Baruch 5:1-9; Canticle 16; Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Clarence was a sweet fella. Not much of a self-starter but easy going and likeable. He was waiting for his chance. All he wanted was an opportunity to earn his wings. Clarence Odbody, Guardian Angel, Second Class is how we are introduced to George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life—one of my favorite movies.
Though not a Hallmark movie, It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the quintessential Christmas movie. The movie traces the life of George Bailey, a businessman, who sacrifices college, travel, and his dreams of becoming an architect to run his father’s building and loan company after he has had a stroke. George is pitted against the evil scrooge, Mr. Potter, who schemes to take over the town. On Christmas Eve, George’s Uncle Billy, loses an $8000.00 deposit. When the bank examiner discovers the shortage, George realizes that he will be held accountable, sent to jail, and the company will collapse allowing Mr. Potter to realize his dark desire and take over the town.
George contemplates suicide believing that his family and the town he has dedicated his life to will be better off without him. But as those who know and love him learn of his predicament, they send up fervent prayers for George’s safety and reassurance. Enter Clarence.
Clarence Odbody is a guardian angel sent to help George navigate his sufferings with the promise that he may well earn his wings. Clarence’s strategy is to show George how the town, his friends, and his family would have turned out if George had never been born. The strategy is not simply about identity, it is about worth. Where George thought he was the hero of his own story, he discovers that throughout his life, it is those who have come together in community who have truly transformed the town. George has had a significant role in helping to shape that community. Bedford Falls has benefited from the life of George Bailey, and George Bailey has benefited from the life of Bedford Falls.
No matter what challenge or need George has faced in his life, he has done so with courage and selflessness, always expressing an altruism that believed in the better nature of humanity. That charity of spirit cost George personally as he kept putting his dreams and his family on hold to attend to his responsibilities. When his brother falls through the ice, George saves him though it will cost him his hearing in one ear. When his boss makes a mistake, George corrects it even though he initially gets in trouble for it. When there is a run on the building and loan, George
uses his honeymoon money to loan to his customers to retain their trust. Now, even though Uncle Billy lost the money, George is the one who will go to prison and thus contemplates suicide in order to save his family—to save the town.
George Bailey has spent his life saving others at the expense of his own desires and wants. He is the quintessential hero—an everyman who puts others before himself. In many ways, I think that is who we are waiting for in Jesus.
Jesus puts our needs before his own. He is born poor and lowly in a manger. He spends his life wandering around the Judean countryside professing a life of selflessness. He has been the focus of prophets and the hope of dreamers. As his ministry matures and he is to be made known to the Israelites, it is John the Baptist who proclaims his existence and exhorts the people to repent that they may make a way for the Lord to reveal himself.
Prepare the way of the Lord…
I wonder who we are preparing the way for. Do our ideas of the Lord look more like a Marvel superhero who comes to save the day or a meek and mild, self-effacing man like George Bailey? If it is the superhero type, then we really don’t hold that much responsibility in our destiny. We get to release ourselves from the burden of care for ourselves, others, even the world—why worry, surely someone will show up to save the day. But if the real saviors are the George Baileys of the world, then we might need to reconsider the role we play when it comes to the salvific purposes of God.
John the Baptist doesn’t suggest we eschew our responsibilities when it comes to the messiah; he professes a baptism of repentance—telling us that we must do something to prepare the way of the Lord. We must repent in order to receive forgiveness for our sins and in so doing, we smooth out the rough ways that attempt to hinder God’s activity in this world.
George Bailey may be on the front lines of crisis, but it is Clarence, his wife and family, and his friends who partner with God and one another in bringing about George’s own salvation in the end. When George finds himself in trouble and on the verge of going to prison because Uncle Billy has lost the money, Mary, George’s wife, tells her children to pray and then she goes and gets Uncle Billy and does the work needed to help save George. Others begin to intervene as well—noticing George’s uncharacteristic bad mood, they try to help him. Though the townspeople don’t realize it, their concern for George coupled with their prayers have offered a partnership with God and one another that will bring salvation in the end.
The angels in heaven hear the people’s intercessions for George and send Clarence, a second class angel. Clarence reminds George of all the good that he has done in the world. He doesn’t save George because he is the hero, he saves him through remembering…re-membering. The townspeople re-member as well. They contribute all that they have in support of George and raising the money to cover his debt. They have filled the valley and made low the mountain, straightening a crooked path that George had been forced to walk. In this moment, when George returns home and all the townspeople and those who love him show up for him, we get to bear witness not to a hero who saves the day but to a community who has made a way for God to do his work of salvation. This is what it means to partner with God and one another.
On this second Sunday of Advent, John the Baptist calls us to prepare our hearts and lives that we may receive the Lord. Prepare the way…
It isn’t about stopping the evil supervillain and making him pay for his crimes. Salvation is about how we come together and allow God’s presence to be made known in the world. No one can do the work that John the Baptist calls us too, alone. Yet, each of us has a role to play in making sure we are being the best version of ourselves that God call us to be and in that we strengthen our community and allow our life to be a support and concern for others. We do the work of preparation for God not so that we are saved as an individual, but so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
Prepare ye the way…
Advent is not a time to wait for a hero. It is a time to remember that we are part of one another and to live in such a way as to put our own concerns aside for the concerns of God and for our community. Stewardship is much the same. Today we gather for Celebration Sunday—a time to remember that all that we have is given to us from God and that through our pledges and giving, we partner with God and one another to do God’s salvific work in the world, just as the townspeople and Clarence, and George have done in Bedford Falls. The pledges that we will consecrate in a few minutes represent our work of preparation for God. They represent how we help to make the crooked paths straight and level the mountains and hills so that they will be fields. Through these pledges we do the work of mission and ministry that God calls us to—we prepare the way of the Lord, not unlike George Bailey or the town of Bedford Falls, who lived a life of self-sacrifice for his community and when one was in need of salvation, the other was there for him. That is what true stewardship is—sacrificial giving that leads to a transformed lives…to a transformed world.
We do that through first fruits, proportional giving that hurts only enough to make us feel good. We might have to put our plans on hold just as George Bailey did, but when we remember our blessings—when we know that they are the way we are preparing for the Lord—then we too get to proclaim, “It’s a wonderful life.”
Amen