Sermon Advent 2A DECEMBER 4, 2022

So now that we've all become slime mold, it’s time to take the next step. We have no mother cell, right? There is no central nervous system that is directing our every move. Instead, we come to this realization that together, as a community of people gathered we have a different being, a different purpose, a different function than as individuals apart. This is not to say that being apart and being individuals is less important or more dangerous. All I am saying is that apart we function one way, and together we function another.

We talked a little bit on Wednesday at our Advent Forum about understanding how we relate with the Church, or how we define ourselves in relationship with worship. Often when describing our experiences, or describing what church is, we describe it as something that we did. We celebrated Eucharist. We worshiped God. We sang songs and hymns of joy. It is not very often that we describe our experience of Church as a place where something happened to us. Where we saw God at work in our lives and something in our heart and soul was moved.

Our Church communities have been so stoic for generations. I remember being taught in seminary that worship is emotionless. Worship is not something that should have the stain of feelings applied to it. My class fought back hard on that idea at first, but many of us succumbed to that understanding and have carried forward this idea and taught it in our churches and created worship not as an emotional, passionate experience, but as an emotionless, passionless opportunity where we simply do things and hope people will be changed.

Every now and again, particularly in the Episcopal Church, a moment of emotion, or feeling will burst through and take us all by surprise, but then we pat it back down and return to the familiarity of what we know. And what we know is what we do, not what we have experienced, not what God has done to us.

Today in the Gospel many people approach John as he is baptizing in the wilderness. Folks are curious to see what is happening, because it is a different experience. It is a different thing. Who is the blunt, and dirty man slinging insults among the desert as he baptizes people left and right? This is the moment where my hair-brained idea returns, and this is the moment where I want us all to add to our understanding that we are slime mold the additional thought that we are also ants.

Ants, termites, bees, wasps all have a certain way to communicate to one another when they find food and when they discover a threat. That way of communicating is called pheromone trails. When an ant discovers quality food, it lays down a trail of pheromones to where the food is. This odor trail leaves information as to where it is, how good the food is and how much is available for the colony to grab. The trail is built upon and made stronger as more and more ants do the same thing. As the food becomes more and more scarce, the pheromone trail becomes less and less potent. 

In the same way, when an ant colony experiences a threat to the community they excrete a different pheromone that tells their fellow ants danger is near. It causes a whole different reaction from the ants and they all gather to confront whatever the threat might be. These pheromone trails dictate a number of actions the colony takes to protect itself and survive with an intelligence that goes far beyond what one single ant can accomplish.

Today’s Gospel is interesting in this way, right? John appears in the wilderness and people start hearing this new message, this message that is different and sustaining in a way they had not ever imagined. Slowly more people attend John's baptisms and experience repentance. Gradually as more and more people start coming, the Pharisees and the Sadducees start attending, religious leaders in the surrounding community start coming to hear the message.

John, of course, doesn't like this, for some odd reason, I mean, they are presenting themselves to John not necessarily in an act of confrontation, but rather in an act of curiosity. Who is this and what is he saying, and what is going on. But this sustaining source turns out to be a threat, and we see the Romans and the other religious leaders react in such a way that of course John is killed along down the line. But it's interesting, isn't it? People come, and more and more people come to hear and listen because they are fed. And as more and more people come and are fed, more and more people are sent out to prepare the way for this person that is coming with a Baptism of fire.

Think about the shape and form Christianity has taken over the centuries of its existence. Pheromone trails are set down, people respond to those trials and are fed or are threatened. Something is bolstered or it is torn apart. Human experience, with our existing intelligence reacts a bit differently than the ants, and often we react in a simple either/or response. Rarely do we respond in a both/and kind of way.

And I think that is because often the source of the spirituality or religion we are hoping to be fed by responds similarly to John, calling those who look different or ask certain questions or think in some way a “Brood of Vipers”, why do you come here? Why do you seek this out, this isn’t for you! I always have wondered what would have happened if John had responded differently. What if John had responded with kindness and taught instead of with this slanderous punch and a revocation of the people that were coming to see him.

Our response to the energy we feel, to the spirit we experience is so important. God is vast and full of love, but we often like our love with a side of viciousness, with an edge that tests those we aren't sure about. Most of the time our understanding of love comes with conditions and rules in order for it to be dealt out, just as John’s baptism seemed to have the same rules. But this regulated love is not what we are called to, and most of the time is not what we ourselves have experienced.

People follow trails that are safe and exciting. People respond to love differently than threats. As we go back and forth from this place, what sort of trail are you leaving, what does your trail say to the people around you? And when folks follow your trail, and they inevitably will, how will we as a community respond to their arrival, to their questions and their desire to be a part of something where they can experience the Holy moving their heart and soul in such a way that they may be transformed and made new?