Hear God Calling - Advent Week 2

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, 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 region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5 Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

Illustration: Note intervals

I want to start off today with a little musical illustration. One of the most interesting classes I took at Western, where I began studies as a vocal performance major, with Music Theory. In it, we learned about the basic structures that form the foundation of Western musical composition. Basically, it’s the study of how music works.

At the core of most music is the scale (which has various forms) but commonly is composed of 8 notes, (do, re, mi, fa, so…sing along with me…la ti do!) These notes are then accented with flats and sharps and all rhythm, etc., etc.

A core concept, within the scale, is the relationship between two notes — the interval. Here’s what I want to play with this morning. Intervals have a characteristic to them, a flavor, if you will. Here are some examples. Listen for their consonance, their flavor that fits together:

Octave (8th)

First, we have the Octave (8th) — two notes, in this case a C and a C, played, one on the low end and the other on the high end of the scale.

Then the Perfect 5th — do and so, for all you Sound of Music fans following along. And the Perfect 4th (hear it, “Here comes the bride!”)

Of course, there are also the Major and Minor 3rds, essential building blocks of the triad, one of the fundamental chords that provide musical structure with its color and flavor and feel.

Perfect 4th (here comes the bride)

The Devil’s Chord

I’ve been leading up to one of the most problematic intervals. Not found in the standard scale, but oh so easy to find our way into, is the Tritone, the flattened 5th. Sound familiar? Maybe from a terrifying movie seen, a startling moment of dramatic tension?

This is a half-step off of a perfect 5th and creates a sense of sonic dissonance — these two notes just shouldn’t be played together, they hurt our ears. There is dissonance, tension, that we really want to resolve.

In fact, this interval has a bad rap historically. It was once outlawed from being played in churches, as some thought it would usher in evil and called it “the devil’s chord.”

What I want you to feel here is the longing for resolution — for a thing that pulls you toward restoration, for you ears to be uncomfortable, drawn toward something of closure and finality. Today, we are invited to hear a disruptive word from the prophet John the Baptist — a word of truth that is meant to set us on a straight path and make way for the coming Bringer of Truth — Jesus Christ, the Advent child.

Major/Minor 3rd

Tritone — the devil’s chord — a flattened 5th

Hear the tension, hold that tension, feel the invitation in that dissonant tension.

The church outlawed the use of this interval for a time because its dissonance was unbearable to the ears and it was called “the Devil’s chord.”

Luke gives us two kinds of Truth

Today’s passage is kind of an odd one and, I think, is purposefully so in order to illustrate these kinds of tensions we experience in our the world, especially related to the life of faith in Jesus Christ. Luke opens the adult ministry of John and Jesus with a mix of very detailed historical record — listing Roman and Jewish political and religious figures that would help us place this narrative in a very specific time and place. It’s the kind of detail you hear from a doctor, a historian, a detail oriented individual.

But then, we get this prophetic, spiritually rich second half, where God’s word descends upon John the Baptism, a weird dude out in the wilderness who is known for eating locust and wearing animal skins, and the Luke links this to the Israelite prophet Isaiah. It’s a very different kind of truth.

We have historical record, which deals with truth in terms of facts and names and dates and places. And we have Prophetic Witness, which speaks truth to systems of power and oppression, truth that unmasks and names reality for what it is. Uncomfortable, tense truth.

Today, we’re going to listen for that kind of truth — prophetic truth. We’re great at facts and figures (even in an age where we say we are post-truth or we can somehow conjur up “alternative facts”) — historical truth is something we accept fairly easy.

But prophetic truth, that invites us to see the world from a different angle (again, not “alternative facts” but actually seeing reality for what it truly is, not through some sort of narrative spin), prophetic truth is unsettling, causes us to wrestle, points us to the tritone and prickles up our necks, making us long for resolution and God’s shalom.

We are invited to hold tension, dissonance, between to kinds of knowing, two kinds of encountering reality.

Prophetic witness

Link to the Senses

This is an invitation to hold tension, dissonance, between to kinds of knowing, two kinds of encountering reality.

Octave (8th)

Perfect 5th

Perfect 4th (here comes the bride)

Major triad / minor triad

Tritone — the devil’s chord — a flattened 5th

The church outlawed the use of this interval because its dissonance was unbearable to some ears and it was likened to the chord of the devil.

Last week we looked to the clouds — we used our eyes to connect with the story of the coming Messiah. Today, we have to tune in with our ears so that we can hear the message of repentance that leads us into the journey with Christ. We open our ears up and listen for the truthful message of the Prophet, John the Baptist, who calls all people to repentance and baptism in the joyful hope of restored lives in Christ.

It’s easy not to hear what we truly need to hear. We chalk up something uncomfortable to being “not to my liking” or we simply ignore it, tune it out. But as we wake up in the knowledge and relationship with God that so many of us are pursuing and long for, we have to take honest stock of whether we are “hearing rightly” and learn to pay better attention to what we hear in order to let the truth impact us, change us, form us, draw us closer to God’s word and presence.

John the Baptist

A bit more about John. John links and holds us at the intersection of two prophetic traditions in the Scriptures. He lives in all the weirdness of the Old Testament prophets, with their dramatic imagery and their critique of the social structures of the day, pointing to the truth of God’s way amidst a divided world. But John also invites us to see a new kind of prophet — one that not only speaks of this truth but discovers, in the New Covenant, the Kingdom of God which is at hand, right here, right now, that there are ways to join in, participate, to repent and be baptized and be changed!

