LEVEL PLACES

Scripture Lesson: Luke 3: 1-6

Preached – 12/10/06

Dr. Matthew S. Brown

I was once asked to serve as the second vice president of an organization which granted me no more responsibility and authority than being the backup to the backup to the person who is supposed to make sure that the door is locked when the meeting is over.

We live in a world of titles, titles so frequently and fervently handed out that it becomes impossible to determine who is responsible for what. Do you remember the days before digital technology, e-mails, web sites, and phone routing systems when you actually had to travel to an agency or office to find answers to so many of life’s dilemmas?

Under the flourescent lights in the building’s lobby you would scan through the white letters of the black felt board directory in the hope of finding the office, nook, or cubicle where the answer would be revealed. At times, the titles listed would border on the ridiculous: John Doe, the assistant undersecretary to the associate director pro-tem of Region C, sub-sector 2. Well, you’d climb the stairs, roam the hallways, and wait in line only to find that you have come on the wrong day to the wrong place and more than likely, the wrong building.

Titles may be bequeathed to designate responsibility but are often hid behind to avoid responsibility. You are often left asking: “So who’s in charge here?”

Of course, this is nothing new. The confusion has been around as long as humans have engaged in the ancient sport of politics. Indeed, it is a question that comes to mind when reading Luke’s introduction to John the Baptist. Who’s in charge here?

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas...” So who is in charge here?

Caesar, well that’s a name we recognize, and Luke focuses our vision on the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, otherwise referred to as Claudius Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor from A.D. 14 until A.D. 37 when he died in Capri, the victim of years of dissipation, which is a nice way of saying he drank and partied himself to death. It was the face of Tiberius that was on the coin presented to Jesus which prompted the famous line, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”

Well, your history teachers told you that the Roman empire was a big place and so the empire was broken up into territories and regions. Luke tells us that Pontius Pilate, yes that Pontius Pilate, was governor, well actually not governor but procurator of the region of Judea. Pilate was a powerful man indeed, but was several tiers below Caesar. He probably had a painting in his office of the time he got to shake Tiberius’ hand at some wine and cheese reception in Rome.

The Roman territory was further divided into tetrarchs ruled during Pilate’s time by two sons of Herod the Great, Antipas and Philip, and a series of men named Lysanius.

So who is in charge here? The confusion of territories, principalities and jurisdictions sounds eerily similar to contemporary society where the courts are always clogged with questions of jurisdiction, sovereignty, and authority. The situation Luke describes here is even further complicated by the tension between civil authority and religious authority, not to mention the conflicts between civil authorities and the conflicts between religious authorities.

Luke lists two high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, though there was originally only supposed to be one. The Chief Priest, the principal authority in Israel’s religion, was to hold office for life, but Rome sought to control the authority of the office by appointing and deposing chief priests. Annas was supposedly replaced by his son-in-law Caiaphas in the year AD 15. However, in the minds of the people Annas was the real high priest until he died. In fact, you might remember in the Gospel of John, when Jesus was put on trial the people took him to both Annas and Caiaphas.

So who is in charge here?

Luke places before us these confusing layers of power and principality to make us understand that the ministry of prophecy of John the Baptist and the ministry of fulfillment of Jesus Christ would take place in the real world where we live; the real world with all it’s complexities, contradictions, conflicts, and questions; the real world of political power and political vulnerability; the real world of jealousy and competition; the real world where we seem to fight over everything from Playstation 3’s to national borders; the real world where the answers to so many of our dilemmas seem so elusive.

Fred Craddock says that in its expansion from Jerusalem to Rome, the gospel “will encounter not only the poor, lame, halt, and blind but also high priests, synagogue rulers, city officials, leading women, ship captains, imperial guards, governors, and kings...” God was revealing Godself in the real world.

John the Baptist’s word for this world was one of repentance and preparation.

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be brought low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways shall be made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Valleys lifted up, hills brought low, rough ways made smooth. John saw this highway construction process somehow connected with our repentance, the act of acknowledging our shortcomings before God, our common vulnerability and dependence upon God. Repentance involves the cessation of blame and the acquisition of responsibility. We’ve got to stop blaming others for all that is wrong in this real world and start taking responsibility for ourselves. We’re all in need of an extreme makeover of the soul.

And somehow in this process of repentance through the miracle that is the grace of Jesus Christ we would begin to see valleys lifting up and hills coming down and level places being formed.

Level places. Level places are formed when the distinctions that separate us, categorize us, and stratify us dissolve and we humbly recognize our common frailty and our common dependence on something, someone outside of ourselves.

Level places are formed in Intensive Care waiting rooms as strangers become friends, holding hands, supporting one another, sharing stories and praying one another through the crisis. What you did out there is unimportant. What you share in here is critical.

