Advent 2A’25
7 December 2025
Rom.15.4-13; Matt.3.1-12
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone <+>
O God who calls us to prepare the way for your coming: Grant us grace to make ready a room for you in our hearts. Amen.
There was a man who went reluctantly to his doctor for an overdue physical. After the physical the doctor asked to speak to the patient’s wife in private. He told the wife that her husband would be fine as long as she fed him healthy home cooked meals, helped him to maintain a low stress level and by daily showering him with her affection. She then went out into the waiting room where her husband asked earnestly, “Well how did he say I was doing.” His wife replied, “He said you only have about 6 months to live!”
The joke makes the serious point that sometimes the truth hurts.
Prophetic moments are moments when the truth cuts through the fog of our present reality and presents us with an opportunity for a fresh start and a better life. Most of the prophetic moments we may experience during our lifetimes probably won’t be as dramatic as John the Baptist coming out of the wilderness telling us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” No, our prophetic moments of truth will be much more ordinary. In ordinary life we may experience a prophetic moment when we receive a diagnosis from our doctor that means our lives will never be the same, maybe it’s when the IRS let’s you know you will be audited or in a encounter with a loved one where one of our faults is pinpointed and named. A prophetic moment can happen when one of our children asks why we were absent during their time of need. A prophetic moment can happen anytime our actions are called up short by a truth-teller.
None of us go looking for these moments because, quite frankly none of us like change. Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”1 In family systems theory the term “homeostasis” is used to describe the natural desire within families to maintain the status quo. This tendency toward maintaining homeostasis is also characteristic of the individual and can be found in particular ethnic groups and entire societies. In first century Palestine, this was certainly true.
There was a culture with a class order that made sense. Everyone knew their place. The overall population of the world was divided into two groups of people, Jews and Gentiles, those who were chosen and those who were not. Even among the chosen there was an established pecking order. This way of being as a society made sense for centuries but God wasn’t finished yet. They were in a huge rut and saw no need for any change. The prophets began to sound the call for change that would set the stage for the prophet of prophets, John the Baptist to make his entrance as the one voice crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John foresaw things from God’s perspective and called for a day when not just the Jews would be marked for salvation but a day when all would be included to “see the salvation of God.”
But practically speaking how do we do the work of preparing the way of the Lord- to prepare a place for God? An analogy might be the best way to describe how to prepare a place. The best analogy I can think of is the way I had to prepare to meet my wife, Shannon.
While in seminary I had a spiritual director who I met with once a month for spiritual counsel and I was at one of those places in my life of extended bachelorhood where I was worrying about still not being married. After hearing me out my director simply said the following, “Carey, you have to make room for her.” She talked with me about clearing out some of the more superficial relationships that wasted my time and also talked about how I also needed to clear out some time in my calendar. Her last comment to me about this was something to the effect of “Carey even if God wanted to send a woman into your life he couldn’t – you’re too busy!”
That was not to be my only prophetic moment on this subject. Just a couple of months later, while studying at a summer theological programme at Oxford I met an interesting man from Ohio. He was also an Episcopal priest. During a break I overheard him say that he didn’t get married until he was 45! Needless to say my ears perked up and later I went over to him and asked what the secret was to finally meeting and marrying his wife. The very first words out of his mouth were, “Well, I had to make room for her!” My jaw dropped to the ground. He then proceeded to tell me what making room meant to him. He said that he had to clear out some space on his calendar and drop out of a couple of civic groups that he had been involved with for years. After this and prayer she showed up.
I managed to follow the advice of these two prophets (that is my spiritual director and a priest at Oxford) and less than six months after landing back in Arkansas from seminary I met Shannon! How does this translate to Advent and preparing the way for Jesus? The common thread appears to be making some empty space which means being willing to let go of some activities, clear some space on our calendars and keep an open place in our hearts, and to tolerate the discomfort this all can bring.
Macrina Wiederkehr, a nun, spiritual writer and truth-teller from Ft. Smith in her poem, “The Prayer of the Empty Water Jar”, provides us a window so that we might look inside to the inner workings of our hearts where the real preparation happens:
I came to be filled but I am already full. I am too full this is my sickness I am full of things that crowd out your healing presence. (An inner knowing reveals the painful truth) I don’t need more I need less I am too full. I am full of things that block out your golden grace. I am smothered by gods of my own creation I am lost in the forest of my false self I am full of my own opinions and narrow attitudes full of fear resentments, control, full of self- pity and arrogance. Slowly this terrible truth pierces my heart I am so full there is no room for you…I hear you calling, let go, let go, let go! Finally as I sit here with my emptiness I hear you whisper, “You have become a space for God, now there is hope, now you are ready to be a channel of life. You have given up your own agenda there is nothing left but God2
The purpose of the prophets in our lives are like are like what the 19thcen. American journalist, Finley Peter Dunne described his purpose as a journalist, it was to “comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”
When it comes to the occurrence of prophetic moments there really are only two groups of people 1) the afflicted who need to be comforted or 2) the comfortable who need to be afflicted. This Advent which word does your spiritual life most need to hear?
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Amen.
1 www.goodreads.com
2 Wiederkehr, Macrina Seasons of Your Heart (HarperSanFrancisco: San Francisco, CA, 1991) PP.32-33