Last week I mentioned a particular road that goes along a particular cape on the Pacific Ocean. And then just west of that road there was a large earthquake, and we’re still experiencing aftershocks from it.

I’m not really superstitious, but I also don’t like to tempt fate, so I won’t be naming that road today.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Most people have someone in our lives who loves them.

It might be a parent, a spouse, a child, a neighbor, a friend.

But they have a person who cares about them.

Popular culture – especially TV, movies, and music – has a tendency to think of love as possessive: think “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

But love is not about having or keeping someone. That sounds more like livestock, or a pet.

Love is about caring for another.

Love is what causes a parent to get up and feed or change the diaper of a newborn in the middle of the night.

Love is what causes an adult to to care for a parent who can no longer care for themselves.

Love is what causes a person to care for their spouse when they are sick.

But love is broader than just the one-on-one relationships.

Love cares for people in the broader family.

Love cares for the wider family, and for the community, and for people in other nations.

Love cares for people we don’t know.

And the way we live out that love is to help others over the tall challenges and through the low valleys of their lives.

On this Sunday of Love, the folks who put together the Revised Common Lectionary prescribed for us a reading where John the Baptist is proclaiming

Prepare ye the way of the Lord

Luke 3:4, NRSVue

which, at the surface, doesn’t seem to be so much about love.

But then it goes on to say

make his paths straight.

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,

– Luke 3:4b-5

Imagine if that road I mentioned last week – which shall remain nameless – had this kind of work done on it. It would be a lot easier to travel.

But what if we tried to do this with the roads of each other’s lives: filling the valleys of loneliness, decreasing the steepness of the mountains and hills we have to climb, making the meandering and uncertain way forward into something more clear, and smoothing out the roughness of daily life?

Now it’s true that this scripture is not about making the way straight for everyone. It’s very specifically about making the way straight for Jesus.

But John the Baptist is quoting Isaiah 40 about the restoration of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity:

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

– Isaiah 40:3-5, NRSVue

Notice the difference between

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;”

and

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;’”

Both Isaiah and John the Baptist are proclaiming the coming of the Lord, but one is calling to make a way in the wilderness while the other is calling in the wilderness to make a way.

Isaiah was prophesying to people in captivity abroad who would make their way through the wilderness.

John the Baptist was prophesying to people in captivity in their own land, so he needed to rephrase the prophecy to apply to who, when, and where they were.

And we are a people occupying the land of another people,

so we need to rephrase the prophecy again to apply to who, when, and where we are.

We are not people held captive in a foreign land, yearning to return home.

We are not people held captive in our own land, yearning for freedom from our oppressors.

Though the people in this church may not hold the power in this government, we hold more power than the people who lived on this land before our ancestors came.

So as the ones who have power, it falls on us to fill the valleys of loneliness, decrease the steepness of the mountains and hills we have to climb, make the meandering and uncertain way forward into something more clear, and smooth out the roughness of daily life.

We probably do this with people near to us, but what about the person sleeping outdoors?

What about the person turned away from medical care?

What about the person whose home was destroyed by war?

So my challenge this week is for us to be more aware of our opportunities to make the world a little less challenging for others.

I’m not saying we’re all called to go to Israel and Gaza to put an end to violence. I’m not saying we should all go to Darfur to end the killing. But to the extent we can, we ought to apply the power we have – financial, electoral, letter-writing – to move toward a more loving and caring world.

Amen

Let’s sing CH 540 O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.