Sermon for 2 Advent

December 7, 2003

St. Luke’s Church, Jamestown, NY

Eric M. Williams

I hope you get a chance to see a movie called Whale Rider[1].

It is the charming and powerful story of a young girl named Kahu

who lives with her Maori family in New Zealand.

Their tribe and people are in crisis—

gradually losing the traditions of their once proud culture.

As the story tells it, Kahu is the whale rider,

the one who, like the founder of the tribe centuries before,

has been chosen by the gods to lead the people back to strength and health.

Many signs and portents declare that she is to be a great chief,

following in the footsteps of her beloved grandfather.

There’s just one problem.

She is a girl.

No chief has ever been a girl.

According to her grandfather it is not possible.

For years he looks and looks for the right boy to take his place,

unable to see the truth right under his nose.

The book and the movie show beautifully the struggles of these two central characters.

Koro, the grandfather, gives his life

to teaching the tribe the tradition of their ancestors.

Kahu, the granddaughter, feels this calling within her

and persists against all odds

to fulfill her destiny as the whale rider.

Koro’s devotion to tradition is the salvation of his people,

but that very devotion to tradition prevents him from accepting Kahu.

In this regard he is his own worst enemy.

He needs to get over it to get on with it--

get over his expectations and prejudices

to get on with the salvation and renewal of his people.

I love this story because for me it resonates with the story of the Gospel.

The scribes and Pharisees longed for the coming of Christ,

but when he came he wasn’t what they expected,

and they were unable or unwilling to accept him.

They couldn’t get over it to get on with it.

They couldn’t put aside their preconceived ideas

about who Jesus should be and what he should do.

They couldn’t see that in order to renew the tradition,

Jesus had to change the tradition.

Every time he ate with sinners, talked with Gentiles,

every time he deliberately disobeyed one of the hundreds of ticky-tack laws

they were obsessed with,

all they could see was a law breaker, a malcontent, a radical.

And radical is exactly what Jesus was, like John before him.

A true radical goes back to the roots, back to the beginning.

Both John and Jesus worked to renew their religious tradition

by going back to the beginning.

The religion of Abraham and Moses had become hollow,

the emphasis on holiness and faithfulness and justice

had been replaced by a focus on money and public spectacle.

The only way forward was to go back,

back to the roots,

and that’s exactly where John took them.

John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And then he helped people mark this personal renewal

by baptism in the Jordan river—

a dramatic symbol of their new life in God.

He told people to get over it to get on with it.

Get over your old life of sin,

and get on with the new life of faith in God.

Prepare for the coming of the messiah

by stripping away everything in your life

that separates you from living a holy life.

Go back to the beginning.

Remember what is important, life-giving, renewing in your life

and get rid of all the rest.

Tradition is good, essential, but it needs always to be reinterpreted,

and that’s exactly what John and later Jesus did.

As Koro discovered, tradition is only healthy

when it is reexamined and reformed in each generation.

Like every living thing, it needs constant renewal.

I was so struck last week by Ross’s sermon in which he said

that Christ’s coming is not limited to once in the past

or again at the end of creation.

He reminded us that Christ comes again and again,

in every life, in every heart, in every generation.

And if that is true,

then the words of the Baptist are as true for us

as they were for his own generation.

We too need to prepare for the coming of Christ,

not just for the baby in the manger,

but for the unexpected guest who turns everything upside down,

and unsettles the foundations of our lives.

The one who calls us to go back to the beginning,

to embrace the traditions of our faith in word and sacrament

but also to renew those traditions continually

as they speak to new issues and new generations.

This coming Christ calls us to Get over it so we can get on with it.

Get over the limitations we place on ourselves and on God.

Get over the sins we need to repent

and the brokenness that needs to be healed.

And get on with living the life we are called to live—

joyfully serving Christ with all of our might.

[1] Whale Rider, the movie, is based on the book, The Whale Rider, by Witi Ihimaera, (1987) available in the US from Harcourt, Inc. Find out more at: http://www.whaleriderthemovie.com.