Funny Names and Places (Second Sunday in Advent)

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Not infrequently over the years, lectors have come to me before the service starts and asked me if there are any big or funny words in the readings they’re about to read.  Or, they ask how to pronounce a strange or funny name of a person or a place.  And so today is one of the days lectors get revenge, because I had to read all the funny and strange names of people and places!

And indeed, many of these places and people are folks and locations that we’ve never heard of, and never will hear about again!  In fact, that was also true for the first people to whom Luke wrote.  As far as we can tell, Luke wrote for a primarily Gentile audience outside of the areas we think of today as Israel and Lebanon.  They would have had no idea when Annas or Caiaphas were the high priests, or even have heard of them before reading the Gospel.  But most of them also probably hadn’t heard of Lysanias.  Even today, biblical historians can’t figure out who he was.  And like us, most of Luke’s first readers probably couldn’t find Trachonitis on a map if their lives depended on it!

So why did Luke include the names of all these people most folks had never heard of?  And why did he mention places nobody knew about?

One of the reasons was surely to mark the date of the beginning of the story of Jesus, beginning with John the Baptist.  And so he begins by saying that John appeared in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius.  But if it was just the date, that was all he needed to say.  Everyone knew who the Roman Emperors were.  And years were marked by the year of their various reigns.  So even today, this is all we need to know about when Luke says this took place – the fifteenth year of Tiberius’ reign was 28-29 AD on our calendar. 

So clearly, the date is important to Luke, but not just for the number of the year.  It seems that there’s more to it than that.  Indeed, by mentioning all these out of the way places and all these rather snooze-worthy people, Luke is making a point.  And Luke’s point here seems to be that God is at work:

• At particular times in real history that might not seem all that important to anybody else.  I mean, what else happened in 28 AD?  What did Lysanias do in that year?  Did Caiaphas make a big change in the Temple liturgy?  Nobody remembers.  But in that otherwise unremarkable year, God was doing a new and history changing thing, even if nobody thought anything big was happening at that moment…

• In places nobody has heard of, and maybe nobody thought were important.  John the Baptist appears in the wilderness – by definition an out of the way place.  Iturea and Trachonitis are ill-defined places that even today we’re not exactly sure where the borders were.  And if Abilene isn’t in Kansas, I have no idea where it is!  But it’s possible that a few of the early Christians Luke knew came from some of those places.  And this may be Luke’s way of reminding people that the places they came from, and the places they lived, were places God was interested in even if nobody had heard of them.  And they were places where Jesus intended the good news to be heard, even if nobody thought about it at the time…

• With people nobody has heard of – indeed, in very particular places, some of these people were important (if you lived in Abilene, what Lysanias said or did mattered, but to almost nobody else!).  Some of these people, like Pontius Pilate and Herod, later oppose Jesus.  John the Baptist is the forerunner of Jesus.  But others like Philip never appear in the Gospels, except as a reference point.  And yet, Luke is making the point that God has made all of these people part of God’s story, even if they resist what God is doing.  They’re all part of the people to whom God sends Jesus.  And they’re part of the story, whether they realize it or not…

And so I think there’s a point in all these names and places for us, beyond simply giving us difficult names to pronounce!  Luke’s point – for us as well as for folks long ago – is that God:

• Is doing a new thing right now, even if it seems like things are stuck socially and politically, and even when things are looking bad in our personal lives.  In fact, part of Luke’s message seems to be that we often see or hear God at work precisely in the wilderness moments of our lives.  It was true then, and it’s true now, that God is still at work in each moment of our lives.  Luke’s point is that the moment you live in now is a moment God is acting, even if it may not be apparent to others, or even to you…

• Is at work in the real places that you live in each day – that is, in our own small neighborhoods and schools and workplaces, and not just in the places of power down in DC.  The good news of Jesus is about reaching the places we live, and the places where our neighbors live, even and especially when we don’t feel like we’re in the center of what’s going on in the world.  Jesus is interested in the places you live and move around in, just as Jesus was interested in places like Trachonitis…

• Has included you in the story of Jesus – the story of Jesus isn’t just a story of long ago with people who are now famous in the Bible.  The story of Jesus is about the Holy Spirt working faith in each of our lives, and empowering each of us to be instruments of God’s grace in the lives of others.  In baptism, Jesus has included each of us in his story, and so Luke’s point here is that you and I are also part of the story, even if to others, we sound like another “Lysanias”…!

And so maybe on this second Sunday in Advent, our Gospel reading isn’t so much about waiting for Jesus as it is about recognizing that God is at work in our lives right now, in this year and this moment.  It’s about looking around, and keeping our eyes and hearts and minds open to experiencing God at work in the places we live and move in each day.  And it’s about hearing again the promise that God has included you and me in the story of Jesus, and made us into messengers of that story in the lives of our neighbors.

Amen.