John’s words should make us uncomfortable. He tells the kind of truth about the world that we would probably rather not hear. It’s like the Tritone — please, just don’t play that chord, I don’t like what it sounds like — please just play something nice and sweet. Nope. John the Baptist, the prophet of Jesus’ day, calls for repentance — that lovely uncomfortable topic that we’d rather not address — the need to change our lives, to turn away from what makes us sick, inside and out. John wants us to die in the waters of baptism and turn away from all that has held us captive. Man, please don’t make me do that — I like my vices. Repent, hear the Good News.

A quick clarification — repentance means to turn away from something and turn toward another thing. In this case, John hears the word of God and starts calling people to repent from their sins, the things they do that cause harm to themselves and others. Repent and turn away from those things. Renounce evil, turn away from what is harmful.

John is the last prophet of the Old Testament tradition and the first prophet of the New Covenant.

John should make us uncomfortable — like the Tritone.

Dissonances and Connections

Alright, let’s draw some connections here.

First, hearing — we read that there is a voice “crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and ever mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

We are instructed to listen, to hear, and in this to repent, to turn, to make a change. These words from the prophet Isaiah, through the life and witness of John the Baptist, are instructions — they are painting a picture of what it means to make a way for God’s love to break in to the world in the person of the Christ! So we are instructed to hear and repent and make a change — both to our own lives, as we are baptized; and with our societies, our cultures, our communities, our churches — where we hear the instruction to change the way we live in order to make room for God’s presence to arrive among us.

The kinds of things that invite us to this kind of change, this kind of active hearing where we make movements in our lives and truly embrace the goodness of repentance — these are found in the dissonances.

There are certainly negative dissonances — things that only drive up the tension and don’t lead toward generative change. When people tell lies or smear the truth, when we experience gaslighting and misdirection. When we refuse to compromise, refuse to meet others, when we mask our problems and ignore the realities of how things truly are — these are negative dissonances, negative noises that we must root out and ultimately put to death. These things are hard to face and hard to eradicate, but we must nonetheless stand up and do just that.

There are most certainly positive dissonances, though, which lead us to repentance, to turning and change and a sense of renewal. Positive dissonances are ones that call us to an uncomfortable place in order to create change in us, to draw us deeper into who we are meant to be, to open our eyes to God’s work in us. They can be things like truth-telling, where we hear a word that we need to hear, whether or not it makes us comfortable. Or light-shining, where what had been hidden is brought into the light and given an opportunity to be cleaned up or disconnected or unchained. Or naming — when we call something what it is, a “spade a spade”, naming what is true about a situation or a person, in order that the dissonance this naming causes might lead them, and us, into deeper relationship through repentance and strengthening of loving trust.

Questions for us

So let’s bring it home. What do you need to hear today. What do you need to hear John saying?

It’s pretty clear, I think — repent, seek forgiveness, make ready the way of the Messiah. Hear the dissonances in your own life and around you that draw you into God’s loving arms through repentance and turning to a new way of life.

For me, I need to hear a call to patience — to not become cynical and frustrated, to trust in God’s work, to not take matters into my own hands, to be invited to submission and belonging to you all and to God.

So what do you need to hear?

But, also, if we’re bringing it home, we need to ask: what impedes us from hearing? What is stuffing up in your ears, making it so hard to really hear this message?

Is it pride: “I don’t need to change, I don’t need something different.” Maybe you’ve got your own way all figured out and, thank you very much, I don’t need to hear some God tell me to repent. Is that about God, or is that about you?

Or perhaps it’s fear — when we’ve held on to our own way of life, our own message of salvation, for so long, it can be so hard to change. I know it is for me: I’m so afraid at what letting go of my control would mean…but, can I?

Or maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s resentment, maybe you don’t trust that God would truly make life new for you. Maybe you’ve been let down so many times, harmed by so many people, that this message of going down into the waters of baptism, the message of the possibility to receive truth and grace — maybe it sounds like a ploy, maybe you’ve been burned. For this, we weep. And for this we persistently say — trust, it can be different.

What impedes your hearing?

What impedes us from hearing?

What do we need to hear John saying?

Repent, seek forgiveness, make ready the way of the Messiah. Hear the dissonances that draw you into God’s loving arms.

And lastly, what do you do with the dissonance, instead? Do you ignore it, pretend it’s not there? Do you try to resolve it, find the happy note, ease back into that comfortable place of the perfect 4th or perfect 5th?

Truth is, that ignoring or quickly resolving or justifying the dissonance — that’s not the answer. The answer is only found by diving right into it, right into the hard truth, the dissonant truth, to find, through pain and refining and repentance and welcoming into the loving arms of God, that you can be made whole once more.

What impedes us from hearing?

Pride, fear, anger, resentment.

What do we tend to do with the dissonance, instead?

Ignore it, resolve it, justify it.

What do we

Pride, fear, anger, resentment.

Are you willing to be liberated?

Are we willing to hear hard truths in this season of Advent? Are we willing to open our ears and open our hearts to the call to repentance? The Christian journey depends upon such willingness. We most certainly proclaim a gospel of grace, but that grace comes to us through repentance. It is ready and waiting for us, but we must receive it, open ourselves to it. And we do this through naming the dissonances of our lives, the places of falsehood and harm, the places where we have left undone the good work God calls us to and have sought after lesser desires. We must name this — we have to name the brokenness and be liberated from its chains.

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Hear God Calling - Advent Week 2

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