Finding Faith ... in the quirky, the crazy, the wild ones who shine Christ's light

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Dec. 8, 2020. This was the 32nd digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.

My first newspaper editor, Brad Swenson.

My first newspaper boss was what I would affectionately call a character.

No slave to fashion, he would report to work in a shirt and tie that was 20 years old at best, and it might have even been older. ... And it might have even contained food particles on it.

He wore huge, wire rim, glasses with lenses -- really, really thick lens -- that sometimes gave his face the appearance of a bug.

His blondish-brownish hair, that was turning gray, was always unkempt. ... Tussled everywhere, especially in the winter when he would come bustling in. He would take off a hat, and the hair would just be in a chaotic state. ... His beard was, at best, what I would call ... untamed.

He lived alone with an 18-year-old cat that was his best friend, and he collected science fiction books and movies and figurines, especially his beloved Star Trek in world-record numbers. He had a house that literally was stacked floor to ceiling in such science fiction memorabilia.

And heaven protect the young reporter who might choose the incorrect spelling of the word "their" in their story. In fact, if you can imagine in your mind the most quintessential, curmudgeonly, argumentative, know-it-all Hollywood movie-esque newspaper editor ... that was my first boss!

But there was another side to that first boss that very few ever got to know; maybe very few ever got to know him. ... Because, after all, he did his very best to distance himself from everyone. However, underneath all of that gruff exterior, and past all of that nerdy strangeness, and beyond the out-of-date fashion ... he as smart, as kind, as gentle of a man that I have ever met.

And unannounced to most in the community of Bemidji, he gave away thousands of dollars every year because he lived so modestly by himself. He had money to give to all his favorite charities, and among them were the Boy Scouts and Rotary and dozens more. But frankly, baseball was his favorite cause, even though as a kid he was never able to play. He loved it, and so he sponsored an entire youth baseball team, every year by himself.

And never once did he brag about any of this.

He was also a student of history, and knew the political landscapes in Minnesota for the past two generations, inside and out. I dare say that there's few people that knew Minnesota politics from the 1960s to about 2000 better than him. He would sit in his office and expound upon legislators that were new blips on the radar to anyone else, but he knew them by heart. And he used all of that knowledge to advocate on behalf of those without voices, those who lived on the margins those, whom society had forgotten, in the newspaper's opinion pages every day.

And finally, if you demonstrated your commitment for learning and a humbleness in your calling as a newspaper person, there wasn't anything he wouldn't do to help you further your career.

Now, make no mistake, he was as irascible of a character as I will ever meet, but there was a light inside of him, a light that shone in the darkness. ... In the quiet, in an under-reported way in which he never took the limelight. And I still love him for that.

That is why I think that I love tonight's gospel too. ... I mean, after all, here during this beautiful Advent season, as our altar shows. ... Among all of these beautiful gospel passages in the next weeks that will read about the Virgin Mary, and angels appearing to shepherds, and baby Jesus being born in a manger -- right in the middle of all of those beautiful passages -- we have John's gospel tonight plopped down to point to the to our coming messiah. ... This wild, esoteric prophet hiding way, out in the wilderness beyond the river Jordan in Bethany, and preaching to all who would come about the one who was greater than him. ... The one who would come after. ... The one who couldn't baptize with just water.

In the middle of all these beautiful Advent stories, we get a text about this firebrand creature, dressed in his camel hair and eating locusts. He was born into the world to prophesy about the coming of our Lord, and what I love even more is that the religious scholars of the day, the Pharisees, as we read in our gospel tonight, didn't have a clue what to make of him.

They continue to ask him in tonight's gospel, "Who are you? And what are you?" ... And he confounds them with each turn of his answer saying, "No, I am not the Christ, and no I am not Elijah, and no I'm not the prophet," continuously deflecting and pointing to our coming Christ.

Here is this wild man prophet proclaiming truth about our savior's coming, shining light into the darkness, telling us and proclaiming the Advent, the coming of our Christ. ... And the most learned religious men of the time just couldn't figure him out. But the people did! ... The people came from everywhere we're told in last week's gospel, if you remember that the people came from all over the Judean countryside. And they came from all of Jerusalem, because they could see in him, in John, what the religious scholars couldn't. ... They could see his witness to the coming of Christ, his testimony.

In tonight's gospel we hear all about witness, and it reminds us that John -- even though he came before Christ-- points to our Christ. ... And John -- just like in my former, crazy newspaper boss -- reminds me that a witness to Christ, to our savior, can come from even the most unlikely of places this Advent season.

I encourage you to search your memory and think about all of those characters that you've known and grown up around, and the quirky figures, and maybe you see a "John the Baptist" in your life, or your family, or in the community here in Wolverton. And I bet that in some of those quirky, in some of those strange folks, you can identify a light too.

From John the Baptist, as we read tonight, and from my former newspaper boss ... from the person on a street corner asking for change ... or maybe the shut-in neighbor down the street whom it seems the community has forgotten ... or maybe from the odd and ordinary co-worker who no one wants to befriend ... what tonight's gospel reminds us is the witness to Christ can come from the most unlikely of people, if only we are willing to open our hearts ... and open our minds ... and listen ... and that is the Good News for this Tuesday, Dec. 8, and Sunday, Dec. 13, the third Sunday in Advent. ... Amen.