Level places are formed on church mission trips when the executive relies on the brick mason’s skill and the brick mason relies on the executive’s four years of college Spanish.

A member of our household at one time became addicted to the Weather Channel the show, “Storm Stories”, and in each show, Jim Cantore, the Mr. Olympia of weathermen (muscles) would dramatically tell the stories of neighborhoods, towns, and communities banding together, relying on one another in the eye of nature’s fury. A level place.

Level places are formed when the distinctions that separate us, categorize us, and stratify us dissolve and we humbly recognize our common frailty and our common dependence on something, someone outside of ourselves.

Prepare the way of the Lord. The valleys will be lifted up. The hills will be brought low. The rough places will be made smooth.

Tom Currie, the dean of Union Seminary in Charlotte, tells the miracle of a level place formed in the heart of France during possibly the darkest days of the last century.

“In the winter of 1941, in a little village in the mountains of southern France, there came a knock on the door of the home of the Protestant pastor. The pastor was not there, but his wife answered the door. A woman, dressed poorly, almost in rags, was standing there asking for help. She was Jewish, she said, and her life was in danger. She had heard that there was someone in this village who might help her. Could she come in? The pastor’s wife, Magda Trocme, answered, ‘Naturally, come in.’ Thus, began the story of Le Chambon, a small village of some three thousand souls, most of whom were impoverished and largely forgotten French Calvinists [Huguenots], a remnant from [a persecuted people] of centuries’ past who nevertheless saved the lives of over five thousand Jewish refugees, mostly children over the next four years.”

Andre Trocme, descendant of a long line of French Huguenot lace makers, was born in 1901 not far from the birthplace of John Calvin. During World War I, the Trocme family’s home was taken over by the Germans, and young Andre learned firsthand something of the hunger and deprivation of war. “Toward the end of the war, when the Germans were retreating, he met a young German soldier who offered him some food. Andre refused the food because it came from the hand of the enemy. The soldier replied that he was not the enemy, that he had no gun, that he was a telegrapher and had refused to kill anyone. He asked Andre if he were a Christian and, upon receiving an affirmative reply, told him of his conviction that to follow Christ meant to leave violence behind. Trocme invited the soldier to a youth worship service, where they worshiped together and where the soldier was even invited to speak. His words made a lasting impression on the young French schoolboy: ‘One must refuse to shoot. Christ taught us to love our enemies. That is his good news, that we should help, not hurt each other, and anything you add to this comes from the Devil.” A level place.

Young Andre soon felt the call to ministry, studying at Union Seminary in the upper west side of Manhattan in the shadows of the impressive Riverside church. He even tutored two of John D. Rockefeller’s sons in French. He later married Magda and they found their way to Le Chambon, a poor village of industrial laborers high up in the central plateau of southern France.

Scholars remind us of the history of the French Huguenots as a besieged minority, but to the dark and threatening environment of 1940’s France, Andre Trocme preached the Calvinistic celebration of God’s sovereign grace, a message embraced by the entire community as a joyful and encouraging word.

And so there was no hesitation when the Jewish refugee came to the door one dark evening. Other refugee families and many small children followed and soon Le Chambon became key to an underground railway, saving the lives of over five thousand men, women, and children by the war’s end.

What drove Trocme and others to pursue this level place in spite of constant threat and periodic imprisonment? Trocme wrote, “The person of any one man is so important in the eyes of God, so central to the whole of his creation, that the unique, perfect being, Jesus, a) sacrificed his earthly life for that one man in the street, and b) sacrificed his perfection by taking the blame for his sins in order to save that single man. Salvation has been accomplished without any regard to the moral value of the saved man.” It is a message that inspires humility, repentance, and compassion, essential characteristics found in all level places.

Years later, Philip Hallie was lecturing on the story of Le Chambon in Minneapolis when a woman stood up and asked if this was the same Le Chambon that was in the Department of the Haute-Loire in south-central France. Told that it was, the woman said, “Well, you have been speaking about the village that saved the lives of all three of my children.” The room grew silent. And then she said, “The Holocaust was storm, lightning, thunder, wind, rain, yes. And Le Chambon was the rainbow.” (Tom Currie)

Remember the rainbow, Noah, and God’s promise? “...never again shall all life be cut off...” Call it a rainbow, call it a level place, call it a sign of God’s presence and God’s coming kingdom.

The valleys shall be lifted up. The hills brought low. The rough places made smooth. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

These level places appear when the distinctions that separate us, categorize us, and stratify us dissolve and we humbly recognize our common frailty and our common dependence on something, someone outside of ourselves. So let us prepare the way, let us seek those level places, looking to the mercy of Jesus Christ, who is, who was, and who evermore shall be. Amen.

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