but in the heart each one of us. God needs to
proclaim the reality of his saving work in the wilderness, that is, in the
cancer ward, the AIDS clinic, the inner-city slum, on the battlefields of Iraq,
on death row and in the prisons. In those places we need to prepare the way of
the One who will take all that is crooked and rough in us and will make it
straight and smooth and right and full of peace after all. These places are the
small places, the wildernesses of our world today that many would not willingly
go. In this season of Advent, let our hearts be filled with the hope that once
filled the stable outside of Bethlehem. Let our hearts be filled with the hope
that flowed by the banks of the Jordan. Let our hearts be filled with hope in
the God that takes root in the small places.
So, when you leave this
morning and you walk out into the parking lot and take a deep breath, if you
happen to catch a fresh breath of manure and if you start to cringe, think to
yourself, maybe the smell of manure isn't such a bad thing. That smell might
remind you that God came to this world to live in a stinky place, to walk with
the poor, the sick, the lowest and rejected. The Word of God takes root in the
small places, where maybe, just maybe, we can help it grow if we are willing to
go there, to the wilderness, to the middle of nowhere. Historically many great
things have happened in the less known places. Where are you willing to go for
the sake of the Gospel? Let our hope be that like John the Baptist, we can
spread the Word of the Lord in the low places. Low places just like Bethlehem.
Just like the shores of the Jordan. Just like that one cross on Calvary. Just
like that door on All Saints Church in the tiny town of Wittenberg. Where will
it go next? Well, where's a place you'd rather not go? That's where we need to
be most. Let's go there. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.