Advent II                                                                                                                           Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga

December 9, AD 2007                                                                                                                                          Pastor Peter Lisinski

“THE MEASURE OF GREATNESS”

Robert Hawkins, the nineteen year old who fatally shot eight Christmas shoppers in an Omaha, Nebraska mall last week before shooting himself, left a suicide note that allegedly said, “Now I will be famous”!  Though this was an extreme, and definitely tragic act, it reflects the deeply rooted desire shared by most, if not all mortal human beings – the desire, the hope that our lives will be meaningful; that our pilgrimage in this world will make a difference significant enough for us to be remembered after we die and leave this world.

In today’s Gospel Jesus raises the question of what it is that constitutes a life important enough to be remembered.  In response to messengers sent by John the Baptist to find out whether or not he is God’s promised Messiah – the one whose life was expected to make the biggest difference in the world – Jesus replies:  “…the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

Then and only after John’s disciples are out of earshot – I suppose to keep them from becoming too self-satisfied – Jesus makes a rather astonishing announcement about John:  “Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist…”.

That’s quite a claim to make about someone who never wrote a book, who never became head of state, who never won a military victory, who never made a scientific discovery, who never made a medical breakthrough – someone who never even go married and raised children who might leave an important mark on the world!  In fact, John was a convicted criminal, serving a prison sentence for doing the very thing that made him great in the eyes of Jesus!

John the Baptist was in prison for calling the people of God to repent of “the selfish and hateful tendencies that rule the major part of our lives”, as Kris Kringle puts it in the 1994 re-make of the film, “Miracle on 34^th Street”.  John was in prison for telling people to follow Jesus Christ out of this world and into the new world of love and service known as the kingdom – the community, the communion – of God!  John was behind bars for holding those in positions of authority accountable to God for the social injustice of poverty, prejudice and disease rooted in the idolatry of human greed.  As Disciples of Jesus Christ, you and I are also called to repent – to hold ourselves, each other, our society, and our public leaders accountable to God’s vision of peace, justice and morality.

That is the measure of any personal greatness we hope to achieve.  In the eyes of God, our personal greatness will not be measured by how much recognition we receive, or how patriotic we are.  In the eyes of god, our personal greatness will be measured by our commitment to the health and well being of our neighbors – around the corner and around the world!  The best legacy we can leave behind is our faithfulness to Jesus Chris; and the most important thing we can do with our lives is calling others to follow him, too.  That will make all the difference the world needs!